Blu-ray, HD DVD DRM Reportedly Bypassed

Wow. That was quick.

After posters at the Doom9 Forums unveiled title keys for Blu-ray and HD DVD discs -- which was confirmed by AACS LA on Jan. 24 -- members have now claimed to find the processing keys for all HD DVD and Blu-ray discs.

Doom9 poster arnezami, who found the HD DVD processing key, explains that no real "hacking" was involved -- just recording the processes that happen when the software boots.

This gave me an idea: what I wanted to do is "record" all changes in this part of memory during startup of the movie. Hopefully I would catch something insteresting. In the end I did something a little more effiecient: I used the hd dvd vuk extractor (thanks ape!) and adapted it to slow down the software player (while scanning its memory continously) and at the very moment the Media Key (which I now knew: my bottom-up approach really paid off here) was detected it halted the player. I then made a memdump with WinHex. I now had the feeling I had something.

And I did. Not suprisingly the very first C-value was a hit. I then checked if everyting was correct, asked for confirmation and here we are.

The folks at Toshiba aren't saying anything yet about the reported bypassing.

In an email to CEPro.com, Andy Parsons, promotion chair for the Blu-ray Disc Association, says that they are checking into the claim.

After Steve Jobs's call for the end of DRM on music (and the RIAA's response), it's interesting to see that digital rights is still the story. That's a good thing for opponents of locked media.

It seems nearly inevitable that DRM will never last, considering the number of hackers who have the time and dedication to break the protection.

Stay tuned for updates as the day goes on.