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DeCSS is a computer program capable of decrypting content on a DVD-Video disc encrypted using the Content-Scrambling System (CSS). Computer programs (also software programs, or just programs) are instructions for a Computer. DVD (also known as " Digital Versatile Disc " or " Digital Video Disc " - see Etymology)is Content Scramble System ( CSS) is a Digital Rights Management (DRM scheme used on almost all commercially produced DVD -Video discs

Contents

Origins and history

A fragment of the DeCSS code, which can be used by a computer to circumvent a DVD's copy prevention.
A fragment of the DeCSS code, which can be used by a computer to circumvent a DVD's copy prevention. Copy protection, also known as content protection, copy prevention, or copy restriction, is a technology for preventing the unauthorised reproduction

DeCSS was devised by three people, two of whom remain anonymous. It was released on the Internet mailing list LiViD in October 1999. The Internet is a global system of interconnected Computer networks LiViD, short for Linux Video and DVD, was a collection of projects that aim to create Program tools and software libraries related to DVD for The one known author of the trio is Norwegian programmer Jon Lech Johansen, whose home was raided in 2000 by Norwegian police. Norway ( Norwegian: Norge ( Bokmål) or Noreg ( Nynorsk) officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Constitutional Jon Lech Johansen (born November 18, 1983 in Harstad, Norway) also known as DVD Jon, is a Norwegian (his father is Still a teenager at the time, he was put on trial in a Norwegian court for violating Norwegian Criminal Code section 145, and faced a possible jail sentence of two years and large fines, but was acquitted of all charges in early 2003. However, on March 5, 2003, a Norwegian appeals court ruled that Johansen would have to be retried. Events 363 - Roman Emperor Julian moves from Antioch with an army of 90000 to attack the Sassanid Empire, in a Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. The court said that arguments filed by the prosecutor and additional evidence merited another trial. On December 22, 2003, the appeals court agreed with the acquittal, and on January 5, 2004 Norway's Økokrim (Economic Crime Unit) decided not to pursue the case further. Events 1790 - The Turkish fortress of Izmail is stormed and captured by Suvorov and his Russian armies Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. Events 1477 - Battle of Nancy: Charles the Bold is killed and Burgundy becomes part of France. "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " Norwegian National Authority for the Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime (Økokrim is Norway 's central unit for fighting economic,

The program was first released on October 6, 1999 when Johansen posted an announcement of DeCSS 1. Events 105 BC - Battle of Arausio: The Cimbri inflict the heaviest defeat on the Roman army of Gnaeus Mallius Maximus Year 1999 ( MCMXCIX) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar) 1b, a closed source Windows-only application for DVD ripping, on the livid-dev mailing list. Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Ripping is the process of copying audio or video content to a Hard disk, typically from Removable media or media streams. The source code was leaked before the end of the month. In Computer science, source code (commonly just source or code) is any sequence of statements or declarations written in some Human-readable The first release of DeCSS was preceded by a few weeks by a program called DoD DVD Speed Ripper[1] from a group called Drink or Die, which didn't include source code and which apparently did not work with all DVDs. DrinkOrDie ( DoD) was an underground Software cracking and Warez trading network during the 1990s Drink or Die reportedly disassembled the object code of the Xing DVD player to obtain a player key. In Computer science, object code, or an object file, is the representation of code that a Compiler or Assembler generates by processing Xing Technology was founded in Arroyo Grande, California in 1989 by former networking executive Howard Gordon on the basis of a simple (i The group that wrote DeCSS, including Johansen, came to call themselves Masters of Reverse Engineering and may have obtained information from Drink or Die. [1]

The CSS decryption source code used in DeCSS was mailed to Derek Fawcus before DeCSS was released. When the DeCSS source code was leaked, Fawcus noticed that DeCSS included his css-auth code in violation of the GNU GPL. When Johansen was made aware of this, he contacted Fawcus to solve the issue and was granted a license to use the code in DeCSS under non-GPL terms.

Johansen was involved in a flamewar with another member on livid-dev over the GPL violation issue. Flaming is the hostile and insulting interaction between Internet users Johansen was a FreeBSD supporter and criticized Linux. FreeBSD is a Unix-like free Operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD branch through Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks The main point of the dispute was that Johansen claimed that he had been granted a non-GPL license by Fawcus for the css-auth code, while the other party claimed that he was lying. The flamewar ended when Fawcus confirmed Johansen's side of the story. [2] At the end of 2000, a document written by an anonymous author surfaced on the Internet. 2000 ( MM) was a Leap year that started on Saturday of the Common Era, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. [3] It accuses Johansen of lying, slandering Linux and violating the GPL. One of the document's claims is that UDF support was not an issue under Linux. This is disputed by Matthew Pavlovich, LiViD project leader, who testified in Universal v. Reimerdes that UDF under Linux was an issue. Universal City Studios Inc v Reimerdes 111 F Supp 2d 294 ( SD The Universal Disk Format ( UDF) is a format specification of a File system for storing files on optical media [4]

On January 22, 2004, the DVD CCA dropped the case against Jon Johansen. Events 565 - Eutychius is deposed as Patriarch of Constantinople by John Scholasticus. "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " The DVD Copy Control Association ( DVD CCA) is an organization primarily responsible for the Copy prevention of DVDs The Content Scramble System [5]

Jon Lech Johansen's involvement

The DeCSS program was a collaborative project, in which Jon wrote the Graphical User Interface. The transcripts from the appeals court (Borgarting lagmannsrett), published in the Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang, contain the following description of the process which led to the release of DeCSS:[6]

Through Internet Relay Chat (henceforth IRC), [Jon Lech Johansen] made contact with like-minded [people seeking to develop a DVD-player under the Linux operating system]. Verdens Gang (directly translated The way of the world or the course of the world) commonly known as VG, is Norway Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks September 11, 1999, he had a conversation with "mdx" about how the encryption algorithm in CSS could be found, by using a poorly secured software-based DVD-player. Events 9 - The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest ends 506 - The Bishops of Visigothic Gaul Year 1999 ( MCMXCIX) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar) In a conversation [between Jon Lech Johansen and "mdx"] September 22, "mdx" informs that "the nomad" had found the code for CSS decryption, and that "mdx" now would send this [code] to Jon Lech Johansen. Events 66 - Emperor Nero creates the Legion I Italica. 1236 - The Lithuanians "The nomad" allegedly found this decryption algorithm through so-called reverse engineering of a Xing DVD-player, where the [decryption] keys were more or less openly accessible. Reverse engineering (RE is the process of discovering the technological principles of a device object or system through analysis of its structure function and operation Through this, information that made it possible [for "mdx"] to create the code CSS_scramble. cpp was retrieved. From chat logs dated November 4, 1999 and November 25, 1999, it appears that "the nomad" carried through the reverse engineering process on a Xing player, which he characterized as illegal. Events 1333 - Flood of the Arno River, causing massive damage in Florence as recorded by the Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani Year 1999 ( MCMXCIX) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar) Events 1034 - Máel Coluim mac Cináeda, King of Scots dies Donnchad, the Year 1999 ( MCMXCIX) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar) As the case is presented for the High Court, this was not known by Jon Lech Johansen before November 4 [1999]. Events 1333 - Flood of the Arno River, causing massive damage in Florence as recorded by the Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani Regarding the authentication code, the High Court takes for its basis that "the nomad" obtained this code through the electronic mailing list LiVid (Linux Video) on the internet, and that it was created by Derek Fawcus. It appears through a LiVid posting dated October 6, 1999 that Derek Fawcus on this date read through the DeCSS source code and compared it with his own. Events 105 BC - Battle of Arausio: The Cimbri inflict the heaviest defeat on the Roman army of Gnaeus Mallius Maximus Year 1999 ( MCMXCIX) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar) Further, it appears that "the creators [of DeCSS] have taken [Derek Fawcus' code] almost verbatim - the only alteration was the removal of [Derek Fawcus'] copyright header and a paragraph containing commentaries, and a change of the function names. " The name [of the code] was CSS_auth. cpp. The High Court takes for its basis that the program Jon Lech Johansen later programmed, the graphical user interface, consisted of "the nomad's" decryption algorithm and Derek Fawcus' authentication package. The creation of a graphical user interface made the program accessible, also for users without special knowledge in programming. The program was published on the internet for the first time October 6, 1999, after Jon Lech Johansen had tested it on the movie "The Matrix. Events 105 BC - Battle of Arausio: The Cimbri inflict the heaviest defeat on the Roman army of Gnaeus Mallius Maximus Year 1999 ( MCMXCIX) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar) " In this, he downloaded approximately 2. 5%. 200 megabytes, of the movie to the hard drive on his computer. This file is the only film fragment Jon Lech Johansen has saved on his computer.

Technology and derived works

See also: libdvdcss

When the release of the DeCSS source code made the CSS algorithm available for public scrutiny, it was soon found to be susceptible to a brute force attack quite different from DeCSS. libdvdcss is a Software library for accessing and unscrambling DVDs encrypted with the Content Scramble System (CSS In Cryptanalysis, a brute force attack is a method of defeating a Cryptographic scheme by trying a large number of possibilities for example possible keys The encryption is only 40-bit, and does not use all keys; a high-end home computer (as of 1999) running optimized code is quite easily able to brute-force it within 24 hours. 40-bit encryption refers to a Key size of forty bits or five Bytes for Symmetric encryption; this represents a relatively low level of security

Programmers around the world created hundreds of programs equivalent to DeCSS, some merely to demonstrate the trivial ease with which the system could be bypassed, and others to add DVD support to open source movie players. Open source is a development methodology which offers practical accessibility to a product's source (goods and knowledge The licensing restrictions on CSS make it impossible to create an open source implementation through official channels, and closed source drivers are unavailable for some operating systems, so some users need DeCSS to watch movies.

In early 2000, a program with the same name but a very different purpose (removing Cascading Style Sheets tags from HTML code) was also developed. 2000 ( MM) was a Leap year that started on Saturday of the Common Era, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. People were encouraged to mirror the website of this unrelated program, as a means of presumably making it more difficult for anti-DeCSS agents to find the 'real' DeCSS program. [1]

Legal response

The chief complaint against DeCSS (and similar programs) is that once the unencrypted source video is available in digital form, it can be copied without degradation, so DeCSS can be used for copyright infringement. However, lossless digital image copying of DVDs without decrypting them was already widespread before DeCSS, especially in East Asia. Furthermore, various DVD backup utilities that made use of "licensed" CSS decoding routines were also widely available.

In protest against legislation that prohibits publication of copy protection circumvention code in countries that implement the WIPO Copyright Treaty (such as the United States' Digital Millennium Copyright Act), some have devised clever ways of distributing descriptions of the DeCSS algorithm, such as through steganography, through various Internet protocols, on t-shirts and in dramatic readings, as MIDI files, as a series of haiku poems,[7] and even as a so-called illegal prime number. The World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty, abbreviated as the WIPO Copyright Treaty, was an international Treaty on Copyright law adopted The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA is a United States Copyright Law which implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Steganography is the art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no one apart from the sender and intended recipient even realizes there is a hidden message MIDI ( Musical Instrument Digital Interface, ˈmɪdi is an industry-standard protocol that enables Electronic musical instruments Computers is a form of Japanese poetry. Previously called An illegal prime is a Prime number that represents information forbidden to possess or distribute because when interpreted a particular way it describes a Computer program However, the CSS algorithm seems to require more characters to describe in a computer programming language than the RC4 algorithm by RSA Data Security; one of the shortest implementations of DeCSS (called "efdtt") is 434 bytes. In Cryptography, RC4 (also known as ARC4 or ARCFOUR meaning Alleged RC4 see below is the most widely-used software In Cryptography, RSA is an Algorithm for Public-key cryptography. Because of this, it has not been distributed by some of the more "inventive" methods used to distribute the RSA algorithm during the days of ITAR — it is not suitable for tattoos, email signatures, etc. In Cryptography, RSA is an Algorithm for Public-key cryptography. A signature block (often abbreviated as signature, sig block, sig file,.

The first legal threats against sites hosting DeCSS, and the beginning of the DeCSS mirroring campaign, began in about early November 1999 (Universal v. Reimerdes). Year 1999 ( MCMXCIX) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar) Universal City Studios Inc v Reimerdes 111 F Supp 2d 294 ( SD As a response to these threats a program also called DeCSS but with an unrelated function was developed. This program can be used for stripping Cascading Style Sheets tags from an HTML page. HTML, an initialism of HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant Markup language for Web pages It provides a means to describe the structure In one case, a school removed a student's webpage that included a copy of this program, mistaking it for the original DeCSS program, and received a great deal of negative media attention. The CSS stripping program had been specifically created to bait the MPAA in this manner. [8]

As of 2007, DeCSS and several clones (which have not been specifically brought to court) can be readily obtained over the Internet. The Internet is a global system of interconnected Computer networks

External links

References

  1. ^ a b The Truth about DVD CSS cracking; November 4, 1999. Retrieved on January 4, 2007.
  2. ^ Derek Fawcus ending liviv-dev flamewar by confirming Johansen's side of the story.
  3. ^ http://www.trust-us.ch/decss/decsstruth.txt. Retrieved on December 5, 2005.
  4. ^ Transcript of Trial - Day 5, MPAA v. 2600 NY; July 21, 2000. Retrieved on December 5, 2005.
  5. ^ EFF: DVD Descrambling Code Not a Trade Secret. Retrieved on December 5, 2005.
  6. ^ Hele DVD-dommen
  7. ^ http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/decss-haiku.txt. Retrieved on December 5, 2005.
  8. ^ Pigdog Journal - DeCSS Distribution Center. Retrieved on May 28, 2007.
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