Why Rosyna Can't Take a Movie Screenshot • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Rosyna Can't Take a Movie Screenshot

#101

Post by lelandbatey » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 3:51 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #27

This is all ultimately pointless because it's not like the video decoder checks the integrity of its own code or the CPU running it or the compiler that compiled it or that the OS it was tested against is actually running. (Reflections on trusting trust.) Nothing actually cares about secure boot or end-to-end code validation; Apple doesn't even include equipment on their mainboards to do this anymore. Meanwhile, if y…

Question about capturing at the link layer:

Does anyone have any resources for capturing HDMI, stripping HDCP and recording on a computer?

Re: Why Rosyna Can't Take a Movie Screenshot

#102

Post by jimbobimbo » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 3:55 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #70

mike_hearn wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DRM is absolutely to do with piracy, that's the whole point of the technology. Of course Hollywood knows that any given DRM scheme will be broken at some point . How much they care about this depends a lot on what exactly "at some point" really means. Almost all money from movie sales comes in a spike when the movie is first release, hardly any movies go on to become long-term cult classics that people are still buyi…

DRM is tied to formats, not to movie releases. Your timin argument is odd when you consider that they still release movies on DVD with a thoroughly broken DRM system. > The same economics holds for other things like video games. Nobody cares if you beat the DRM on a game that's five years old. Yes, they do. Japanese game companies wanted to make it illegal to sell games to the second user market; MAME rom sites are r…

DVDs are coming out months after the initial release, so timing is a part of consideration here.

Re: Why Rosyna Can't Take a Movie Screenshot

#103

Post by alexdowad » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 3:56 PM UTC

pgeorgi wrote: post #79

userbinator wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From that file: pci_or_config32(PCI_DEV_HSW, 0xb0, 1 What is "BDSM"? It almost seems like a strangely appropriate name for another DRM feature. It's actually somewhat hidden in our haswell driver because so much is now binary-only on Intel platforms. One thing that I've noticed browsing around Coreboot sources is that the source code is rather opaque - full of "magic constants" with little to no meaning. It may be "o…

When all you do is to write a single opaque value in a register, and never use those bits again, it's slightly excessive to give each of them a name. This also reflects in chipset documentation, which sometimes comes with pages and pages of "write X to register Y", and not much more. The value is that the higher level structure is more easily visible when you know what is code and what is data (which is the main issu…

Interesting stuff! I bet you coreboot guys could write some incredibly interesting blog posts with all the "secrets" you have learned. I really admire your work.

Re: Why Rosyna Can't Take a Movie Screenshot

#104

Post by gbog » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 3:56 PM UTC

juliendorra wrote: post #29

Just a note on the discourse: the point "I own it, I should be able to use it the way I want" feels like not really effective (as a rhetoric) in many part of the western world and in many social circles. I really feel for example in France it would be easily brushed off using analogy to construction permits or driver licenses, or just put the person in some crazy-libertarian box ("the kind that want to print firearms…

For me in France and Germany the correct angle is that if you do not control your computer, some big crazy American corp do, and can and will do whatever they want with your content, which usually means make money with it.

Re: Why Rosyna Can't Take a Movie Screenshot

#105

Post by buro9 » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 4:10 PM UTC

hobs wrote: post #89

sjwright wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It certainly does work -- I use it frequently. The VLC snapshot tool works perfectly, and the system screen shot (cmd-shift-3/4) works too, at least on the H264 video I just tested with. Not sure what the issue could be.

I have seen GPU acceleration cause problems with VLC taking screenshots before, the problem doesnt have anything to do with the video format as far as I remember, but with video drivers, updating those solved the issues.

It may be this. I assist remotely and thus far we've found Windows VLC after ripping a DVD and stripping copy protection to be the most reliable method. It just works almost every time (though even then she'll find some Windows computers at the uni don't work which the IT guy there suspects is to do with lower privileges and a clash with some group policy - but he doesn't know which ones).

Helping non-technical people get things done isn't just a case of figuring what works today, it's also what is most consistent and will continue to work. She very much gets used to one way of doing thing and disrupting that really interferes with her just getting work done.

Re: Why Rosyna Can't Take a Movie Screenshot

#106

Post by buro9 » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 4:13 PM UTC

higherpurpose wrote: post #76

buro9 wrote: post #37

My partner is an academic, a lecturer in film theory. She watches a lot of films, and needs to make a lot of short clips for her lectures, and to take a lot of screenshots for her papers. This task is becoming increasingly difficult as time goes by. The most reliable method (for her skill level) is now to rip DVDs, removing various bits of protection, before playing the film using VLC on Windows and using VLC to take…

The strangest part is that according to the law (fair use) she should be able to do that. This DRM is effectively creating its own "copyright law", just like Cory Doctorow has warned us before. The whole copyright gang from MPAA to OS vendors and chip makers are using DRM to expand the reach of copyright law. And you can't just say "well I'll just break the DRM, since it's legal for me to take the screenshot" either.…

She is an academic in the UK, I'm not sure fair use applies but something else probably does. She's far more aware of those issues than I, I just advise how to get things done regardless of whatever constraints she may be under. My understanding though is that the constraints are technology based and how they interfere and prevent some things, rather than legally based and whether she is allowed to do something or not.

Re: Why Rosyna Can't Take a Movie Screenshot

#107

Post by jandrese » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 4:13 PM UTC

The best part is that it is only a matter of time until the IME is cracked and root kits come with bits that you will never be able to clean without getting a whole new computer. Did you know the IME can send and recieve IP without the host processor ever seeing it? It's the ultimate way to own a machine.

Re: Why Rosyna Can't Take a Movie Screenshot

#108

Post by w0utert » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 4:13 PM UTC

frabcus wrote: post #94

w0utert wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You acknowledged that you were aware of these facts when you read the EULA (you did read it, right?) at some point in the past when installing or updating iTunes (or whatever other service). I know it's ridiculous but that's how it works, make sure to show a 50+ page 'you basically have no rights' notice that you have to 'agree', and you can strip whatever privileges you like from your paying customers.

Nobody reads EULAs. They are irrelevant in a historical context. They'll clearly be replaced by consumer law at some point. You don't have to sign a 20 page license to go into a shop and buy a banana, do you? And yet there are all sorts of property and purchasing rights (for buyer and seller) associated with that. The correct way of talking about this now is to discuss what the consumer law should say which will repl…

Obviously I understand that nobody reads EULA's, and I completely agree that its crazy they even exist. Judging from the fact that I got downvoted for simply stating the obvious it appears people assume I'm ok with EULA's, but I'm not. That doesn't mean they don't exist though, and even though I don't know the intricacies of their legality, the fact that I'm not aware anyone ever successfully challenged an EULA in court (which would mean they should be history by now), I'm assuming that, sadly, content owners and distributors can strip your rights by presenting you with an EULA that no-one reads.

Re: Why Rosyna Can't Take a Movie Screenshot

#109

Post by Gracana » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 4:17 PM UTC

dmm wrote: post #90

pgeorgi wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All Intel chips since 2010 or so have the management engine. There's a reason why the "reclaim your freedom" notebook is still a Lenovo X60. Some of them come with larger firmware (5MB, making up vPro and AMT), others with the smaller one (1.5MB) that merely does the DRM stuff, but all of them have the full hardware access detailled in the article. AMD is clean on the chipset side until kaveri/kabini. After that, the…

Do you have an opinion on this project: https://www.crowdsupply.com/purism/librem-laptop ? It's a laptop designed to be free software and it's using coreboot.

That's a step in the right direction, and probably your best option for a modern and very-libre system, but like they say, it still contains firmware blobs. A thinkpad x60, t60, or a couple of similarly spec'd macbooks are the only reasonable completely-free (via libreboot and a free OS) systems you can run right now.

Re: Why Rosyna Can't Take a Movie Screenshot

#110

Post by jerf » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 4:28 PM UTC

mike_hearn wrote: post #65

ris wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Intel's just using Hollywood's fear of piracy" DRM has very little to do with piracy. Hollywood know perfectly well that DRM will not stop a determined pirate and a movie only has to be ripped once to be pirated indefinitely. It's about control. It's about the studios always having a seat at the bargaining table when new products/devices are being floated. They fear becoming a commodity supplier.

DRM is absolutely to do with piracy, that's the whole point of the technology. Of course Hollywood knows that any given DRM scheme will be broken at some point . How much they care about this depends a lot on what exactly "at some point" really means. Almost all money from movie sales comes in a spike when the movie is first release, hardly any movies go on to become long-term cult classics that people are still buyi…

"DRM is absolutely to do with piracy, that's the whole point of the technology."

DRM's stated goal was dealing with piracy, 20+ years ago. That does not mean that that is what it does now. Goals aren't results, to say nothing of the fact that goals 20 years ago aren't necessarily goals today. It is highly arguable that, given that it has failed to stop piracy comprehensively, that its primary utility to the people that use it is actually platform control. For instance, please see and think about the stuff discussed in http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/04/understa...

One of the reasons I don't accept "DRM is about piracy and nothing else" is that it doesn't make sense of the observable facts. DRM costs money and basically doesn't work. If it were really about piracy, I think the "DRM is about piracy" theory would see one of two reactions to that fact: Either we'd see a great deal more investment into DRM than we do now to the point where it could actually be relied upon [1], or it would get dropped to save money. Neither is happening; DRM continues, its advancements are quite perfunctory overall, and breaks proliferate. On the other hand, "DRM as platform control" implies that the currently level of DRM tech and investment makes perfect sense, it's already the correct amount as investing a whole bunch more would not increase the already absolute control over platforms that it yields. So I am inclined towards the platform control theory, as it seems to match reality better.

As for the fact that the DRM users "say" it's about piracy... feh. Words. Words are meaningless nowadays. Look to the actions.

[1]: While "it can always be cracked" triumphalists haven't been looking, the previous gen consoles took an awful long time to be cracked. I'd say there's evidence that this could in practice be made to work for software, at least. The 3DS is still only pried open a bit, just shy of 4 years after its release, and that only recently! I wouldn't care to bet when the XBone or the PS4 get cracked; a straight interpolation of existing trends can easily suggest six or seven years. Music and movies are still going to be hard to fully protect due to the fact that what is output to the AV system is the content. Software allows for more opportunities for DRM.