Re: Analog Hole Bill Would Require Secret Tech No One Can Examine

Joerg wrote:

> Hello John,
>
>
>>>That would last a week or so. By then some kid would have found out how
>>>to hack it anyway.
>>
>> That's an unfortunate assumption. I hear it a lot, and I'd like to hear
>> it a lot less, because it isn't even valid.
>>
>
> That's what Bill Gates' engineers always thought as well.
>
>
>> Nobody has managed to crack VideoCipher encryption on C-band satellite
>> TV, despite the fact that it's been around since, when, the 1980s?
>>

You must have forgot about the "captain midnight" episode. The perpetrator
even overrode the uplink. Boxes were available in the 1990's but have
disappeared since.

>
> Ahem. A friend of ours was inquiring about the cost of sat TV south of
> the border. He was told that he'd just have to buy these things here and
> from then it's free. Sometimes it may quit. Then he should just come
> back and it'll be fixed for free, they said. That was a shop that's been
> around a while, not from the back of a truck.
>
>
>> Nobody managed to crack the triple-DES protection on Divx DVDs.
>>

No silicon is available that will do triple-DES at video rates. Therefore
triple-DES is used for key management. That key and the encryption
algorithm MUST be cheap enough for inclusion in consumer equipment (no more
than $1 in volume). Please checkout Linux Xvid algorithms which are
purportedly compatible.

>> No private entity has managed to crack PCS or GSM encryption... or if
>> they have, they've kept it damned quiet.

There is no encryption there to crack.

>>
>> When they start to get serious about HDMI content protection, I wouldn't
>> be surprised if nobody ever cracks that, either, except by using gray-
>> market chipsets whose keys will probably be revoked at the first sign of
>> popularity.
>>

You misunderstand the always fatal flaw in mass marketed encryption. It
must always be cheap enough to sell, therefore it will never be strong
enough to actually protect.

>
> In the end it's all a question of market size for bootleg stuff. If
> large enough, someone may eventually hack.
>
>
>> It is not a good idea to rely on the generosity of hackers to fight
>> unfair and unconstitutional laws for you. Only stupidly-weak or broken
>> encryption (e.g., CSS on DVDs or or WEP on WiFi) can be cracked by, or
>> on behalf of, consumers. The industry is rapidly evolving resistance to
>> that kind of stupidity. We won't see another CSS-quality implementation
>> on HD-DVD or BluRay... you can bet on that. If they want to control how
>> you use it, they will.
>>

Actually we already have.

>
> I don't use any bootleg stuff. For moral reasons and also because
> today's entertainment is mostly rather disgusting in nature. We do not
> even own a DVD player. But I resent it when stuff prevents me from
> normal and legal use of equipment. Or when some gvt slaps an automatic
> guilt assumption penalty on regular gear, like the copyright tax that
> Germany wants to leverage on all new PCs. That's wrong. I hope the
> voters there will be smart next time.
>

Mostly agreed, it is one of the reasons i use Linux.

> Regards, Joerg
>
> http://www.analogconsultants.com
reply interstitial
--
JosephKK

.

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