DVD decryptor

Russell McOrmond russell at flora.ca
Thu Nov 16 20:48:00 UTC 2006


Evan Leibovitch wrote:
> Abdurahim Shariff wrote:
>> Can anyone tell me how copy dvds in ubuntu linux?
> You can do a DVD-to-DVD copy without needing to rip or decrypt anything;
> I know that k3b does that (but that may be KDE/Kubuntu specific).

   Unfortunately I believe this is not true.  If you have done this 
yourself, let us know what software you are using as this would conflict 
with what I know of DVD-CSS.

   There are two sets of decryption keys, one that is embedded in 
consumer DVD ROM drives, and another that is in the software used to 
play the DVD's.  A DVD is being encrypted to lock it to both a specific 
subset of software embeded in the hardware as well as a subset of 
software that would be installed in a computer.

   If you do a bit-for-bit copy you will only copy the data that is 
accessible to the reader software, but not the hidden data that isn't 
made available to user applications as 'disk' information, but is still 
needed to properly decode the data files.

   If you want to do a bit-for-bit copy you would need to FLASH the 
firmware in both your DVD reader and DVD writer to access the entire 
disk, and use software which knew how to access and write all parts of 
the media.

   If you want to make a copy of the DVD on regular consumer DVD ROM and 
DVD burners you are stuck decrypting the DVD-CSS to avoid the link 
between the disk keys and the content keys.


Note: This is based on my reading of the DVD-CSS specs a number of years 
ago, and isn't based on reading code used to play DVD movies on open 
platforms which must decrypt this information "without permission". 
This is currently legal in Canada, and people in this list should sign 
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/ (and the other petition 
linked from there) to help keep it that way.

-- 
  Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
  Please help us tell the Canadian Parliament to protect our property
  rights as owners of Information Technology. Sign the petition!
  http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/

  "The government, lobbied by legacy copyright holders and hardware
   manufacturers, can pry my camcorder, computer, home theatre, or
   portable media player from my cold dead hands!"




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