Intel Developers Working On HDCP Content Protection Protocol For Wayland

[starshipeleven]

Here's an interesting question, and it goes to whether HDCP could ever be the basis of encrypting your own signal on your monitor cable or not: Could a remote attacker reading the RF emissions from your monitor cable (a "tempest" attack) on getting garbage, re-route it through that $30 box and recover what's on your screen, or is there no way to do this when you have only the data and not the source hardware (graphics card) in hand? Right now, HDCP is probably the only form of encryption supported by consumer monitors.

AFAIK no, as the boxes have a HDCP key and must be connected to the playing device to exchange the key with it and become a HDCP sink. The mechanism they use to strip the HDCP protection varies (and quite frankly I don't know much about this part), but they are an active sink device with their own key and such, just like a TV/projector.

This would theoretically make them vulnerable to key revocation (which is possible again theoretically for the newer HDCP versions) but there are so much units and crappy chinese OEMs out there that getting all keys (even "OEM-level" keys so you can block entire classes of such devices by brand or such) is very problematic.

But this key revocation thing of course allows to keep every legal (and relatively big) OEM in line as you can easily block all Samsung keys, or all Sony ones, and it would be a disaster. For random chinese OEMs that got their keys from random places that reverse-engineered the master key of HDCP this is a non-issue.

Note how this design element would seem to be there to fight piracy (for the untrained eye) but is in fact only useful for enforcing a "protection" racket and compliance on the licensees, the HDCP is a masterpiece of smoke and mirrors like that.

you are a movie reviewer. You are trusted by the studios with pre-release cuts of big budget films, and if a copy ever leaks you are out of business.

I'd like to know why this poor guy does not have an office of some sort, where he can be assumed "safe" by his employer, and must carry very sensitive information outside of his workplace to begin with. Yes I never watch movies because I would shout at the screen every time I see gross inconsistencies in the plot, may Zod have pity of my soul.

How do you make sure that when you are watching and reviewing this highly secret, pre-release film that the snoopy next-door neighbor from the rival studio is not also watching it and maybe even recording it? Not being on the Internet is not enough if monitor cable emissions are the leak.

Give this guy an iMac or an iLaptop, problem solved.

Seriously, we are well into the "NSA vs KGB in Cold War 2.0" scenario here, pre-release movies aren't anywhere near as sensitive (i.e. valuable) to bring so highly advanced technology to bear.

Not being on the Internet is not enough if monitor cable emissions are the leak.

For the sake of giving full 100% cover I'll also point out that such interference isn't going to be terribly long-range, and bandwith will totally suck (I don't think it's enough to actually even see anything).

But you can always use RF jammers to swamp it out with noise if you figure the frequency of it. Since it's not going to be terribly powerful to begin with you can probably get away with using some weak jammer that isn't strong enough to screw with other users of the same frequency beyond a few meters from the cable.

[stormcrow]

I personally wish someone would just write a stub for HDCP that reports it being active when it's really not. HDCP and nearly every single DRM scheme so far has fallen to either software or hardware hackers. Legal means won't stop people from cracking DRM either. FOSS shouldn't be facilitating DRM, it should be working on breaking it every chance it can get. It's inimical to what free software is about.

It took all of a $260 board and engineering know how to break the original HDCP. Once people have access to the hardware, you can't stop a determined attacker from stealing stuff like this. It will never stop the big commercial pirates, all it does is give the little guy headaches with his legitimately owned and bought media (and games). Can't tell blockheads like Ubisoft, EA, ZeniMax, Sony, the MPAA, Intel and the like that. They don't listen, and never will when people keep throwing them $60 a pop + micro transactions.

[starshipeleven]

I personally wish someone would just write a stub for HDCP that reports it being active when it's really not.

This assumes you actually buy or use services that require it enabled. This would actually mean you want to support companies using HDCP at all, it's very bad.

That said, it's probably going to be trusted only on some distros that will sign their compositor/kernel/stuff to ensure that none has tampered with that (and booted with SecureBoot).

[creative]

I agree with you, but the reason I don't want HDCP in my system is because I already don't buy DRM-encumbered media anymore (with the exception of games on Steam but only when they are on super sale like 80% off). I have hundreds of DVDs and some Blu-rays (haven't bought any in a while and never a 4k one). Problem is, I don't really believe anyone telling me that HDCP will only be used when needed and won't cause problems otherwise. I feel like all it does is cause problems in the home theater realm.

I'm probably never going to buy a movie again in my entire life, and fortunately I don't even feel the need to watch movies at all these days so that won't even need to lead me down the path of the pirate.

I don't want my computer to output a HDCP signal... ever. for any reason. I don't care if an app wants it to.

You are not missing out on much with the movies. I can't believe how empty 98% of films and series put out there have become. I have long tossed the idea of finding some sort of deep meaning from watching movies and films that speaks to my soul. Being out in nature and making things seems to be the best way to connect to the deeper ineffable meaning of it all. After giving up booze I started to all of a sudden become more originative. Even if only family members see and hear my works it's the creative process that is profound income itself. Also bought this wonderful gigantic Linux command line and shell scripting book over 700 pages long<--Talk about some serious entertainment right there. Would be nice to eventually learn c and assembly though, maybe much later on in life.

Additional notes, I did go to see Blade Runner 2049, bought a $5 used copy of the Bluray and bought the sound track on compact disk. Even being a prime membership subscriber, I hate the amazon stuff thats going on, yea I know maybe I should not support it by not buying into their membership, yet since I am strapped for cash they make the prime thing hard to want to turn down when I can save a ton on shipping alone. Sorry to bring the amazon thing up. I really don't know how to feel about all this stuff. In some ways I feel deeply stirred about it, in others, I don't know.

[starshipeleven]

You are not missing out on much with the movies. I can't believe how empty 98% of films and series put out there have become. I have long tossed the idea of finding some sort of deep meaning from watching movies and films that speaks to my soul.

Have seen movies, can confirm.

Most stuff is aimed so low that it is plowing the ground, I stopped going to the multiplex years ago.

[creative]

Linux is far more entertaining than films and series.

I feel as though Linux users have expanded consciousness, likely most of us. Having massive control over our computing environments and learning it over extended periods of time is much like learning a speakable language or laws of physics in another dimension ahahahahah.

I get a chemical rush from learning new technical stuff. Movies don't quite do that. Video games are the preferred choice of commercial entertainment for me, at least with those you have some level of choice within a game.

A week ago I went back to Slack for a bit finding out that its installation kernels have some strange issue with udev {or vice versa} that hangs more recent hardware after kernel decompression. I kept trying kept trying, finally gave up, realizing I was going to have to do some major research and work to figure out how to fix the installation. Tried Solus 3 that was interesting. Then I installed Void and all I can say is WOW that is one blistering fast distro, could not get steam to work but did get my pulse jack sync working, could not do that with Solus and its packages at the time, Void I liked the most xbps and and no systemd. Been running stripped down Manjaro Xfce and U-Studio both I have found to get everything to my taste setup with without having to dive for days figuring something out. Hopefully next slackware release beyond 14.2 I'll have a 3rd Linux installation, its either Slackware next release or something like Ghost BSD{or maybe spend my time in the pipeline with Arch}. I have thought about using VM's but that seems too through the scope for me and too detached, I like to brave an actual installation.


Its nice to scroll down htop and see how small my process list is on Manjaro and Ubunto Studio. Ripped out the network manager on both distros, with just the bare minimum services makes me feel saner.