The real reason it took so long to crack BD+
By Ben Drawbaugh 
posted Mar 30th 2008 8:57AM
posted Mar 30th 2008 8:57AM
When SlySoft announced last week that it'd finally unlocked BD+ content, it got a lot of news coverage -- even some in the mainstream media. But what didn't get discussed was the fact that SlySoft didn't get it done by the end of 2007, as previously promised. Well Ars took the story one step closer and among other things uncovered the real reason -- no it wasn't because it was so 'hard' -- it took so long. Peer van Heuen, SlySoft head of HD technologies said in a post that "it was decided for strategic reasons to wait a bit for the outcome of the 'format war' between HD DVD and Blu-ray." We bet Macrovision wished it'd waited a bit longer before dropping $45 Million purchase on another piece of useless DRM.
It must be a sad condition that people out there invest money into a company that pays for a handful of people to develop DRM that is so easily broken by a handful of uncompensated individuals.
Although I agree with you, I must remind you that "AnyDVD" is not free. So, the last part of your statement is a bit inaccurate.
@ Mr Stevo
You have to be a special kind of silly to pay for anything that's out on the net.
Even if it's not available free somewhere straight away it will be given a little patience.
Up the sharers!
The people who are cracking this are paid, whether you pay slysoft or not. As alluded to in threads on the slysoft forums, slysoft pays another group to do the cracking. Then slysoft sells the software on the open market.
So even if you (personally) don't pay slysoft, the people who are breaking the DRM are compensated. If a large number of people don't pay (either because they are pirating the software or just not buying it at all), then SlySoft won't have enough money to pay the crackers, and there likely won't be any more updates.
LMAO
Well this just finishes off the idea that Blu-ray is going to amount to anything much in the a/v market.
But cheers for the freebie 500+ high def movies guys!
Truth Teller,
Plenty of people continued to buy DVD's after that copy protection got broke. What makes you think it's going to be any different this time around?
Well the obvious answer is that "plenty of people" are not buying into Blu-ray right now.
They haven't got anything like that far yet despite trying to puff themselves up with their selective stats & ridiculous claims.
The movie studios supposedly went for Blu-ray because of it's extra 'protection'.
LMAO
Currently (after this BD+ crack) there are now over 500 Blu-ray titles available for free download.
Given the expense & problems associated with the entire BD effort I can easily see the industry going very cool over Blu-ray now
(and that's besides the actual real general public remaining completely & utterly uninterested in it at the prices they are looking for).
http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/8002/hd-DVD_outsells_blu-ray.html
It won't be any worse than people downloading DVDs. Last I heard from TT, DVDs are still big business and rake in lots of cash.
I call bullshit on Slysofts "explanation". Why the hell would they care about the outcome of the format war to release this.
I also call bullshit on anything Truth Teller says or predicts.
Well, I think that they were just being lazy and hoping that HD-DVD would've won because they already had decrypted their stuff.
They have been anti-blu-ray from the beginning. They wanted HD DVD to win because it was more consumer friendly (easier to crack) and told all of their customers to get HD DVD.
@ Gas.
LMAO. You pathetic & weak jubes only cause me to laugh out loud, ta for the (very) mild amusement.
@ Mr Stevo
Actually AACS is/was common to both Blu-ray & HD DVD
(and yes that was cracked fundamentally some time ago).
Blu-ray also has a couple of extras all of it's own, including hardware based watermarking as well as BD+.
Slysoft (rightly) couldn't abide BD+ cos they recognise it for the clunky huge problem-in-waiting that it is.
Naturally (so as not to frighten off initial customers) the Blu-ray gang have been avoiding using BD+ much to begin with but now Blu-ray is alone that is undoubtedly going to change.
I expect the numerous revised versions of BD+ to begin to appear & with them the host of Blu-ray problems they will undoubtedly spawn.
We're into a game of crack and counter-patch now.
But meantime the sharers will be ripping Blu-ray movies everytime a crack comes along.
Like I said, thanks for the 500+ freeebie high def movies, PS3 fanboy chumps!
Truth Teller, slysoft makes their money cracking DRM. Saying they can't abide by a new format with DRM is ridiculous.
@ why not the LS2/LS7?
No, it's not ridiculous.
They are perfectly entitled to hold a view over which format was the more consumer friendly & unfriendly.
The game of move and counter-move we are about to see is bound to leave people with serious problems (even those who have had nothing to do with Slysolf or cracks).
Fundamentally the whole 'security' mentality is just out-dated, absurd, wholly counter-productive and so utterly rooted in a crazed greed which has become the entire justification in itself.
But if you're one of the saps that want all of that then go ahead, enjoy, no-one will stop you needlessly pi$$ing your cash away
(least of all the corporations some of you are so f*cked up as to claim to 'love').
There are more than enough of the rest of us giving it the finger and carrying on finding er, 'alternative' methods' around all that BS.
.......cos the truth is that 'we' have already paid more than enough as it is.
@Truth Teller: I don't get the "PS3 fanboy chumps!" comment considering BD-R/W 25/50GB 1:1 copies can be played on the PS3 once ripped, as well as HD DiVX/H.234/XViD/WMV/etc. So yeah, I don't really feel ripped off owning a Sony console that can play games as well as view various forms of media (which will continue to grow... I will willingly give my soul to Sony if they were to ever natively support FLAC and/or MKV... there is nothing that would legally prevent them from doing so as both can be licensed).
Truth Teller:
Do you have any arguments that are relevant?
You act as if you're arguing about whether DRM is a good thing or not. I don't see anyone on here defending DRM.
Slysoft makes their money selling DRM defeat mechanisms. I'm not going to say that means they welcome new DRMs, but it sure doesn't hurt them. Also their willingness to attack DRM on DVD, HD-DVD and PC (gamejackal) makes it absurd to say they somehow cannot brook the industry adopting new DRM.
Anyway, we're getting far afield. The point is they have shown themselves willing to take money from BluRay customers while simultaneously trying to undercut those customers' investments by telling people to try to defeat BluRay in the marketplace and now withholding releases that would benefit those paying customers.
It's one thing to have principles, to say we're all going to boycott BluRay and defeat it together. It's another to take money from BluRay users while simultaneously chiding them and working against them.
Yeah 'why not the LS2/LS7?', imagine anyone bringing up what a 'security/DRM' sh!thouse Blu-ray is in a thread about Slysoft & BD+.
You guys. Very funny.
Yup, you can count on Truth Teller to come out with some childish spin on any piece of news.
Mr Stevo,
that doesn't make any sense. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if Blu-Ray was cracked earlier on, that would have helped HD DVD and the studios would have had less incentive to go the Blu-Ray route. So waiting hurt HD DVD and helped Blu-Ray.
personally, i think their product is only meant to disguise piracy. BD have layers that protect from scratches. so, arguments that they are needed because families need to backup discs that may get damaged are BS.
DRM is there for a reason, because people are just going to load the movies onto P2P networks and steal it.
BD+ isn't truly cracked yet, as you can read on the same thread as this news. BD+ is very flexibility. For example, you can have every 60th frame in a movie be bad and BD+ will then suppress those frames. Watch it or rip it without taking BD+ into account and you see junk in there.
So Slysoft has worked around what companies are using BD+ for right now. But BD+ is very flexible. AnyDVD HD will require a lot of updates to keep up with what the studios do with BD+ on new discs. Eventually I figure, they will actually crack BD+, so that new discs can be expected to work without further patches.
As to the 4 month delay, I recall saying before that I was disgusted that Slysoft was taking my money and using it to push HD DVD. And I was mocked.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/07/slysofts-latest-anydvd-beta-cracks-bd/comments/8569657/
And now I find (actually I found out over a week ago) they were also holding back on BluRay owners.
I am disgusted that Slysoft would do this with my money that I gave them in good faith.
Did they charge you extra for the ability to strip BD+ ? If you already had bought the HD option, no. So what are you complaining about ?
Crackers of that level must not come cheap, otherwise BD+ and AACS 4th gen keys would have been cracked on Doom9 long ago.
The ones making out like bandits are Fox, who saw that one coming, and sold it to Macrovision for a hefty amount. They can both rot in hell as far as I'm concerned, but this shows how easily taken even a corporation like Macrovision can be. A well orchestrated smear campaign in the media works wonders on the public and the CEOs, and this might explain why they came out and said it would take at least 10 years to break BD+, among other things...
i actually got to try the new BD cracking software of theirs and it does not work like they claim it does. you can not make a clean copy and play it on a blu-ray player, at least not the PS3. yes I used a BD burner. you can rip the files to your computer but you can't convert them to anything. so its useless. So really its not fully cracked, its only ripable but not playable.
Actually, I have proof it works.
I know a guy who ripped a BD to a .iso using AnyDVD HD, burned it to a BD-RE and played it on his PS3. I have no idea how this is possible, since the disc wouldn't have AACS and the PS3 shouldn't play non-AACS discs. But I trust the source implicitly, so I can assure you it is true.
In addition, I know another guy who ripped a BD into files with AnyDVD HD, then streamed the .m2ts file of the movie back to the PS3 over UPnP to his big screen TV! Also, if you have enough CPU, you can play the .m2ts files in VLC directly on your PC.
I can also tell you that for some reason, Slysoft's Virtual CloneDrive can't mount and publish a .iso of a BD. Odd.
Okay, enough of "ripping BluRays" for today.
Yeah I would have to disagree as well. I personally ripped the Simpsons Movie BD, burned it onto a 50GB BD-RW and it played fine on my PS3. Also the PS3 is setup to play home-made BD movies (my Sony laptop came with a BD burner and tools to convert home video into an BDMV disc, and I'm sure in the future we will have BD camcorders just like we have DVD ones now, and of course Sony would want those to be played on their PS3).
Also I converted the main video and audio into an H.234/AC3 720p file that plays back just fine.
Patience my son, patience..Slysoft is the real deal period..Once Blank Blu & HD DVD media become more mainstream (lower cost) you'll be able to apply a little trail & error to make it work for you just like consumers of AnyDVD found out. Today ripping/burning/playing a standard DVD can be done by even a novice using Slysoft. And I suspect in time, higher def DVD's will be just as easy..Imagine downloading a free copy of your favorite movie in Hi-Def via Bit Torrent and burning it to the blank media of your choice and playing it on either a Blu or HD Player...Slysoft will be the catalyst to making this a possibility..
I think Slysoft may have gotten the crack working by partially emulating a BD player in the BD+ virtual machine. So when the BD+ code executes it thinks it is running against a legitimate machine. But BD+ can be modified so it is not as fragile as AACS or CSS. Slysoft will be locked into a war of continuously making new versions to circumvent new verification checks. There may even be long dry periods where no crack appears. They may even open themselves to lawsuits if they must end up ripping and running virtualized firmware to make BD+ function. This is a very strong possibility.
I think the industry recognizes that there is no way to prevent HD content from escaping. After all, every format is affected by the analogue hole and there are bound to be other cracks based on faulty drivers and so on. This isn't exclusive to BD and probably digital downloads are even more vulnerable.
I think the industry is more concerned that no class break appears that works on all disks past, present and future. BD+ at least ensures a window exists between a new release and when the crack appears that allows it to be ripped.
Slysoft operates in Antigua (West Indies). The "law" has no implication there.
No doubt there will be updates to AnyDVD HD. However, now that Slysoft has broken BD+, it is reasonable that they have an intimate knowledge of BD+ code. If BD+ is modified, it will not be as if they need to start over. They simply note the change from the baseline and compensate. The hard work is done. Additionally, if consumers are not able to play new Blu-Rays in their stand alone machines because of too much BD+ tweaking, there will be a PR nightmare. Blu-Ray is essentially defenseless. Slysoft FTW. Movie execs pwnd.
Althought I disagree that SlySoft has deliverd the coup de main to BD+ yet, I do agree completely that BD+ cannot withstand a long-term assault, for exactly the reasons you state.
When BD+ was implemented, it inconvenienced the current BD owners, as they had to update their players. Future BD+ protections are likely to cause compatibility problems too. As the number of BD users rises, this will become intolerable from a logistical standpoint, and then the ability of SlySoft to rapidly respond will overwhelm the ability of the studios to changes and BD+ will have shown itself to be useless for anything but adding cost to players and enriching Macrovision.
I can only hope that as the companies realize that ripping is the real threat, and not video capture, the image constraint token will be never implemented and HDCP (aka the $1 to Intel for every device made) will be dropped.
Copyright and patent law is enforced practically everywhere. Residing in Antigua might make it more tricky to prosecute Slysoft since the DCMA does not apply but this is the MPAA we're talking about here. They'll either lobby to get laws passed against DCMA infringing software sold in the US, or they'll put pressure on Antigua to shut the operation down.
The reason I explicitly mentioned firmware is because its an obvious trap within BD+. You can circumvent some BD+ programs but BD+ is renewable. Unlike CSS or AACS, there is no such thing as a class break. Today's programs might be simple and dumb future ones could inspect and execute calls on the firmware. For example it could be used checksum some range of bytes in the firmware or call some random function. Slysoft would *have* to hold a copy the firmware and possibly emulate the hardware to beat the crypto. This leaves them wide open to copyright infringement accusations.
Besides, I doubt Slysoft actually program in Antigua so there is the strong possibility that their physical offices would be raided wherever they happen to exist. If the MPAA did have grounds for raiding their offices (trumped up & false ones will do), you can bet your boots they'll do it.
I'm also really tired of this line that HD-DVD more consumer friendly because it was easier to crack than Blu-Ray.
For one, HD-DVD used the same type of DRM that Blu-Ray had, AACS. Secondly, HD-DVD was a way for Microsoft to push WinCE instead of Java onto consumer appliances. Finally, HD-DVD was designed basically to undermine Sony and their plans to embed the Blu-Ray format into the PS3. Ironic then M$ lost this because they didn't put enough stock in HD-DVD to put it into the Xbox 360... or were they scared that if they didn't get the Xbox 360 out earlier that they would be smoked severely by the PS3?
The FUD here is way too much for me to sit aside on this one.
Well, it seems I have a choice. Believe you and the facts you present, or believe the people who actually make a living breaking DRM for a living. Personally, I'm going to believe the individuals who break DRM for a living when they say that HD DVD was better for consumers because of the less restrictive DRM. Here's a link...
http://forum.slysoft.com/showthread.php?t=9453
So, while you do present some interesting facts in support of your views. I'm under the impression that they are not the whole story. Sorry, but I have the consider the source. I'm glad that BD won the format war for your sake. Believe me, I would rather have seen it go the other way. But hay, that's life. Enjoy the BD titles that will continue come out in the future.
@ Aaron
I agree with you 100%. I've found that Slysoft products work as advertised. Simply read through the threads in the forum over there and you'll see post after post of people thanking them for such wonderful products. HDCP GONE, Who needs to replace their parts to comply with that sh!t ! BD+...No worries...ACSS What's that? All I need are Slysofts wonderful magical program, and I can even skip the FBI warning at the beginning of the disc!
THANKYOU SLYSOFT!
This is total BS. You can go onto Slysoft's own forum or Doom9 and read the posts from Peer himself where he talks about trying to crack BD+ for the last 5 months. He kept mentioning over and over that it was just taking them longer than they anticipated because there was no documentation. He never said anything about sitting on the crack for the last 5 months and waiting for the end of the format war.
If Slysoft was such a big supporter of HDDVD why in the world would they wait until AFTER the format is dead before releasing a crack for BD+? If they released it when the war was still happening it could have actually had some effect. I don't know why they are spreading this nonsense to their customers now. Just say it took you a few months to crack it. Whats the big deal?
From their own forums.
http://forum.slysoft.com/showthread.php?p=96477#post96477
Peer van Heuen, head of High-Definition technologies at SlySoft adds: "Admittedly, we are not really so fast with this because actually we had intended to publish this release already in December as promised. However, it was decided for strategic reasons to wait a bit for the outcome of the "format war" between HD DVD and Blu-ray."
Why wait if you're a supporter of HD-DVD? Well, for the very reason it says in the forum post.
Giancarlo Bettini, SlySoft CEO, adds, "We are convinced that today's release will give the high-density market new impulse. It remains unclear just what direction this will take. On the one hand, it can give Blu-ray a boost because the end-user has the certainty in knowing now that a backup security copy can also be made from Blu-ray disks protected by BD+. On the other hand, one or more film studios may want to reconsider their withdrawal from HD DVD and Toshiba could also grant the high-density DVD a reprieve. HD DVD certainly deserves a second chance, particularly since HD DVD hardware has obtained a higher market share within the last months than its BD counterpart from SONY. In any event, I wish all those involved a happy Easter from the bottom of my heart."
Giancarlo seems to think (perhaps correctly) that this release will benefit BD's market share. He goes on to exhort Toshiba to bring HD-DVD back and then goes on to state incorrectly that HD-DVD has gained a larger market share than BD recently.
Giancarlo wanted HD-DVD to win. Not badly enough to not take my money (I am a BluRay supporter), but enough to try to spike BD by withholding something he thinks will benefit its adoption.
Errr thats just the same press release that this article is about. I'm talking about posts like these:
http://forum.slysoft.com/showpost.php?p=78484&postcount=9
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=dbff5112fe2365ef2cec24075b51bb86&p=1099973#post1099973
http://forum.slysoft.com/showpost.php?p=92621&postcount=20
http://forum.slysoft.com/showpost.php?p=94567&postcount=17
And I saved the best for last:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1102172#post1102172
"the work on BD+ actually only really started early January 2008."
So obviously he is lying somewhere.
Slysoft is lying and BD+ is not fully cracked yet. Check back when Macrovision updated BD+ and AnyDVD has no problem ripping the new titles from the start.
Exactly. SPDC is described here and its obvious that this protection is a lot more resilient to attack than people think.
http://securityevaluators.com/eval/spdc_aacs_2005.pdf
It wouldn't surprise me if early BD+ protection was just trivial or dummy placeholders and if we see the protection kick up a notch and possibly become unique and non-trivial for each disk, possibly even batches of disks.
Sadly you can always count on DrXym to come in & spout some ludicrously weak little dreary jibe.
Only in response to your immature comments. If you don't like it, start making some reasoned and intelligent comments and not your usual sour grapes and invective.
I purchased a BluRay ROM last week just so I could try this out.
Hope to install it in the next day or two.
I buy my DVDs to support moviemakers but won't put up with not being able to watch the movies on whatever player I choose (TV, PC, Archos, etc.).