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Trying to extract Widewine key: A journey to failure

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Re: Trying to extract Widewine key: A journey to failure

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that's not true. There is tons of copywritten work sold online without DRM. It's just a matter of getting the business model right. https://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000265... > every song from Amazon MP3 is DRM-free and encoded in high-quality 256-kbps MP3 format. This means that they will play on any MP3 player, so you don't need to worry about file format compatibility or licenses that e…

Very few stores choose not to enforce copyright. Those that do have smaller selections of works for sale because copyright holders refuse to sell their stuff there. The result is still a service that's inferior to copyright infringement.

> Those that do have smaller selections of works for sale...

Did you not see the name in the link? More to the point, can you point me to a major music store which does use DRM? I'm not aware of one. Perhaps you've been pirating music so long you missed the shift? It happened around 2009.

Here's an article from 2014 about the steps to remove DRM from your pre-2009 library. Tl;Dr, delete and redownload from Apple, no DRM! This is Apple's recommended approach.

https://www.wired.com/2014/03/kill-itunes-drm/

Re: Trying to extract Widewine key: A journey to failure

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very few stores choose not to enforce copyright. Those that do have smaller selections of works for sale because copyright holders refuse to sell their stuff there. The result is still a service that's inferior to copyright infringement.

> Those that do have smaller selections of works for sale... Did you not see the name in the link? More to the point, can you point me to a major music store which does use DRM? I'm not aware of one. Perhaps you've been pirating music so long you missed the shift? It happened around 2009. Here's an article from 2014 about the steps to remove DRM from your pre-2009 library. Tl;Dr, delete and redownload from Apple, no…

Yes, I did see your link. I guarantee you if I search certain songs in there, they won't even sell them to me because of where I live. No doubt all the pop stuff is there but I don't like that stuff.

In any case, I don't listen to music very often. When I want to listen to something, I just look up specific songs on YouTube. I never cared enough to "pirate" music but I can tell you that the quality of "pirated" music is orders of magnitude higher than whatever is sold by Amazon. The people in those communities go to truly incredible lengths to ensure they have the highest quality audio possible. Companies generally just want to push out a release for the lowest possible cost.

I care more about films, series, video games and software in general. You'll find that in those categories DRM is the rule.

Re: Trying to extract Widewine key: A journey to failure

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So then Netflix et al.'s requirement of Windows or macOS in order to play high definition video is purely artificial on x86? Last time I checked (a few months ago) they didn't even support Chrome (either Windows or Mac) for UHD, they required Safari, Edge or their own Windows app.

The UHD restriction is not a technical one. Content producers and the rest of the media industry has strict requirements about streaming. UHD content uses proprietary DRM systems from Microsoft and Apple that are considered more secure than WideVine, which is why those browsers are permitted to watch 4k. You can't watch UHD content on Edge for Linux, for example, because the necessary DRM isn't implemented.

So does this mean that the DRM is still at least partially implemented in software?

I also seem to remember that Netflix on Windows (don't know about mac) also requires hardware decoding support for HEVC1 (or whatever their codec is). I never got it to work with an intel GPU (8th gen udh630 — supposed to support it) but it worked with an AMD GPU.

Re: Trying to extract Widewine key: A journey to failure

#114

Can someone explain what's the point of DRM for video streaming when you can do screen recording so easily. It could make sense in books and games but why is netflix such a heavy proponent for it?

You will most likely find that your OS gives you a black square for the DRM content when you record the screen. This is facilitated by OS support on Windows, iOS, etc.

It’s also why HDCP exists to prevent capture from HDMI etc.

Re: Trying to extract Widewine key: A journey to failure

#115
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why you're being downvoted, you're right. There are plenty of TrustZone exploits that allow extraction of L1 keys.

Pay NZ$20/mo for Netflix in UHD, or fuck around on pirate sites to make sure none of the people making the series and films I'm enjoying, while hoping that no-one has dropped an entertaining payload in the site ads or the files I'm downloading is "piracy is more convenient"? The downvotes are for a shit take disconnected from the reality of people who aren't determined not to pay for something.

This has nothing with a determination not to pay or to have studios go out of business. This has everything to do with artificially restricting me from being able to watch the content I pay for in a manner which is convenient to me. I have no interest in buying into a proprietary ecosystem of shitty software just to watch a TV series.

Whenever a service provides content in a way which I can access DRM free, I make sure to reward them for it by voting with my wallet. I sometimes also tell them to make sure they understand that one of the factors in my decision to give them money was the fact that they offered the content DRM free. But not because I wanted to re-upload it for free via bittorrent or show it in a cinema to all my friends, but precisely because I wanted to watch it on my computer without having to install crazy whitebox crypto nonsense.

I don't think normalising having to run someone else's crazy whitebox crypto nonsense on your computer is a good idea. Even if most people don't know or care.

Re: Trying to extract Widewine key: A journey to failure

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"because DRM is fundamentally pointless" I dunno, it gave this person a lot of trouble and the result is maybe a very narrow victory that doesn't practically matter? And this is the lowest level of widevine security - L3 which is basically assumed to be owned. Good luck with L1 which uses trusted compute primitives. DRM has won. And I'm saying this as someone who agrees DRM is a threat to society as we're taking thin…

> DRM is a threat to society as we're taking things that the world could otherwise have for free But someone needs to pay to create those things in the first place. Payment for work after the fact is the basic incentive.

I think if DRM didn't exist piracy would be just as rampant (i.e. not very, since for the average joe it seems more convenient to just go on netflix or amazon prime or whatever) and people would still get paid.

People are against DRM not because they don't want to pay for content, but because they want to be able to play the content they pay for. And not in breach of the license they have been sold.

I have every interest in participating in the content market and paying people to make content. I have no interest in having to buy special proprietary hardware or run special proprietary code on my computer just to do it.

Re: Trying to extract Widewine key: A journey to failure

#117
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DRM is not about piracy. Content producers know that all their content ends up on PirateBay anyway, and know DRM causes them support costs and lost customers. For content distributors DRM is still worth in because of the power it gives them in dictating how the content can be viewed. They can demand hardware manufacturers to give them prominent placement, or be blocked. They can sell the same content over and over ag…

But the point is that DRM doesn't give content producers power over how content can be viewed. I could, if I wanted, go on The Pirate Bay and torrent Black Widow for free, and watch it however, wherever, whenever I want, regardless of whatever DRM Disney+ has on their streaming. It doesn't matter whether hardware manufacturers are restricted from displaying DRM content, because they can be bypassed entirely.

But that happens only after they've already sold the finely-carved distribution contracts, got branded TV remotes, and kickbacks they wanted. The legally-operating companies that sign contracts need to act like DRM is real, because the law says it's real.

Re: Trying to extract Widewine key: A journey to failure

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not really DRM, that’s actively providing a service. Some studios try to tie in single player experiences with online components as a form of DRM but those are invariably quickly cracked and are often a source of embarrassing launch day failures so they’re not that common.

Right, hence the scarequotes around the term. I'm just wondering if the parent poster also considers that model exploitative or freedom-restricting.

That depends a lot on whether or not the servers do actually provide value (e.g. a decent MMORPG – in my life I've played Eve and WoW, until about 2007) or are just egregious (I have a legal license for Adobe's Creative Suite CS6, and I'm sure as hell not upgrading).

Re: Trying to extract Widewine key: A journey to failure

#119

Hasn't this person committed a crime if they are in the U.S.?[1] Not that I think that this is morally wrong, just that I've always been concerned that people who try this and gain enough attention could face legal penalties. I would not do something like this without taking measures to stay anonymous. A similar case is the PS3 hacking case. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201

The world is large, so I'm not convinced this is an interesting question unless we're already certain where they are. We don't bother to discuss Indian or Chinese law on these matters either (even though both of those countries are also large).

Re: Trying to extract Widewine key: A journey to failure

#120

Can someone explain what's the point of DRM for video streaming when you can do screen recording so easily. It could make sense in books and games but why is netflix such a heavy proponent for it?

Any DRM solution sufficient to get high resolution content from Netflix encrypts the video path from the OS so no screen recording tool will work.
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