Status of Cryptography Research in implementation of the EUCD

[Brian Gladman]

From: "Owen Lewis" <oml@sysrx.uk.com>
To: <ukcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2002 10:08 PM
Subject: RE: Status of Cryptography Research in implementation of the EUCD

[snip]
> I do not know the DVD argument in detail but offer the following. Neither
> you or I need DVD (I do not have it). It is in the 'nice to have, look wot
I
> got) sector. You don't like the terms? Don't have you it either. The
reason
> I do not have it is not that I find the control of the technology unfair
> (though I well might do that)because it is of no concern to me. What is of
> concern is that the whole of DVD technology has not yet stabilised. I will
> buy when it has.

I consider this 'instability' to be a great benefit and I very much hope
that it _never_ goes away.

Because of this, pretty well all DVD players have their code in FLASH EEPROM
so that they can be upgraded from time to time.

A couple of weeks ago I bought a new Pioneer DVD player with RPC2
protection. It uses a Hitachi H8 microcontroller and it took less than a day
to reflash the code to remove the region protection.  I also don't like the
'feature' of some DVDs that disable the fast forward button during lead in
adverts so I am in the process of patching this out as well.

Having the code in FLASH memory means that we can take a standard DVD player
and change its functions to suit our needs.  If stability ever arrives the
manufacturers of DVD players wil use the cheaper masked ROM based
microcontrollers and things will get much harder.

   Brian Gladman