Re: Ripping DVDs ... and MythTV

["Kristian Erik Hermansen" <user=152@nabble.blu.org>]

 On Nov 23, 2007 4:15 AM, Derek Martin <[hidden email]> wrote: 
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARccOS_Protection
> 
> ARccOS != CSS.  A relatively small percentage of discs will have been 
> encoded with this protection, since it was a more recent development, 
> and has been discontinued due to hardware incompatibilities. 

CSS will still exist on ARcoOS discs.  And the authentication process 
is still the same.  I understand that the protections serve very 
different purposes.  I am already aware of that.  But, I come from a 
long background of defeating software and hardware protections.  In 
high school, around 1996, I began a 'chipping service' for fellow 
classmates in my school with PlayStations.  I used to work at an 
arcade, and they had soldering equipment there.  I learned all about 
PSX copy protections, and eventually, I expanded my research into 
generic copy protection, and also DVD protections.  Later on, I went 
further into software protections, and reverse engineering.  ARccOS is 
nothing new.  In PC game copying, it has been around for ages and 
still exists today.  However, almost every protection can be overcome 
by clever people. 

> The existence of libdvd* on a system does not mean that they have been 
> used.  Since the dd command is not linked against those libraries, 
> then it has no means of making use of them -- barring support built 
> into the kernel, which I'm sure Linus would never allow -- so 
> basically any successful dd of an encrpyted DVD on any system proves 
> that CSS does not prevent dd from copying DVDs. 

Yes, I understand linking :-)  But I also hope you understand that 
once the disc is in the drive, any program can initiate the CSS 
authorization process.  Once that happens, and until the disc is 
ejected, the firmware considers the disc "authorized"... 

> Besides the above, a quick search turned up a few: 
> 
> http://www.lemuria.org/DeCSS/decss.html
> 
> Mentions that DVDs could be bit-wise copied, and sites a 
> Note that at the time deCSS  was written, DVD burners were not 
> available, so it was not possible to burn a full DVD using comodity 
> hardware and media at the time.  It was the writing process, not the 
> reading process that caused the difficulties referenced in this 
> document.  (The document references an interview on CNN which 
> clarifies the time line of the availability of DVD burners):