HDCP Master Key Cracked with $267 Custom Board

Apparently HDCP has been cracked. Now, Blu-ray content protection has been cracked before. At least, it's been cracked such that you can rip and store the files to hard drive if, you know, you're a glutton for punishment and have enough hard disc space to make this practical. Our thought has been that picking up a Blu-ray Disc jukebox like Sony's BDP-CX7000ES ($750) or the Pioneer DV-F727 ($600) makes a lot more sense, even though it's not as nifty as having a smooth digital interface for all your movies. But "researchers" at the Secure Hardware Group of Ruhr University of Bochum (RUB) in Germany claim to have cracked Intel's HDCP using hardware.

And they did it for around $267 and parts you can obtain and use on your own.

So how does this differ from the cracked master key - accomplished back in 2010? Well, the cracked master key allows the generation of new keys that will work with players, etc - thus removing the issue of "revoked" keys from inhibiting the copying of Blu-ray and other protected content. The trouble is, the presence of this master key wasn't terribly significant since there would need to be hardware created in order for it to have any practical use in circumventing copy protection on any large scale.

This new crack, since it involves hardware, is the realization of that vulnerability. Now, with a $267 board, you can run HDMI into a box and get unprotected digital or analogue content at 1080p resolution out of it. Here's how they claimed to have done it:

Intel's HDCP encryption was cracked using a "man-in-the-middle" (MITM) attack with an inexpensive field programmable gate array (FPGA) board. The build used an ATLYS board from Digilent, a HDMI port equipped Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA, and a serial RS232 port for communication. The board was able to manipulate and decode the communication between the Blu-ray player and the HDTV without being detected.

Whether or not that's terribly practical is another question entirely. Certainly it opens up the door for illegal boxes that could be used to serve BD-sourced media from hard drives, something that even media giant Kaleidescape has been unable to do legally without the ridiculous mandate of also actually storing the physical disc in their "Disc Vault" carousel system.

We'd have to say that the cracking of Intel's HDCP system in a hardware device is an interesting development, but one that we don't fully understand as of yet - at least not the ramifications. Will there be an influx of black market boxes? Will there be an influx of modular components that together might yield the ability to enable media servers for home use? The possibilities are limitless, but with storage capacities being so demanding for uncompressed BD media (and honestly, why not rip a DVD if you don't want BD quality?) there is also the question of practicality.

Basically: do you even WANT to rip Blu-ray discs to hard drive?

If you do, then you'll want to keep your eyes peeled for developments in this area. If you're like me, however, you've still got your eye on streaming solutions and the future of media delivery systems - which seems to be anything BUT Physical in its composition.

The whole point of the RUB research was, as they described, "to investigate the safety of the HDCP system at its most fundamental level". They also wanted to see what the actual costs for a hardware-based solution would be, once the solution was achieved. The conclusive results spell the end of the thought that HDCP remains as secure as it was once thought to be. Still, a decade isn't a bad run and we'd have to admit that Blu-ray has enjoyed a relatively secure life so far as a protected media delivery system.

What we'd like to know is: why don't you rip Blu-ray Discs? Or do you? Answer our poll in the forums and let us know.