Aye, Cap'n, we'll crack that DVD!

Sep 11, 2007 09:13 GMT  ·  By

Have you noticed how security experts and companies strive to enforce the DRM, but with no notable success? They brag about new DRM modules and their strengths and the next day, a pirate hacks it and steals movies, mp3 and anything he likes, as if these weren't even protected.

A lot of money has been spent on measures that would do nothing else but prevent normal users from ripping off various artists. The thing is that pirates and experienced hackers will have no trouble in stealing copyrighted stuff from the web or copying a DVD and stuff like that. I remember that, back in 2001, it was a lot easier to get a counterfeit copy of XP than get a real one (in my country) - shops didn't sell too many, but the web was full of them. And the same goes for albums and movies, and you can't possibly stop piracy, because people want it to 'live on'. Some people have seen the "300" movie, in their homes, weeks before it was played in theaters.

In any case, as you may know, CSS and AACS are not helping too much as they can quickly get compromised. DRM should also be somehow enforced via hardware, also, better encryption should be deployed. However, with this method, there's hope, as I've recently heard that some Norwegians have developed a program that encrypts movies second by second using a random algorithm for each one. This will not make piracy impossible, but it will make it a lot harder, that's for sure.

Another good thing would be to have a sort of online authentication method, so that when you copy a movie or an mp3 on your computer it will be checked and validated to see if it's genuine or not. I guess that would be great - but how do you convince users to get that stuff, when a lot of people don't even have an original copy of Windows? It would work if it were somehow implemented in the hardware and non-removable... but there's still a long way to go before such security measures will be implemented. You can read more thoughts on this topic here.