[HN Gopher] "Widevine Dump":Leaked Code Downloads HD Video from ...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       "Widevine Dump":Leaked Code Downloads HD Video from Disney+,
       Amazon, and Netflix
        
       Author : bertman
       Score  : 346 points
       Date   : 2021-12-27 12:55 UTC (10 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (torrentfreak.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (torrentfreak.com)
        
       | orliesaurus wrote:
       | Surely some people just use screen recording software for the
       | "Download" illegally part?
        
         | tomc1985 wrote:
         | I don't think that works with HDCP, usually you get a big green
         | box or something
        
         | snailmailman wrote:
         | The DRM technologies in place prevent screen recording from
         | working, as far as I know. Or at least prevent it from working
         | at high resolutions.
        
           | agilob wrote:
           | I found this interesting, so I tried: I recorded a HD movie
           | on Netflix in Firefox, recorded using simplescreenrecorder on
           | KDE5 in Xorg. I remember it was impossible to record shared
           | screen in old (Ebay owned Skype).
        
             | nly wrote:
             | HD != 4K
        
             | Mindwipe wrote:
             | This is why Netflix only serves Firefox low resolution
             | video.
        
               | shbooms wrote:
               | It's not just Firefox though, if you're running Chrome on
               | Windows or Mac, you get the same 720p as Firefox.
               | 
               | The only way to get Netflix in high def (1080p and 4k)
               | from a web browser is to use a browser that is made by
               | the same company as the OS it's running on.
               | 
               | e.g.:
               | 
               | - Microsoft Edge running on Windows 10 or 11 (if running
               | Edge on some other OS, output will cap at 720p)
               | 
               | - Chrome running on Chrome OS (if running Chrome on some
               | other OS, output will cap at 720p)
               | 
               | - Safari running on MacOS
               | 
               | In any scenario not listed above, Netflix serves a max of
               | 720p.
               | 
               | https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23931
               | 
               | https://help.netflix.com/en/node/55764
        
         | toun wrote:
         | This usually doesn't work because of HDCP, and you'd have to
         | reencode the video stream, sacrificing quality. Removing DRMs
         | is a lot cleaner.
        
           | orliesaurus wrote:
           | Makes sense, and I know a lot of people are like "4K ultra or
           | nada" but I grew up in a world where 480p was watchable and
           | good enough that you would invite friend over and have a
           | freewatch party. So I guess it depends who is watching right?
           | 
           | I tried a couple of screen recording tricks and it appears
           | that Netflix is easily captured on Chrome....
        
         | heywire wrote:
         | There are also HDMI recorders you can buy online that strip
         | HDCP and encode to a USB stick.
        
       | Unklejoe wrote:
       | For a while, there were HDMI splitters for sale on Amazon that
       | would effectively strip out HDCP 2.2. I haven't checked in a
       | while, but I bet that's still the case.
       | 
       | It seems like these DRM efforts are futile, but then I remember
       | that it's really just about keeping piracy outside of the grasp
       | of "common folks". They will never be able to stop piracy if
       | someone is determined enough.
        
       | bertman wrote:
       | The repos: https://github.com/widevinedump?tab=repositories
        
         | sovietmudkipz wrote:
         | I don't know why but for some reason I was hopeful to see unit
         | tests in any of the repos. Searching "test" for that user
         | doesn't reveal any tests. :(
         | 
         | Even the digital property liberators/internet pirates don't
         | test their software. I feel like I'm on an island with a small
         | population of test enthusiasts.
        
           | boppo1 wrote:
           | What's the best place to get started with testing? As a
           | newbie brogrammer it's intimidating enough writing software
           | that works, let alone suites to comprehensively test it. Is
           | there a testing 'bible'?
        
             | corndoge wrote:
             | You'll fare much better in today's software industry
             | climate if you don't use the word brogrammer
        
             | Godel_unicode wrote:
             | There are many deeply held beliefs that people have about
             | testing, so I recommend reading many different takes on how
             | to structure your testing approach. For the pragmatic
             | python programmer, Brian's book is quite good as a starting
             | place:
             | 
             | https://pragprog.com/titles/bopytest/python-testing-with-
             | pyt...
        
             | hatware wrote:
             | Build systems that break, the tests come naturally after
             | that.
        
           | charcircuit wrote:
           | >Even the digital property liberators/internet pirates don't
           | test their software.
           | 
           | The lack of automated tests doesn't mean they don't test
           | their software.
        
             | sovietmudkipz wrote:
             | You're right I should be more clear. I was more interested
             | in automated test rather than manual/exploratory testing.
             | Thanks for the opportunity to clarify my comment.
        
           | unbanned wrote:
           | >Even the digital property liberators/internet pirates don't
           | test their software. I feel like I'm on an island with a
           | small population of test enthusiasts.
           | 
           | Ultimately, what's the point. The tool either works, or it
           | doesn't. Then you patch what doesn't work so it does work.
           | 
           | Heck even the Linux kernel isn't tested.
           | 
           | Unit tests are so management can have a good metric to sell
           | code quality. I don't know any time unit testing has actually
           | benefited shipping faster (which really is the only bottom
           | line those above you care about)
        
             | ohthehugemanate wrote:
             | > I don't know any time unit testing has actually benefited
             | shipping faster
             | 
             | There's a lot of empirical research about this. A. Lot.
             | Starting in the 80's, even. It's as close as it gets to
             | empirically proven that software testing greatly reduces
             | bugs and regressions, and accelerates delivery over the
             | long term. It's not as clear if the acceleration is
             | entirely freed up resources that would otherwise be spent
             | fixing bugs, or if it also makes people develop faster.
             | Also, it's pretty clear that Automated testing doesn't
             | accelerate short or short term projects.
        
             | caillougris wrote:
             | > I don't know any time unit testing has actually benefited
             | shipping faster
             | 
             | It's of _huge_ benefits to me when I have to make a small
             | tweak (fix a bug, or add a new specific corner case) into
             | an existing codebase that I didn 't write and don't know
             | very well. Being able to make a small change and being
             | confident that it will not send everything burning in hell.
        
               | datavirtue wrote:
               | This, and any code base of significant size is unknowable
               | and starts to produce bugs naturally. Requiring tests and
               | verifying minimum coverage are a few things you can do to
               | control the death spiral.
               | 
               | I have worked on large systems devoid of tests. Not
               | recommended. I literally witnessed multi-million dollar
               | losses that would have been prevented by requiring tests.
        
             | gentleman11 wrote:
             | Why isn't the kernel tested? Too close to the hardware to
             | be practical?
        
             | danuker wrote:
             | My experience: running a unit test is much faster than a
             | manual test.
             | 
             | While developing a feature or fixing a bug, it speeds you
             | up overall, in spite of the initial investment in writing
             | the test.
             | 
             | As a bonus, you can keep them running permanently, to
             | prevent new bugs or regressions.
        
               | horsawlarway wrote:
               | And the test covers much less surface area than most
               | manual tests.
               | 
               | For code that's expected to be stable for a LONG time -
               | sure, write lots of good tests.
               | 
               | For code that breaks at someone else's whim, which has a
               | small shelf life, or which has a large surface area,
               | think really, really hard about whether the test is
               | actually going to be worth it.
        
             | shakna wrote:
             | > Heck even the Linux kernel isn't tested.
             | 
             | Apart from the Linux Test Project [0], run by all the big
             | Linux names, who regularly issue very detailed bug reports
             | and usually patches as well, you mean?
             | 
             | [0] https://linux-test-project.github.io/
        
             | develop7 wrote:
             | but linux kernel _is_ covered by tests. Not 100%, not all
             | the subsystems, but there are automated tests nevertheless
             | (introduced by Greg K-H, AFAIR)
        
             | everybodyknows wrote:
             | > Heck even the Linux kernel isn't tested.
             | 
             | Linux kernel self-tests:
             | 
             | https://kselftest.wiki.kernel.org/
             | 
             |  _Kselftest is run everyday on several Linux kernel trees
             | on the 0-Day and Linaro Test Farm and other Linux kernel
             | integration test rings._
             | 
             | Most recent update to the source code was yesterday
             | 2021-12-26:
             | 
             | https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-kselftest/list/
        
           | GekkePrutser wrote:
           | There's no point I guess, this kind of thing does not work
           | for very long anyway. Because it gets blocked server side
           | once it's out.
           | 
           | It's more like a proof of concept than production code.
        
       | vmception wrote:
       | This is one of those github repositories that you just clone and
       | move on.
       | 
       | Don't fork, just clone to your local system. When it gets taken
       | down the forks will disappear, whereas the clones will not. You
       | can also just download a zip file.
       | 
       | https://github.com/widevinedump?tab=repositories
        
         | jrm4 wrote:
         | "Making an imaginary-ish copy that stays on the big Microsoft-
         | owned system is mostly unnecessary and probably not enough to
         | keep it around, make sure you save a copy on your own computer
         | that they can't get to."
         | 
         | Don't want to be (too) condescending, but, as an old-timer it's
         | kind of wild to me that people who work with tech a lot do
         | actually sometimes need to be reminded of this.
        
           | vmception wrote:
           | Its wild to me too, but I've seen people actually debate fork
           | perseverance and I'm always confused what the issue is when
           | you can just have a local copy but somehow that often never
           | gets brought up in those conversations. Its not even about
           | something used in a package manager, they just really had no
           | backup when the default behavior of the git protocol is to
           | have a backup. I'm like "wait did they actually lose
           | something?" so since that seems to be the case, yeah, gotta
           | remind people.
        
           | tomc1985 wrote:
           | "Cloud-native" youth seem to have forgotten a huge chunk of
           | computing
        
             | vmception wrote:
             | Did you see this gem the other day?
             | 
             | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29668260
             | 
             | I'm still not convinced it wasn't a troll thread. Its like
             | its _either_ a troll, or a coding academy class just
             | graduated alongside a bunch of self-starters that made
             | "coding" their pandemic project, where some popular TikTok
             | content creator must be telling people to hang out on
             | hackernews.
        
           | alias_neo wrote:
           | It continues to amaze me that so many people in my profession
           | (software) don't know that Git is "decentralized".
           | 
           | GitHub et al have taken over so ubiquitously that many
           | developers I know have no idea that a bunch of what they do
           | isn't even Git, and a bunch of what they don't do, is.
        
             | jrm4 wrote:
             | Wonder if they pay any attention to who wrote it as well.
             | :)
        
           | jrm4 wrote:
           | Okay, I know I might be breaking some kind of HN rule here,
           | but I'm super genuinely curious as to _why_ the downvotes
           | here. Seriously. Is it  "because people already know and I'm
           | being condescending?" Is it "No, they shouldn't do this and
           | instead allow the code to be censored?" Where are y'all going
           | with this?
        
             | ShamelessC wrote:
             | > Don't want to be (too) condescending
             | 
             | was what did it for me. basically claiming superiority
             | prior to any actual engagement/discussion.
        
               | jrm4 wrote:
               | :) Fair.
        
               | johnisgood wrote:
               | I think it is also fair to expect them to know it without
               | such reminders.
        
         | tyingq wrote:
         | #!/usr/bin/env bash
         | API_URL="https://api.github.com/users/widevinedump/repos"
         | for url in $(curl -s $API_URL | jq -r '.[].html_url')       do
         | echo "Cloning: $url"         git clone $url       done
        
           | vmception wrote:
           | If I wanted to save an important repo, I would run a command
           | like this:
           | 
           | ssh user@rsync.net "git clone --mirror
           | https://github.com/widevindump/Netlix-4K-Script
           | github/2021-12-27-widevindump_Netlix-4K-Script"
           | 
           | ... which works because the 'git' binary is maintained on
           | rsync.net and can be executed over ssh[1].
           | 
           | [1] https://www.rsync.net/resources/howto/git.html
        
           | gavinray wrote:
           | Thanks
        
           | rsync wrote:
           | If I wanted to save an important repo, I would run a command
           | like this:                 ssh user@rsync.net "git clone
           | --mirror https://github.com/widevindump/Netlix-4K-Script
           | github/2021-12-27-widevindump_Netlix-4K-Script"
           | 
           | ... which works because the 'git' binary is maintained on
           | rsync.net and can be executed over ssh[1].
           | 
           | [1] https://www.rsync.net/resources/howto/git.html
        
             | mindslight wrote:
             | I'd delete this comment if I were you. The copyright
             | cartels have ended lives for less.
             | 
             | edit: I tried to keep it simple so that a null-edit would
             | suffice to scrub the comment in question. But since I have
             | to explain - the author runs the service for which they're
             | providing instructions. This creates a straightforward
             | argument that they intend their service to be used for
             | storing forbidden files. Such "contributory infringement"
             | is exactly how the copyright cartels have gone after
             | youtube-dl, Popcorn Time, and many other general tools.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | rsync wrote:
               | Oh, dear god please, _please_ sue us.
               | 
               | The exposure, the name recognition, the PR coup that this
               | would be ... would dwarf every effort we have ever made
               | _in over 20 years_ of trying to publicize our company.
               | 
               | Seriously: If you work for any of these "aggrieved"
               | content providers _and_ if you really want me to buy the
               | Aspen house ten years early, _dear god please sue us_.
        
               | mindslight wrote:
               | And after years of litigation, when your well-paid
               | counsel tells you that you're going to lose and the
               | practical path forward is to sign a settlement agreeing
               | to scan users' files for forbidden ones? IANAA but this
               | does seem to be the basic path that every cloud service
               | gets sucked into.
               | 
               | I wish I were wrong, but I've seen no indication that
               | courts respect digital privacy the way that physical
               | boundaries have come to be respected (eg the US's 4th
               | Amendment) - if you have the ability to do something
               | about possibly forbidden communications, then you will be
               | forced to. Digital privacy rights feel at least a few
               | decades off, and that's assuming the centralizers don't
               | continue to successfully embrace-extend-extinguish.
        
               | vmception wrote:
               | I mirrored it and am not affiliated, so we can now flag
               | their comment for their protection
        
               | loeg wrote:
               | ... what?
        
         | eatbitseveryday wrote:
         | You can fork and detach. Then it is no longer linked.
        
           | bckr wrote:
           | > You can fork and detach.
           | 
           | I wonder if GitHub will volunteer your detached fork for an
           | experiment in touching hard drives with magnets
        
       | sydthrowaway wrote:
       | I've often wondered how easy it would be for people in the scene
       | to rip Netflix or others streaming content. Isn't it as simple as
       | getting the URL of the video player element in the browser and
       | using cURL or wget?
        
         | alibert wrote:
         | I think there is actually no challenge to rip them because
         | everything streamed seems to be almost immediately available
         | for download in the original bitstream format without any
         | recompression (at least for 1080p content).
        
         | saurik wrote:
         | Netflix is not just like <video src="something I could put into
         | VLC">... DRM is often said to be "broken by design" but it is
         | an actual _thing_ you have to defeat, not some lie told to
         | scare you away.
        
         | alt227 wrote:
         | It is, but the resulting files are encrypted. Hence this post
         | being about exposing CDMs (Content Decryption Modules). These
         | use decryption keys obtained through hacking or paying internal
         | staff. Once the decryption keys are exposed like this then the
         | content providers 'burn'; them and generate new ones meaning
         | the process has to start over again.
        
           | ordx wrote:
           | I assume at some point Widevine plugin decrypts these files
           | to display the actual video stream in the browser, correct?
           | Why don't they capture already decrypted stream?
        
             | 323 wrote:
             | It depends. Today there are APIs which allow the actual
             | decryption to be done directly on the GPU, while requesting
             | the GPU to not allow the sharing/capturing of those
             | decrypted images.
        
             | kingcharles wrote:
             | You are technically correct. The stupid thing about DRM is
             | that the player has to download the decryption keys into
             | the RAM of the player. All these players do is try to
             | obfuscate the keys so they can't be accessed very easily.
             | When you see these proper rips out there they are being
             | done by groups who extracted a decryption key from the
             | player and used that to unencrypt the stream.
             | 
             | DRM is dumb. I used to work on DRM. It was dumb then, it's
             | dumb now.
        
             | e3bc54b2 wrote:
             | That's why they now embed displays with verification
             | modules. Basically whole stack from server to your display
             | is a giant chain verifying you are not doing what they
             | don't want you to do.
        
               | GekkePrutser wrote:
               | And see how well it works. 2 hours after airing
               | everything is online. The only ones they're giving any
               | hassle are legitimate consumers.
        
               | malermeister wrote:
               | This is a similar charade to airport security: It doesn't
               | actually do anything but satisfy a bunch of suits and
               | create some pointless jobs around it.
        
               | Scoundreller wrote:
               | Though often they get it wrong, like when I bought a
               | movie off Apple and it errored when I screen mirrored to
               | my dumb TV and it's back to piracy first for me.
        
             | Scoundreller wrote:
             | My thought is that the decryption and decompression are
             | interlinked.
             | 
             | So while it's relatively easy to get the raw stream, if you
             | want to re-distribute it, you'll have to compress it again.
             | 
             | With these leaks, you can get the compressed and decrypted
             | files and re-distribute without any added compression loss.
             | 
             | Maybe I'm wrong, but it's the only thing that makes sense
             | to me.
        
         | 0x0000000 wrote:
         | No, because the video is protected with the Widevine DRM. You
         | can't just curl a resource, you will not get a usable output.
         | 
         | That said, it can't be all too hard as Netflix exclusives are
         | all over the open seas.
        
           | themitigating wrote:
           | There's a software kit distributed in "the scene" that
           | downloads and decrypts Netflix content
        
         | waltbosz wrote:
         | It's not that simple. The video files are chopped up into
         | pieces for streaming, so what you would download (assuming wget
         | would handle the stream) are thousands of tiny files. You could
         | reassemble them with ffmpeg, but first you'd need to decrypt
         | them. It's the encryption that these leaked scripts take care
         | of.
        
       | alufers wrote:
       | Can we just stop the shitshow with DRM? I have NEVER encountered
       | a TV show/movie that I could't rip using a torrent either on
       | public p2p sites or a private tracker.
       | 
       | But I have seen a lot of my non-technical friends and family
       | having a degraded experience, who pay for their streaming
       | services every month. It was either because they were using a
       | browser or device which was deemed unworthy of full quality
       | streaming by the mighty DRM authors. And now the poor users of
       | the TB-X505X will also have a degraded experience.
        
         | carlhjerpe wrote:
         | You're mixing terms up, you don't rip using a torrent or any
         | other p2p protocol. You download things.
         | 
         | You know how Netflix only allows you to stream 1080p in most
         | browsers? That's because they don't support the DRMs content
         | providers use for high-res content.
         | 
         | You'll see webrips all the time with 1080p because someone can
         | just record their screen and call it a day, but the 4k content
         | is harder since the DRM prevents everything on your system from
         | recording it.
         | 
         | Not sure if webrips are screen recordings or actually
         | downloaded copies, but it doesn't really matter.
         | 
         | I have subs for D+ and HBO Max, if they're using DRM I for sure
         | don't notice and don't care about it, I use either the app on
         | my TV or the app on my phone to Chromecast and it's flawless.
         | 
         | While content not on these platforms that I've chosen to
         | subscribe to requires me to go though more hoops to get the
         | same experience.
         | 
         | It's not that the torrent experience is shit, but things like
         | synced subtitles can be hard to find (requirement when watching
         | with most of my friends and family) for example.
         | 
         | I'm part of a quite decent private tracker we'll call "TD" and
         | while I have nothing bad to say about my experience there, I
         | will say the things I pay for work better.
        
           | kiwijamo wrote:
           | > It's not that the torrent experience is shit, but things
           | like synced subtitles can be hard to find (requirement when
           | watching with most of my friends and family) for example.
           | 
           | Try out subdl[1]. It can work out the correct subtitles to
           | download (based on a hash of the movie file apparently) and
           | usually works well for me. I used to do this process manually
           | but since trying out this tool I've been able to rely on it
           | >95% of the time.
           | 
           | Don't assume the subtitles provided by the paid service are
           | good quality. I've on a few occasions been unsatisfied by the
           | subtitles provided by Netflix, and checked out subtitles from
           | other unofficial sources to find these are much better. This
           | is especially true for foreign language subtitles--the
           | translations Netflix has is really poor quality for some
           | shows and much better ones can be found elsewhere. One
           | excellent example of this is the German show 'The Same Sky'
           | which has terrible English subtitles that actually makes the
           | shows unwatchable. The only consistently good thing about
           | Netflix subtitles is that the timing is more or less correct.
           | 
           | Not sure about other streaming service as I don't generally
           | use the others much.
           | 
           | [1]: https://github.com/alexanderwink/subdl
        
             | jorams wrote:
             | It's astonishing how bad Netflix subtitles can be. Random
             | example: the music during the intro of the show Suits is
             | Ima Robot - Greenback Boogie. The English Netflix subtitles
             | show the lyrics for the song, but they are obviously
             | incorrect. Weirder is that they are incorrect in a
             | different way every single season. Seemingly the subtitles
             | were created by a different person every season, each of
             | them starting from scratch, each of them having trouble
             | understanding perfectly clear sentences, and nobody
             | bothered to check anyone's work.
             | 
             | Somehow the pirates get it right from the beginning, and
             | consistently across all seasons.
        
           | alufers wrote:
           | Oh sorry, English is not my native language and I had to
           | rephrase a few times, totally missed that.
           | 
           | >You'll see webrips all the time with 1080p because someone
           | can just record their screen and call it a day.
           | 
           | I've checked my tracker and practically all TV shows from
           | Netflix that are in 4K can be downloaded in 4K. And I am 99%
           | sure they are not screen caps, for example the entire second
           | season of The Witcher was released 17 December at 09:01, and
           | my tracker had it ready to download at 12:26 at 4K with 3
           | audio tracks and 2 subtitle tracks. The runtime of this
           | season on imdb is about 8 hours, so it would be impossible to
           | screencap, which means they had a bypass for the DRM ready
           | ahead of time.
           | 
           | Of course these are just examples that I made up and I would
           | never enter or use such filthy and illegal websites.
           | 
           | And for the mobile and smart TV experience there is Plex. It
           | even has features which aren't possible with the legitimate
           | services, such as "Watch Together" which allows you to watch
           | stuff with friends over the internet.
        
             | carlhjerpe wrote:
             | All good on the English mate, just had to make sure.
             | 
             | Netflix DRM might indeed be broken(I don't know), but I do
             | get the purpose of it. Now only nerds in nerd communities
             | can do illegal stuff in HQ then.
             | 
             | Plex is great indeed, I might sub to a seedbox with shared
             | account and set it up again some day, though I like the
             | thought of using Jellyfin since it's open source.
             | 
             | D+ supports group watch.
             | 
             | I mean, if something is available on a streaming service
             | the experience is good, but torrenting doesn't have to be
             | as bad as it is for me (I don't run servers at home, and I
             | don't want "server software" on my desktop either really).
             | 
             | I just think we shouldn't complain that those who
             | distribute content wants to protect it, even if the
             | protection is subpar.
        
               | Macha wrote:
               | > D+ supports group watch.
               | 
               | Even when the paid service supports it, they can add
               | complications, for example. Amazon Prime group watch
               | doesn't work between my Irish subscription and my
               | friend's UK subscription even when the media is available
               | in both regions.
        
               | carlhjerpe wrote:
               | Does group watch work across plex servers?
               | 
               | I can see why they don't cover this edge case if I'm to
               | be entirely honest.
        
               | alufers wrote:
               | Nope, but it's not a problem since a friend can use his
               | account to log in to yours server.
        
               | Macha wrote:
               | My experience is with jellyfin, but without the
               | complexities of cross region licensing + DRM, there's
               | nothing forcing people in different areas to not use the
               | same server
        
               | carlhjerpe wrote:
               | I mean I figured this would be the answer. But do you
               | think It'd be that easy for someone that really want's to
               | make this work? There are lawyers all over the place with
               | or without DRM. The people who make the content don't
               | want it to be spread across regions the "deliverer"
               | didn't pay for, and then implementing this niche feature
               | isn't worth it for the shows that exist cross region.
               | 
               | What I'm saying is: People want to get paid, and if
               | people don't get paid content doesn't get made. I don't
               | like how this works either, but we must also understand
               | that It's complex for that exact reason: Money.
               | 
               | I'm not saying you're stealing since you're not taking
               | anything from someone (Stealing a bike leaves one less
               | left) but you're also not paying for something someone
               | made for paying customers. As long as we have country
               | borders this will be a problem only overcome by people
               | who feel above the law and copy content illegaly.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | kybernetikos wrote:
         | Recently tried to play a streaming service film on a second
         | screen from my phone, but it wasn't allowed. This makes no
         | sense given that I can do it from my PC in the browser client.
         | But then the PC isn't allowed to download video from the
         | streaming service for offline viewing, while the mobile client
         | is. When I travel, I'm often not allowed to view shows that I
         | watch in my home country on the streaming service, even though
         | I'm using my own account on the same machine.
         | 
         | On top of all that, I worry that at some point one of the major
         | services will arbitrarily cut off my access and any media I've
         | 'purchased' will be lost. In the old days, your household
         | insurance would pay to replace DVDs stolen or lost to a fire. I
         | doubt that household insurance these days covers loss of access
         | to google or amazon prime video, but the monetary value of
         | these libraries could be enormous.
         | 
         | It's all stupid. The big media companies killed the companies
         | offering 'dvd locker' type streaming services, where you
         | legitimately bought and owned the DVDs, but the company allowed
         | you to stream them over the internet. That would have been a
         | nice way of doing it.
         | 
         | I find our descent into a culture where nobody owns anything
         | but everything costs as much or more for temporary access as it
         | did for ownership disappointing. Even people whose ideology
         | praises property rights above almost all else don't seem to
         | mind that they actually have those rights in fewer and fewer
         | things of consequence.
        
         | antihero wrote:
         | It's such a chain - even if a distributer didn't want to use
         | DRM, the buck will stop with a lawyer for the content owners
         | who's job it is to do everything in their power to make sure
         | their clients get paid for the content. Why would one of those
         | make it easier to pirate?
         | 
         | Corporate drone logic man.
        
           | tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
           | Because they can sell more views if paying customers are
           | happy.
           | 
           | I refuse to pay for Netflix because even if paid I wouldn't
           | be able to watch the content (including Netflix originals
           | where the "rightsholders don't allow it" argument doesn't
           | make much sense) in reasonable quality.
           | 
           | Meanwhile, people can watch it from an unlicensed source
           | without paying (legality varies by country but generally low
           | risk for users), and as long as adblock works, the experience
           | really isn't much worse than with Netflix.
        
             | darkwater wrote:
             | I'm all against DRMs but the friction nowadays is, if you
             | stick to one platform, almost zero, way less than your
             | average pirated experience. Now, if we talk about platforms
             | balkanization and how you have to shell out 50EUR-$/month
             | if you want to enjoy just the best content from major
             | platforms, that's another topic.
        
               | midasuni wrote:
               | I agree it's really cheap. I know people spending three
               | times that for some cable tv service which comes with
               | adverts in the middle of programs!
               | 
               | At some point streaming will devolve to that, and it will
               | be back to torrenting as the content providers kill the
               | goose that lays the golden egg
        
         | tomxor wrote:
         | Yeah, I don't know in what world DRM is supposed to stop people
         | ripping stuff, it only seems to hurt paying users, ultimately
         | if it comes out of a screen you can always capture the output,
         | no amount of DRM will ever prevent this so why bother <insert
         | conspiracy vs Hanlon's razor theories here> .
         | 
         | The irony is that as a Linux user (only SD for us), and a user
         | with poor internet and thus shitty streaming speed, DRM pushes
         | me towards torrenting everything I "buy" from these platforms
         | anyway, just for the privileged of being able to watch what i'm
         | paying for without being a blurry over-compressed mess, without
         | having my device rooted by a third party, and not needing to be
         | blessed with a consistent high speed internet connection.
         | 
         | I've said it before, torrenting today is as good as the
         | experience of buying music on a physical medium in the 90s...
         | you bought it, took it home, and played it in fully quality
         | uninterrupted, END OF STORY. streaming services still haven't
         | matched this experience.
        
           | zbuf wrote:
           | > no amount of DRM will ever prevent this so why bother
           | 
           | There is a possible reason: insurance.
           | 
           | Once insurers are involved it drives behaviours in media
           | production that may at first not appear to make sense --
           | protecting content in it's various forms leads into technical
           | constrains however it can just as easily lead into "theatre".
        
           | eadmund wrote:
           | > ultimately if it comes out of a screen you can always
           | capture the output, no amount of DRM will ever prevent this
           | 
           | I think that the end goal for the media companies is to add
           | watermarking to all media and require watermark detection on
           | all video-recording equipment, to include cameras. This would
           | be terribly bad, but I _think_ it is technically possible.
        
             | Scoundreller wrote:
             | Sell them some easily defeatable "solution". Use lots of
             | buzz words. They'll buy it!
             | 
             | They've been buying dreams long enough, may as well be the
             | one that sells it to them.
        
             | tux3 wrote:
             | A practical problem DRM will always have is that the full
             | DRM chain that tries to include everything in the path down
             | to the cables, that involves too many actors not to break.
             | Keys will inevitably leak left and right, and you'll always
             | be able to find some sort of cable and capture card setup
             | that ignores DRM.
             | 
             | About the watermark scheme, if it was standardized for
             | inclusion in any video-recording equipment, then the
             | standard would leak and people would learn how to neuter
             | it. Or people would flash their camera's firmware to patch
             | out the detection code.
             | 
             | There's simply too many places where the scheme cannot be
             | secure, by design. It's hard to stop finding weak points in
             | the DRM scheme.
        
           | derekp7 wrote:
           | The "paying users" is exactly the group that DRM is designed
           | to hurt (control). There is a large class of users that won't
           | mess with torrents or whatever for a number of reasons. Ones
           | that apply to me are 1) I don't want my internet service cut
           | if the ISP gets a complaint, 2) Yes, I know I can use a VPN
           | service to get around (1), but then I'd have to find a
           | trusted VPN and there have been ones in the past that were
           | outed as honey pots. 3) You have to be part of the "scene" to
           | work around (1) and (2). 4) I have some disposable income, so
           | at this point in my life I don't feel a "sting" by paying 5 -
           | 7 bucks a month for a streaming service. I'm sure that for
           | other people, lack of familiarity with how to get content
           | through unauthorized means.
           | 
           | Now for the control that they want over users like me. If I
           | could easily do it, I'd subscribe to one service, grab a
           | bunch of content to watch later, then unsubscribe a month
           | later and go to the next service in line. Also they want to
           | control how I use the media, such as watching offline (by
           | using the "download to watch later" button they provide, they
           | can ensure that I don't download it to all my friends'
           | devices, and that I still am a paying customer at the time I
           | decide to watch later).
        
             | therein wrote:
             | They could achieve the same chilling effect on the "I'll
             | just download it by using a chrome extension" crowd by
             | having simple convoluted scheme in the way they retrieve
             | the data. It isn't unseen, downloading them in chunks even
             | is sufficient to throw these people off. Simple xor with a
             | dynamic key with the decoding work done in WASM for more
             | obscurity to throw the common downloader and reverser off
             | would have the same effect without the intrusion into my
             | computing device.
             | 
             | But it is what it is really. Not really disagreeing with
             | you.
        
           | 5e92cb50239222b wrote:
           | > torrenting today is as good as the experience of buying
           | music on a physical medium in the 90s
           | 
           | You meant to say "it's much better than buying experience has
           | ever been". You throw an RSS feed into your torrent client
           | _once_ and get desktop or email notifications when a new
           | episode is downloaded and ready to play. If there 's enough
           | disk space, you can add whole categories in there and have
           | hundreds of shows available locally at any time.
        
             | nsxwolf wrote:
             | This is not a good experience. I cannot order a box like an
             | Apple TV and just hook it up to my new TV and go. It's
             | never as easy as anyone says it is, there's always more
             | steps involved than logging into iTunes and/or subscribing
             | to some service with my credit card. Plus there's always
             | the chance of a lawsuit hanging over my head.
        
               | y4mi wrote:
               | For a tech illeterare person maybe. using `docker-compose
               | up` to start a preconfigured sonarr, radarr, transmission
               | with VPN , Plex or jellyfin is almost all you need. the
               | only addition is getting a VPN service such as mullvad...
               | If that's too involved for a software developer I'd call
               | that person pretty incompetent, honestly.
        
               | bitexploder wrote:
               | You got downvoted but once setup it really is easy. We
               | have a little VM with deluge and a VPN. Couple little
               | IPTables rules ensure it can't even route traffic except
               | over the VPN interface or the one VPN endpoint, making
               | sure no traffic leaks. I'm more worried I'll stub my toe
               | and it will hurt than my traffic leaks. I showed my wife
               | how to use it, no problem. Sketchy browsing happens with
               | Guacamole and a browser in a (separate) VM that wipes
               | itself every few days.
        
               | meepmorp wrote:
               | > using `docker-compose up` to start a preconfigured
               | sonarr, radarr, transmission with VPN , Plex or jellyfin
               | is almost all you need.
               | 
               | That "almost all you need," is exactly why I'd rather
               | just plug in an Apple TV. I'm not technically
               | incompetent, I just have better things to do with my
               | time.
        
               | simfree wrote:
               | Jellyfin's Syncplay and Roku app work as well, making
               | group video watching easy
        
               | firethief wrote:
               | I have an Android TV and streaming subscriptions. If I
               | want to stream something I have to find out what service
               | carries it, open the right app, and attempt to type the
               | title with the arrow keys on the remote. For me, it's
               | much easier to torrent.
        
             | ALittleLight wrote:
             | Plus, it's free.
        
             | wernercd wrote:
             | Or, you get a small server and download a package... with a
             | little finangaling, you have a service that will catalog
             | shows and movies you want to watch, download them, sort
             | them and push them to your own private "netflix" server ala
             | Plex.
             | 
             | https://github.com/sebgl/htpc-download-box
             | 
             | put it behind a VPN (included) and bam... all your stuff,
             | globally gotten and none of the BS with "Wildvine" and it's
             | ilk.
        
           | majormajor wrote:
           | How do you carry it around?
           | 
           | The torrenting experience IMO is still fairly limited
           | compared to either the BluRay experience for "max quality"
           | viewing at home (but with easy portability of the disc too)
           | or the "play it anywhere you're logged in without being tied
           | to a particular device or hard drive" experience of
           | streaming. When it comes to movies, you can often get both of
           | those with a single purchase, too!
        
             | Retric wrote:
             | BlueRay sucks for portability their quiet fragile needing a
             | case of some sort, you p need a player, and you quickly get
             | to the point of having multiple CD cases worth of disks.
             | Compared to the disks USB drives win, if your talking a
             | player you might as well just take a tablet or laptop with
             | multiple movies, and external drives hold as many movies as
             | those CD cases while being far more convenient.
             | 
             | As far as I am concerned BlueRay loses on all fronts.
        
         | marcodiego wrote:
         | You're mixing up things. DRM goal is not to prevent copies, its
         | goal is to give media producers control over the distributors.
        
           | CorrectHorseBat wrote:
           | Care to elaborate? What are they gaining from that?
        
             | wnevets wrote:
             | I'm assuming the commenter you replied to is talking about
             | the fact legitimate distributors usually follow the law.
             | They're going to pay the large sums of money instead of
             | breaking the DRM.
        
               | mook wrote:
               | But they would be paying the same money without the DRM
               | too; they're paying to be legitimate, regardless of
               | whether the DRM is there.
        
             | marcodiego wrote:
             | Giant media conglomerate says to Big distributor:
             | - Hi distributor! Do you want to distribute our content?
             | You just have to make sure players will have this list of
             | anti-features.
             | 
             | Big distributor says to manufacturer:                 - Hi
             | manufacturer! Do you want to play the content we
             | distrubute? You just have to make sure your TV's will have
             | this list of anti-features.
             | 
             | And here we are.
        
               | monocasa wrote:
               | Yep, like the unskippable ads on legitimate DVDs, where
               | you couldn't be certified if you made a DVD player that
               | let you skip those video files like all the others on the
               | disc, and you couldn't legally make an uncertified player
               | because of the DRM.
        
               | marcodiego wrote:
               | Exactly. Like consuming content from another region,
               | having a personal backup copy of content we legally
               | bought, like re-selling content we legally own, like
               | recording and replaying transmission from
               | "terrestrial"/"over the air" TV, like making our own
               | devices capable of playing that content...
               | 
               | These are all rights that (AFAIK, IANAL) we legally have
               | but can't exercise because media producers took the
               | control over distributors of content and devices
               | manufacturers.
               | 
               | We have nothing equivalent to a VHS recorder where can
               | simply press a button, recording whatever is on TV to a
               | removable media and play it anywhere else! We can't even
               | buy a non-smart (actually calling it smart is dumb) TV
               | for a reasonable price anymore!
               | 
               | Video rental stores are all closed where I live. Media
               | consuming has degraded to before 90's experience.
        
               | genewitch wrote:
               | >We have nothing equivalent to a VHS recorder where can
               | simply press a button, recording whatever is on TV to a
               | removable media and play it anywhere else! We can't even
               | buy a non-smart (actually calling it smart is dumb) TV
               | for a reasonable price anymore!
               | 
               | to the first part, some of the "antenna to HDMI" boxes
               | let you plug in an SSD, and will let you have a
               | "recording loop" like a DVR, and also let you DVR
               | scheduled shows. If you then take that drive and plug it
               | in to a computer, it will have files that open with
               | VLC/mpv/mplayer/whatever.
               | 
               | And to the second part, I used a large monitor as a TV
               | for a long while, and my primary screen is a projector,
               | both of which are just dumb "bits to nits" devices. The
               | downside is having to have external speakers.
        
               | marcodiego wrote:
               | > to the first part, some of the "antenna to HDMI" boxes
               | let you plug in an SSD, and will let you have a
               | "recording loop" like a DVR, and also let you DVR
               | scheduled shows. If you then take that drive and plug it
               | in to a computer, it will have files that open with
               | VLC/mpv/mplayer/whatever.
               | 
               | What you probably will not find is one of these devices
               | with support for netflix. No big name brand offer this
               | feature. Probably not supporting this feature is required
               | to get permission to support netflix.
               | 
               | > And to the second part, I used a large monitor as a TV
               | for a long while, and my primary screen is a projector,
               | both of which are just dumb "bits to nits" devices. The
               | downside is having to have external speakers.
               | 
               | Yes. No "integrated" set. TV's now are locked down
               | computers which take as much control away from the owner
               | as possible.
        
               | CorrectHorseBat wrote:
               | But what are they gaining from that?
        
               | marcodiego wrote:
               | Among other things, they remove competition.
        
               | rolph wrote:
               | i think you have something here.
               | 
               | if DRM is at least stifleing competition, thats antitrust
               | brewing up
        
         | pengaru wrote:
         | > But I have seen a lot of my non-technical friends and family
         | having a degraded experience, who pay for their streaming
         | services every month.
         | 
         | That's a feature, not a bug, from the perspective of those
         | pushing DRM and other access/consumption controls onto
         | consumers.
         | 
         | How many times will someone buy the same content just to find
         | the best combination across all their services and devices to
         | fit their current arrangement? A hell of a lot more than if
         | they just bought a universally playable instance of maximum
         | quality that never gave a poor experience in any viewing
         | context.
         | 
         | It's an ugly, exploitive rent-seeking form of "worse is
         | better".
        
         | arbitrage wrote:
         | Your experience is not important. You've already bought into
         | the ecosystem. DRM allows someone else to make money. Your
         | comfort, or the comfort of like three people you happen to
         | know, neither loses nor gains a capitalist money.
         | 
         | Your discomfort is literally the last thing anyone cares about,
         | and will not make DRM go away.
        
         | remus wrote:
         | Case in point: I can't listen to spotify on my laptop if I've
         | got my external monitors plugged in via USB-C. Not a problem
         | with MP3s of course.
        
           | karmakaze wrote:
           | I've never had this issue. Spotify (on Mac) uses the
           | computer's sound output setting (laptop speakers or monitor),
           | unless you choose another destination with the Spotify
           | 'device' option.
        
             | Nextgrid wrote:
             | Presumably there's something incompatible with how the
             | Spotify client plays audio and how his system handles audio
             | playback. His point still stands though - with MP3s he can
             | use an alternative player, with Spotify he can't.
        
               | midasuni wrote:
               | I use an ncurses Spotify client (I forget what) or a web
               | browser to listen on my computer (normally I do it on the
               | phone and airplay to the required speakers). Never had an
               | issue.
        
               | karmakaze wrote:
               | My problem with Spotify isn't the DRM, since I use it
               | mostly to play either background music or find different
               | things to listen to--like I used to use satellite radio.
               | The problem with Spotify is that the artists (for the
               | most part) get so little while providing the content.
        
               | 323 wrote:
               | > _The problem with Spotify is that the artists (for the
               | most part) get so little while providing the content._
               | 
               | That's because there is too much supply of music.
               | Attention is the scarce thing today.
        
       | marcodiego wrote:
       | I don't care about downloading anything. Does it allow me to
       | watch netflix without the need of proprietary software?
        
         | charcircuit wrote:
         | source available software can still be proprietary
        
           | marcodiego wrote:
           | Can't ffmpeg/gstreamer/whatever just use the keys?
        
             | m3nu wrote:
             | It seems to use ffmpeg and aria2. :-)
             | 
             | So the repo is a bit like youtube-dl in that it puts the
             | pieces together and finds the right links.
             | 
             | https://github.com/widevinedump/WV-
             | AMZN-4K-RIPPER/tree/main/...
        
         | thrwn_frthr_awy wrote:
         | I don't care about downloading anything either. Does it allow
         | me to watch Netflix at the resolution I pay them for?
        
       | unbanned wrote:
       | Dunno who the person linked by that miimoji thing, but I hope
       | they have a good lawyer
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | brutal_chaos_ wrote:
       | https://github.com/widevinedump/NETFLIX-DL-6.0 seems to have just
       | been replaced with https://github.com/widevinedump/NETFLIX-
       | DL-6.1.0
       | 
       | Due to a bad connection the 6.0 clone didn't finish. So,
       | naturally, I tried again and was receiving a login prompt....so I
       | go to the URI in a browser and ... 404. But the 6.1 repo was
       | available...
        
       | widevinedump wrote:
       | An IPFS Mirror of all the repos of the GitHub account.
       | 
       | https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/QmWPo4VqWwrdU3A7fm9Ze3Qm31D...
       | 
       | For example: ``` git clone http://cloudflare-
       | ipfs.com/ipfs/QmWPo4VqWwrdU3A7fm9Ze3Qm31DH... ```
       | 
       | To pin and help seed on your local IPFS node ``` ipfs pin add
       | /ipfs/QmWPo4VqWwrdU3A7fm9Ze3Qm31DHBz4bZPNeFPojS8huSg ```
       | Cloudflare IPFS can be replaced with other ipfs nodes like
       | dweb.link or your local one.
        
       | garblegarble wrote:
       | The repo readme is pretty telling - this is being leaked to force
       | this particular key to be blacklisted, I guess one group annoyed
       | with others and wanting to cut off their access (and presumably
       | the leaking group already has other L1 keys so doesn't fear this
       | key being burned...)
        
         | betterunix2 wrote:
         | There is something amusing about weaponizing the key revocation
         | process like this...
        
           | hatware wrote:
           | Everything about it is fascinating. These people all have day
           | jobs yet they provide a better experience than the multi-
           | trillion dollar corporations that are releasing the product
           | in the first place.
        
             | londons_explore wrote:
             | These people probably all have day school... I think most
             | people who get past school age tend to retire out of this
             | crowd of people...
        
               | hatware wrote:
               | Are you implying that young adults are more responsible
               | for the state of piracy today than adults? I don't see
               | that at all.
        
               | dijit wrote:
               | I feel like I have to defend the parent here. My
               | experience in the nulling/warez/pirating community is
               | that it _tends_ to be young adults doing the majority of
               | the work and mostly they do it for kudos and not monetary
               | benefit.
               | 
               | Adults might be giving them the kudos, but the hard work
               | (again, in my experience) is young adults, of school age.
        
               | hatware wrote:
               | Young adults aren't breaking into streaming devices to
               | extract the CDM keys. They also aren't running trackers
               | like Orpheus and Redacted. Those are small examples, but
               | I'm not sure I understand how young adults would ever
               | have the mobility and network to do these things.
        
               | selfhoster11 wrote:
               | They are. Plenty of them are more than talented enough
               | for it.
        
               | betterunix2 wrote:
               | George Hotz (geohot) was a teenager when he cracked the
               | iPhone and was 20 when he cracked the PS3. So...yes,
               | young adults certainly can extract keys if they have the
               | time and motivation, and being young adults they often
               | have plenty of time on their hands.
        
               | floatingatoll wrote:
               | Er, you may not have been a young adult with l33t
               | hardware hacking skills, but others were.
        
               | rolph wrote:
               | these young adults havent learned the utility and
               | nessecity of anonymity
        
               | monocasa wrote:
               | A lot of them started as young adults, but the scene has
               | been going on for over 20 years. Some people quit over
               | time, and some other joined as they got old enough to
               | contribute, but I wouldn't paint with as wide of a brush
               | as you're doing.
        
               | Commodore63 wrote:
               | It was definitely the case for me! I aged out of warez
               | when I got a full time job.
        
               | jorvi wrote:
               | I think the warez 'golden age' was 1995-2015.
               | 
               | Before that most of the protections were just not that
               | severe (and thus interesting), and after 2015 Steam,
               | Netflix and Spotify severely stemmed the influx of people
               | being exposed to piracy and thus potentially going deeper
               | into the culture.
               | 
               | Tangentially related but I think that's also why in a
               | strange way the advent of the smartphone and other
               | 'curated technological experiences' has lowered computer
               | literacy for the average person born after ~1995.
        
               | Wiseacre wrote:
               | I would just like to point out that this is a forum
               | called Hacker News.
        
         | tyingq wrote:
         | I also noticed it provides part of the functionality with a
         | .pyc file, without including the normal python source. This
         | one, for example: https://github.com/widevinedump/WV-
         | AMZN-4K-RIPPER/blob/main/...
         | 
         | I'd be a little leery of running that outside of a sandbox.
        
         | charcircuit wrote:
         | or they had the skills to just dump it again
         | 
         | Edit: nvm I understood which key you were talking about. I
         | would have replied, but I'm rate limited.
        
           | garblegarble wrote:
           | Ah, I thought L1 keys were burned into hardware, so
           | blacklisting this key was effectively blacklisting a bunch of
           | Lenovo tablets from accessing 4K HDR streaming?
           | 
           | Edit: looks like I'm wrong about this, and the Widevine L1
           | keys can be changed with a firmware update. There's an
           | interesting breakdown of how it works on Qualcomm chips here:
           | http://bits-please.blogspot.com/2016/04/exploring-
           | qualcomms-...
        
             | londons_explore wrote:
             | Does this mean if I have a lenovo tablet that currently
             | streams 4K, that it will lose 4K video support? Could I ask
             | Lenovo for a refund?
        
               | jeroenhd wrote:
               | You should be able to ask Lenovo for a refund if you've
               | bought the device with this feature in mind and if Lenovo
               | advertised the ability to watch 4K on your preferred
               | streaming service.
               | 
               | If the device just happens to support 4k, you may be out
               | of luck. You could try sueing the parties that are
               | supposed to deliver the 4k content and have revoked the
               | key, but I doubt you'll get much out of them.
               | 
               | If you rely on DRM, the media industry has all the keys.
               | You're left to their whims when it comes to content
               | consumption, and there's very little you can do.
        
               | nikanj wrote:
               | Yes and yes. Lenovo probably doesn't give a shit, though.
               | But you can ask!
        
               | Scoundreller wrote:
               | Depends on the country. Some do have some liability on
               | manufacturers and/or vendors for defects. Unsure if an
               | asterisk in their click through contract about key
               | revocation would even matter.
        
               | garblegarble wrote:
               | I would think so (the repo suggests this is a Lenovo
               | TB-X505X key, I'd imagine they're at least per-product).
               | I could certainly be be wrong about L1 keys being burned-
               | in, that was just my understanding of it (vendor docs say
               | things like "Hardware DRM", but maybe I'm jumping to
               | conclusions from marketing speak)
               | 
               | The Widevine spec doesn't say either, it just says that
               | all processing is within the Trusted Execution
               | Environment, so I suppose the keys could be
               | loaded/updated in firmware. I'm looking for more docs
               | now...
               | 
               | Edit: looks like I was wrong and they can be changed with
               | firmware updates: http://bits-
               | please.blogspot.com/2016/04/exploring-qualcomms-...
        
               | alias_neo wrote:
               | TEE is an environment with hardware backed attestation,
               | you run a piece of software in the "black box" to do
               | things like key generation etc.
               | 
               | My educated guess, having used TEE/TrustZone for keys is
               | that they could update the payload (the "Trusted
               | Executable") with a new one to resolve the issue.
        
             | NavinF wrote:
             | Would they release a firmware update with new keys though?
             | If they can't fix the vulnerability, the new keys would get
             | dumped just like the old ones.
        
       | 2Gkashmiri wrote:
       | the videos look interesting but i am on linux and this looks
       | windows only. also, i need some background knowledge to get this
       | working so i could not retry.
       | 
       | a good attempt imo. if i had the time and the necessary technical
       | competency, i would've loved to jump into it. for many years
       | piratebay was my default homepage. now, lookmovie or vumoo gets
       | my occasional streaming fix
        
         | tyingq wrote:
         | I imagine it's windows only because widevine on Linux is
         | crippled for many services, like HBO Max.
        
           | 2Gkashmiri wrote:
           | well if the utility is merely breaking encryption on the url,
           | it shouldn't matter what the host is? right?
        
             | tyingq wrote:
             | Ah, perhaps. I didn't look to see how it works, if it
             | requires the widevine binaries, certificates that come with
             | it, etc.
        
       | wcarss wrote:
       | A pile of .exes and compiled python code like this, especially
       | with such a targeted audience, seems like a great vector to
       | potentially own a lot of people's boxes.
        
         | mehdix wrote:
         | This was my first though as well, but not everything is in
         | compiled form. For example see `bad34.py` in the Paramount-
         | Plus-4k-Downloader repository.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | bogwog wrote:
       | > Hi! My name is WVDUMP. I am Leaking the CDM to burn it & punish
       | few idiots that think themselves as dicord lords :smile:
       | 
       | Why do so many people doing illegal/shady shit online use
       | Discord? You might as well be using Facebook at the point.
        
         | agilob wrote:
         | Before Discord they were using IRC which was printing your IP
         | address (or reverse DNS) when joining a channel.
        
           | kuroguro wrote:
           | IIRC quite a few botnets used to use public IRC channels as
           | C2 servers (also a pretty bad idea).
        
           | bogwog wrote:
           | At least with IRC you can use a VPN and self host a server.
           | 
           | Discord can, and is highly incentivized to, identify and
           | track you across the internet.
           | 
           | Idk if they do this, but it shouldn't be that hard in this
           | day and age to build a profile on users based on messages and
           | activity. That can be cross referenced with other sources of
           | data to identify you, especially if it's done manually by
           | like an FBI agent or whatever.
        
           | LinuxBender wrote:
           | The IRC networks I used did not block VM's and rented servers
           | from proxying my connection or using an IRC client from a
           | tmux/screen session. Back then I could use visa gift cards to
           | rent machines. That is harder to do now.
           | 
           | Discord in most cases will prevent people from doing this.
           | Most people should be ready to click all the crosswalks,
           | buses, traffic lights forever in a loop.
        
         | Strom wrote:
         | > _You might as well be using Facebook at the point._
         | 
         | There is a lot of illegal activity being organized on Facebook
         | too. Especially in non-English. In the short term and at scale,
         | that is as good as encryption.
        
         | NaturalPhallacy wrote:
         | They're also authoritarian and poisonously woke.
        
         | ronsor wrote:
         | They use Discord for illegal stuff because they already use it
         | for tons of other things. Sure it's a bad idea, but they don't
         | care (and with all honesty, Discord support doesn't seem to
         | either).
        
           | BTCOG wrote:
           | Discord - a lack of agreement or harmony
           | 
           | Synonyms for discord
           | 
           | conflict, disaccord, discordance, discordancy, disharmony,
           | dissension (also dissention), dissent, dissidence,
           | dissonance, disunion, disunity, division, friction,
           | infighting, inharmony, schism, strife, variance, war, warfare
           | 
           | Seems pretty fitting? :)
        
       | 323 wrote:
       | Am I correct that homomorphic encryption will solve the DRM
       | problem, in the sense that it will be mathematically proven (in
       | the cryptographic sense) to be impossible to bypass?
       | 
       | Of course, you'll still be able to cam-record the actual output,
       | or steal the image from the TFT/OLED electronics, but no easy
       | bypass.
        
         | smoldesu wrote:
         | The issue is that the image will _always_ exist in a decrypted
         | state if you 're presenting it to the user. You can push that
         | decoder further and further down the pipeline, but there's
         | always a clean framebuffer to rip, no matter how you frame it.
         | Yes, they could make it _harder_ , but I could also design an
         | Arduino that dumps the serial output of your decoder before it
         | reaches the display controller. It would take some borderline
         | space-age technology to design an IC resistant to that sort of
         | vuln.
        
         | unnouinceput wrote:
         | You are wrong. An encryption, any encryption, needs a key for
         | decryption process. If the client is given that key then it can
         | decrypt and rip the content. If the client is not given the key
         | then how will they legally watch it since they paid for the
         | content anyway?
         | 
         | As a rule of thumb, anything that was made by humans can be
         | unmade by humans. All you can do is make the pirate life
         | harder, but never impossible.
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | natdempk wrote:
       | Does anyone know what CDM stands for or refers to? Saw the
       | acronym mentioned in a lot of the repos.
        
         | Tobu wrote:
         | Content decryption module:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encrypted_Media_Extensions
         | 
         | A component that decrypts streams locally, which DRM makers
         | intend will be restricted enough to not leak the keys it uses.
        
           | natdempk wrote:
           | Thanks for the explanation. So it seems like these repos are
           | just scripts to download content and decode it once you have
           | a CDM then? Seems like the actual CDMs here are ripped from
           | devices and not actually included in this leak from a cursory
           | glance.
           | 
           | Edit: Yep this is what is happening, but there is an L1 CDM
           | in the Lenovo repo. I should read the article before jumping
           | in to the comments/code. :)
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | cute_boi wrote:
       | Haha, I chuckled when I saw that bandicam logo.
        
       | BTCOG wrote:
       | We really need real, ownable media. While I understand that even
       | "owning" a disc 20 years ago was considered a license and not
       | ownership, let's call it what it is for these intents and
       | purposes here. I want to own my music, I want to own my movies
       | and I do NOT want to essentially rent them and have them
       | revokable. Same goes with games. I'll continue to pirate the
       | videos and music as I see fit and continue to play emulated N64,
       | PSX, etc games that are full copies of unchanging code. I don't
       | want my collections to need an internet connection. The cloud is
       | a fad that needs to die. I know many here like cloud, but it's a
       | trap. Anyway, just my thoughts. I'll check out these tools if
       | they're still up on the 'hub.
        
       | from wrote:
       | I did one of these for Hulu (https://github.com/chris124567/hulu)
       | a while back. It didn't take very long to write. Most of these
       | programs are just using the pywidevine library along with some
       | key that's been leaked (if you know how to navigate Github search
       | you can find one in a couple of minutes) and then integrating the
       | streaming site's API. I wrote mine in Go because I got sick of
       | the pywidevine hegemony and I felt it was unnecessarily
       | complicated. The annoying thing is that key revocations are
       | happening pretty frequently now. It's another one of those
       | pointless cat and mouse games.
        
       | specialist wrote:
       | I just want to control the viewing experience, not hoard warez.
       | 
       | Effortless rewind, skip filler (car chases, sex), play at x1.25
       | speed, etc.
       | 
       | aka the "Blu-Ray experience".
       | 
       | If that means I gotta bypass the DRM and download, so be it.
       | 
       | --
       | 
       | Some shows have my complete rapt attention. I'll keenly watch
       | (and rewatch) every single frame. Like Netflix's Maniac. OMG. So
       | frikkin good. (So many other examples.)
       | 
       | Other shows, especially rewatching a series, I just want to focus
       | on the character development, dialog, and plot points.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | searine wrote:
         | FYI There is a great chrome extension that allows you to
         | control playback speed, and it works on just about every video
         | site.
        
           | mtsr wrote:
           | Similar extensions exist for Firefox as well.
        
           | JZL003 wrote:
           | On my phone so can't respond fully but if you select the
           | <video> element in chrome and Firefox, you can control the
           | .playbackRate attribute. Extensions can be useful but also
           | abused, this is simple enough to do with a bookmarklet or
           | manually
        
           | specialist wrote:
           | I'm interested. Link? I'll mosdef try it.
           | 
           | For whatever I reason, I have to use Firefox to watch
           | Disney+. (Mac Safari will always eventually ABEND. Shouldn't
           | Apple regression test Safari on the Top X most popular
           | sites?!)
           | 
           | As for spotty rewind, like with Netflix, another comment
           | might have the explanation (root cause); streams are broken
           | into individually encrypted chunks. So of course there's lag
           | (latency) when jumping around the timeline.
        
             | rishimaharaj wrote:
             | This is the one that I use to control video speed pretty
             | much anywhere (works on any Chromium based browsers):
             | [Video Speed Controller](https://chrome.google.com/webstore
             | /detail/video-speed-contro...)
        
         | ramraj07 wrote:
         | Who the hell skips car chases? What movie had a car chase that
         | you wanted to skip that made that movie more watchable (this
         | sentence applies to the furious films as well, skipping the
         | chase scenes there gives you the dumbest drama of all time).
        
           | LinuxBender wrote:
           | I skip most of them. This is just my own personal preference
           | but unless someone comes up with a new angle on this they are
           | just boring and repetitive for me personally. The same goes
           | for most fight scenes. I spent many decades watching martial
           | arts films and now find most of the fight scenes to be
           | repetitive. The only _recent_ exceptions to this I can think
           | of are the Bourne series, Kate and the first John Wick film.
           | Prior to those, Kung Fu Hustle because of the mixed in comedy
           | and thousands of movie references. Nothing else really comes
           | to mind that I wouldn 't skip.
        
             | cdubzzz wrote:
             | Check out Atomic Blonde as well (for good fight scenes).
             | There is a certain style of exhaustion about the fights in
             | that film that I really love. I don't skip fight scenes
             | regularly but I do also find most of them boring as hell
             | and hard to watch (primarily because of excessive cutting).
        
           | odiroot wrote:
           | As a counter example, I watch Bullitt just for the car chase.
        
             | mongol wrote:
             | Yes but is not Bullit the original "car chase" movie?
        
               | odiroot wrote:
               | For a moment I thought The Italian Job (the original one)
               | was first. But you're right, Bullitt is older by a year.
               | 
               | Bullitt was definitely unmatched for a long time.
        
               | cf100clunk wrote:
               | The "Highway Patrol" TV series of the 1950s was a
               | precursor of the car chase genre, as were some notable
               | film noirs that elevated car pursuits as story lines i.e.
               | High Sierra, White Heat. Agreed that Bullitt is
               | exemplary, but don't forget The French Connection, Duel,
               | Easy Rider, Two Lane Blacktop, and Vanishing Point and
               | you have some great car/bike films of Bullitt's era. The
               | hoaxy C'etait un Rendez-vous is likewise great if you
               | don't do the time/distance math.
        
           | boardwaalk wrote:
           | Car chases are often filler like action scenes in general are
           | filler, IMO.
           | 
           | It's not universally true and depends on how consequential
           | the scenes are. If you could flash "<insert fight scene here
           | where X gets the upper hand>" instead and not miss much, I
           | don't want it.
           | 
           | Movies with top, top notch action and/or better integrated
           | action are exceptions. The original Matrix, John Wick movies,
           | Baby Driver, The Italian Job, Mission Impossible, etc.
           | 
           | Superhero movies are usually not (it feels like they paste
           | the drama and the action together in editing and it's
           | dreadful).
           | 
           | > (this sentence applies to the furious films as well,
           | skipping the chase scenes there gives you the dumbest drama
           | of all time)
           | 
           | Well, yes, and I don't watch those movies :d.
           | 
           | (I don't actually skip these car chases, but I do often zone
           | out.)
        
             | 29athrowaway wrote:
             | It is not the fact they are a car chase but their relevance
             | in the story.
             | 
             | Personally when I rewatch the Back to the Future trilogy, I
             | skip much of the car chasing stuff.
        
             | specialist wrote:
             | Yup. Just depends on the telling.
             | 
             | "There are only two types of music. Good music and bad
             | music." -- Duke Ellington.
        
           | tyingq wrote:
           | Imagining "Baby Driver" edited this way.
        
             | specialist wrote:
             | Exceptions to every rule, right? The car chases in Baby
             | Driver are crucial to the story. So good.
        
           | mysterydip wrote:
           | I have sat through some movies _just_ for the car chases.
        
           | orhmeh09 wrote:
           | I think car chases are really boring, so I would. I also
           | don't drive, so maybe car chases appeal more to drivers.
        
           | 29athrowaway wrote:
           | Fast and Furious 1 was a decent film that I enjoyed. I even
           | have watched more than once.
           | 
           | But the sequels are a different story. Those were unnecessary
           | and absurd.
        
             | marcodiego wrote:
             | Meme scenes like "This is Brazil" and "The winner gets me"
             | are icons of absurdity.
        
         | m-p-3 wrote:
         | I have the best possible experience by ripping my own Blu-Rays
         | into my own Plex server, including all the languages, subtitles
         | and commentaries. Easy to use, kids-friendly (no dirty fingers
         | on discs), playable from anywhere, including offline with
         | synced copies, and I don't pay a monthly fee to watch the
         | content I already paid for.
         | 
         | I wouldn't go back to subscription-based services, even if that
         | means I have to wait for a disc release. At least there's a
         | market for used Blu-Rays so I don't have to pay a fortune.
        
           | dijit wrote:
           | Do you have a guide for doing this?
           | 
           | I think I killed my bluray drive but I'd consider buying
           | another one if I can rip decent enough quality movies from
           | them.
        
             | jackson1442 wrote:
             | Use MakeMKV to pull an MKV off the disc, then use Handbrake
             | to compress it to a reasonable size. Relatively easy, just
             | takes a bit.
        
               | eatbitseveryday wrote:
               | I thought blu-ray decoding was not possible. I remember
               | long ago the DVD keys were extracted but it became
               | impossible for blu-ray, except with a modified blu-ray
               | disk drive with an older firmware that enabled this.
        
               | m-p-3 wrote:
               | IRRC they usually roll new master keys periodically,
               | which normally requires a firmware update to get an
               | updated set model-specific decryption keys, which I
               | believe they can blacklist if the drive is compromised.
               | Feel free to correct me on this, I'm a bit rusty on the
               | matter.
               | 
               | I haven't bought new movies lately, but I've been able to
               | rip all the blu-rays I currently own with my old Blu-Ray
               | drive.
        
               | doublepg23 wrote:
               | I bought a "cheap" ($100 at the time) USB3 bluray player
               | and it ripped discs fine - even on Linux. I believe
               | MakeMKV has you install the necessary libraries for
               | decrypting.
        
               | eatbitseveryday wrote:
               | I think I read (on an Amazon review for a specific LG
               | blu-ray product) that updates to the firmware of new
               | devices happened in 2016 and no longer allowed reading 4K
               | commercial films from that medium. I'd have to try and
               | see how to do it today.
        
               | doublepg23 wrote:
               | Assuming it's 1080p not UHD I'll often keep the MKV with
               | how cheap storage is.
        
               | jackson1442 wrote:
               | I _think_ you can rip it to a 4K UHD mp4 but it's been a
               | while since I've done this. Tricky part is really
               | compatibility, not sure if some of the apps I use to
               | stream from NAS support MKV.
        
               | m-p-3 wrote:
               | You can skip the MakeMKV part and directly encode through
               | Handbrake if you add the required libraries (libaacs,
               | libbdplus) in your Handbrake install directory and grab
               | decryption key database (which I won't link here). You
               | can do the same with commercial DVDs and the libdvdcss
               | library.
               | 
               | Then it's just a matter of opening the disc directly in
               | Handbrake.
        
               | MattPalmer1086 wrote:
               | I've found MakeMKV to be much more reliable than
               | Handbrake for ripping.
        
               | m-p-3 wrote:
               | In my case I could never get MakeMKV to recognizey blu-
               | ray drive, even when running the program with admin
               | privileges.
               | 
               | And why run MakeMKV then run the MKV in HandBrake if I'm
               | going to transcode it to x265 anyway. At this point I'll
               | do both at once.
        
         | dijit wrote:
         | > aka the "Blu-Ray experience"
         | 
         | Have you actually used blu-ray or are you thinking about DVDs
         | (and Blu-rays are a natural evolution in your mind?)
         | 
         | Because, honestly, Blu-rays are atrocious.
         | 
         | Every so often I actually buy a BluRay, not only to support the
         | work but also because in the case of losing internet (but not
         | power) I'd like to watch a small selection of carefully curated
         | movies.
         | 
         | I was in such a position 2 years ago, I had moved home and the
         | internet had not yet been installed.
         | 
         | Did you know that in order to play blurays on the Playstation 4
         | (a Sony product, where Sony is also the maker of the BluRay
         | spec _and_ it was even a Sony movie!) that the device must be
         | connected to the internet to play bluray 's?? I didn't.. that
         | was a shock.
         | 
         | So I took to Linux, which... just couldn't play it...
         | 
         | Why?
         | 
         | The DRM keys could not be installed along with VLC (or
         | something), after googling for half a day on my phones 4G to
         | figure it out I ended up not significantly wiser and realised
         | I'd been hoarding a bunch of useless plastic.
        
           | specialist wrote:
           | Busted. I conflated the two. Apart from the FBI warning and
           | goofy one-off menus, I mostly loved DVDs.
        
           | pm215 wrote:
           | Thanks for the heads-up about ps4 bluray playing. Apparently
           | (assuming reddit posts to be correct) the internet
           | requirement is a one-time thing where it downloads codecs,
           | and Sony is supposedly doing it this way so they only pay the
           | codec licensing fee for ps4s whose owners ever actually play
           | a bluray rather than for ever ps4 ever shipped. So I'll make
           | sure to do a test bluray play and then fingers crossed if I
           | want to watch something in future when the internet is out it
           | will work...
        
             | Fnoord wrote:
             | Then half a day time could've been saved by having the PS4
             | briefly connected to the internet via 4G.
        
             | fishtacos wrote:
             | Memory isn't quite what it used to be, but if I recall,
             | this was also the case with the Sony PSP, Vita, PS3 and
             | XBOX 360. They all required a separate activation step for
             | playback of specific licensed codecs (I believe it was both
             | MPEG2 and h264, varying with system).
             | 
             | Unfortunate that a pretty basic piece of functionality is
             | forever lost once the activation servers are taken down.
        
           | salamandersauce wrote:
           | Want something worse? Blu-ray constantly changes the keys as
           | they get cracked/over time. If you don't have new keys you
           | can't play new discs. Our first Blu-ray player stopped
           | getting firmware updates and so stopped getting new codes.
           | Became basically junk as who wants a Blu-ray player where it
           | only can play films released pre-2012?
        
             | charwalker wrote:
             | That's probably why the PS4 needs internet, fresh
             | keys/updates fetched when launching the disk.
        
         | sergiotapia wrote:
         | You might like vidangel, never used them though.
         | 
         | https://www.vidangel.com/
        
       | peanut_worm wrote:
       | Can't you just record the screen or is there something preventing
       | it?
        
         | collegeburner wrote:
         | Yes, HDCP is supposed to prevent though it is easily bypassed.
        
           | tyingq wrote:
           | I remember seeing an article showing that many (not all) of
           | the HDMI splitters on AliExpress just disable the HDCP with
           | no hacking required.
        
         | tjoff wrote:
         | The DRM (tries to) prevent it.
         | 
         | You can also record the HDMI signal, which HDCP is supposed to
         | guard against. But it was cracked even before it was being
         | used/enforced. So now it only serves to create incompatibility
         | issues and bugs for paying users. Even though it has been
         | irrelevant for more than a decade.
         | 
         | I guess the reason for why it still exist is because it
         | prevents/hinders legal products to circumvent it, since that is
         | against the law in many jurisdictions.
         | 
         | Anyway, the downside of both solutions is that you have to re-
         | encode the video, which will never be as good as the original
         | source you get directly from streaming it. Though I'd imagine
         | the difference is quite negligible. More effort though!
        
           | phreack wrote:
           | > So now it only serves to create incompatibility issues and
           | bugs for paying users. Even though it has been irrelevant for
           | more than a decade.
           | 
           | Hey that's me! Every time I open a website that has DRM to
           | the max like Spotify or Netflix, my second monitor goes black
           | for like 10 seconds. Fun times.
        
             | reaperducer wrote:
             | Every now and then, my AppleTV will display a message
             | stating that it can't play my home videos of my cat to my
             | TV because the TV doesn't respect copy protection.
             | 
             | I just restart the AppleTV and everything works again. I
             | don't know what causes it, but it's been going on for at
             | least five years across multiple AppleTVs, two televisions
             | (Samsung and LG), and OS updates. But it persists, just
             | like the AppleTV bug that kills all audio if I turn off the
             | TV without turning off the AppleTV first. Again, the
             | solution is to restart the AppleTV.
        
           | tomc1985 wrote:
           | > Though I'd imagine the difference is quite negligible. More
           | effort though!
           | 
           | Depending on your settings it's pretty visible. You'd need to
           | reencode at a significantly higher bitrate to minimize
           | quality loss
        
         | nmkd wrote:
         | Screen recording introduces generation loss.
         | 
         | This method grabs the untouched video stream.
        
         | no_time wrote:
         | Your own hardware could in theory, watermark the output from
         | the secure element. By ripping the original stream you get
         | superior quality and no watermark. As long as it's not
         | economically viable to serve every user a unique version of the
         | stream of course.
        
         | ocdtrekkie wrote:
         | That's what Widevine prevents: It ensures the decrypted video
         | is only available to proprietary devices and software which
         | agree not to help you rip the video.
        
           | lapinot wrote:
           | At the end of the day you can always record the video buffer
           | in some way or another (hdmi capture device, etc). The
           | problem is that screen recording isn't what you want: it's
           | lossy because you'll re-encode the output of a lossy encoding
           | (at comparable level). You always want an ultra high quality
           | source for encoding (in comparison with your target quality),
           | else you'll amplify artifacts. To not deteriorate the
           | perceptual quality you'll have to do little lossy compression
           | (ie big file size, much bigger than the original encode).
        
             | ocdtrekkie wrote:
             | > At the end of the day you can always record the video
             | buffer in some way or another (hdmi capture device, etc).
             | 
             | You actually cannot without an HDCP decryptor, which tends
             | not to be sold in a lot of countries since it's primarily
             | used illegally.
             | 
             | The idea with encrypted video such as Widevine, is that any
             | time it passes over an unapproved device (such as an HDMI
             | cable), it is encrypted on it's way to a device authorized
             | to decrypt the signal.
             | 
             | Also, HDMI is a digital format, and you lose nothing in
             | transfer over it.
        
               | sdflhasjd wrote:
               | > You actually cannot without an HDCP decryptor, which
               | tends not to be sold in a lot of countries since it's
               | primarily used illegally.
               | 
               | They are trivially easy to buy online though
        
           | danuker wrote:
           | And this is why I do not pay any company engaging in DRM.
        
       | londons_explore wrote:
       | So this repo contains keys that are soon to be blacklisted, but
       | for $150 you can subscribe to the leakers API which presumably
       | has other keys and will decrypt one movie at a time for you.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2021-12-27 23:01 UTC)