Are Gemstar eBooks Crackable? 13
igaborf writes: "Last night on C-SPAN's BookTV (the only thing on TV Sunday nights worth watching other than The Simpsons -- sorry X-Files fans), Henry Yuen, chairman and CEO of Gemstar-TV Guide was touting the Gemstar eBook. In particular, he was telling the audience of publishers about the strong copy protection the product provides. But how strong is it? Briefly, each eBook reader unit has a unique embedded encryption key. When the reader is used to download a book, the book is sent in encrypted form and the key needed to decrypt the book is itself encrypted with the unit's own key. Clearly, if the decrypted book-encryption key is divulged and shared, copying the book would be fairly straightforward (albeit a violation of the DMCA). Of course, the decrypted book text itself could be shared. Their belief that neither scenario is likely seems to rest on the fact that the eBook is a closed system. I dunno, this doesn't seem like a particularly hard crack. Comments?"
Not arguably, =absolutely= legal (Score:1)
The latter is absolutely legal: it's called the First-Sale Doctrine, and means that once the copyright-holder has sold the copy (hence, the ``first sale''), the purchaser can do anything she pleases with it, except copy it (hence, ``copyright'' :-). This article [findarticles.com] talks about it in an amusing sidelight, but includes an excellent point:
Sell it, burn it, fly it from a flagpole, it's yours now.
It's hardly a closed system (Score:1)
Re:Not quite like music (Score:1)
Music: If anyone wanted to spend the hour it would take per CD, it would be much easier to attach an analog tape recorder to the CD-palyer's line out connectors and make a copy. But the end result is not quite the same thing in either the book or music case.
The same book is available in other forms.
True at present, but there's no assurance that will always be true of all titles. If the eBook technolgy becomes pervasive we'll no doubt see some low-volume titles released in eBook-only format. (Yuen predicts dramatic price reductions and technology improvements over the next year and a half, based in part on bistable plastic LCD technology that is presently under development.)
Re:Isn't this a defeatist question? (Score:1)
Because I work for a publisher and am interested in the potential of the technology for our titles.
Of what benefit is it to make the publishers paranoid by continually telling them that their efforts to create eBooks are still crackable?
Even paranoids have real enemies. :-)
I don't know whether they use symmetric... or asymmetric
In this case I don't think it matters. If you know the encryption key used by a particular device, you know all you need to know to send data to that device.
Re:Isn't this a defeatist question? (Score:1)
My problem with the entire model is that, unlike a paperback book, you're dependant on the eBooks infrastructure to be able to use it (not day to day, but for new books, replacements, etc).
Once I buy a paperback book, it requires no other support to keep using it. With eBooks, what happens if you damage your unit? How do you replace the books you've already bought, and prove that you bought them? What happens when, like all other technology, this becomes obsolete, or RCA/Nuvomedia servers are no longer available? How long do they plan to keep supporting this product?
Some of these questions are speculative, others because I don't know how the complete eBooks model works. I *do* know that I have been burned by buying CAD software that required a key from the company whenever you reinstalled it. I lost a machine a few years ago, and the software company was no longer in business. Because of the security scheme they used, backing up the HD wasn't sufficient (they wrote to unallocated sectors, and also used the volume serial number).
Now, I make sure that *whatever* software I buy can be reinstalled, and doesn't require a remote server or customer service contact to be able to use it. Dongles are also unacceptable, since they can be blown, and not be replaceable. As far as operating obsolence, I keep all versions of OSs I need to support a product.
So how does the eBook model work, with regards to these kind of things?
--jcwren
Re:Not quite like music (Score:1)
The "simple fact" is that that's a wildly inaccurate assumption on your part. People are doing exactly that right now. To scan, OCR, and proof an average novel takes days for "professionals" and even longer for an amateur who doesn't want to destroy his book. Weeks for a quality job. It's often a distributed effort. A couple people scan the book, usually by cutting the spine and scanning it with an ADF. Then it's distributed amongst other volunteers who proofread and correct it.
The reason E-Book technology will stay unhacked for as long as it does is lack of incentive for anyone to spend the effort of hacking it.
There'll be plenty of incentive eventually. The "book warez" groups are picking up steam. The lack of incentive at the moment is that most books are available in hard copy already so the encryption isn't making anything unavailable. Once regular, exclusively electronic publishing becomes a reality, expect a concerted effort to break the schemes.
The incentive to hack will also be reduced by the fact that most people still seem to prefer to have a real-live book in front of them when they read, than be staring at a computer screen, even if it's a TFT screen on an electronic book.
The exact opposite provides a lot of the incentive right now. Very popular right now are reference manuals. Especially large, expensive programming/technical manuals. You're right that people prefer to read novels in hard copy, but they also would rather have their references electronically for ease of use (indexing/searching, availability anywhere they do work, etc).
yes (Score:1)
Does anyody know how? I don't know.
How long will it take for people to crack? That depends on if they hired the
Leknor
Easier to crack than to use the EULA? (Score:1)
It actually looks (based on their claims) like a half decent scheme, but they seem to be keener to pan PDA's than to promote their own security. I suppose it'll come down to whether anyone can be bothered putting in the effort to crack it.
A related issue is that I can't find mentioned anywhere on their site how the purchasing/licensing works. In all jurisdictions that I know of, when you buy a paper book, you purchase a transferable license tied to the medium. You sell the book, you sell the license. With an eBook, what are you buying, what do you actually own, for how long, and what can you do with it?
Do you own the data? And is it both the encrypted and unencrypted forms? Can you re-sell the data, and if so, how? Or is it (more likely) just a personal license to view the data? Can you lend your eBook (and licenses) to a friend to read? Can you rent or sell an eBook if it has data on it? Do the licenses expire ("leasences")?
Picture this EULA inside a paper book: "You may not sell or lend this book. You may place it in a bookshelf, but may not sell it as part of a bookshelf. Ownership of this book remains with OmniGlobalHyperMegaCorp Publishing Inc., breach of these terms may result in this book being seized." Hmmm.
yes (Score:2)
of course.
How?
try a 6 foot drop onto concrete.
um, oh you probably didn't mean like that.
sorry.
Isn't this a defeatist question? (Score:2)
I don't think it's appropriate here to argue "white hat hacking". Is it your intent to look for holes in the device's security so that they can be patched? Or rather are you just trying to scare the publishers so that they don't put any security on their books at all?
By the way, here's how the system works - you register your book and get back a userID. When you buy a book from powells.com, for example, they ask for that userID. Presumably they then go lookup your key on the RCA/Nuvomedia servers. I don't know whether they use symmetric (in which case just learning that key would be fine) or asymmetric (in which case that would be the public key and your private key stays on your device). Seems like the latter would be a bit more secure. There are free download places that don't encrypt their stuff, and at least one place makes you buy the stuff but never asks for your userID.
There is a weakness in the model. Once I've bought a paperback, I can loan it to someone, or flat out resell it (although the latter is arguably legal). The idea being that once I shell out the money it should be mine to do whatever I want. eBooks do change this -- once I've bought a book it has to go on that device, and that's it.
I don't know anything about crypto (Score:2)
Unlike music, you should be able to get an exact copy of what the output should be (unless the display is like a pdf, instead of just parsing the raw text).
Again, I'm no crypto expert, but, as they say in math, given the above, the proof is obvious (or, I think should be, given the amount of data you have to work with.)
The real question about e-books (and the reason my mother rarely uses hers) is why does it cost so much more for an e-book than a hardcover? It's much more likely that I will loan my hardcover novel to 5 people than it is to send them a copy of an e-book. (Similar to e-music: why spend $3 a piece for a single, when I can spend $12 or so for the CD and have a transferrable medium?)
Not quite like music (Score:2)
The process would be made even faster with an auto-sheet feeder.
The reason E-Book technology will stay unhacked for as long as it does is lack of incentive for anyone to spend the effort of hacking it.
It's not like DeCSS, where some organization tells people they can read books, but only using their reader. The same book is available in other forms. Also, online books are popular with a slightly different demographic than online music... there's some overlap but reading a book is usually a slightly more cerebrally demanding task than listening to music.
But this no-doubt will be hacked eventually, because some hackers out there will take it as a challenge when the backers of the technology say "this is hack-proof" to hack it. They may even do it just for fun, or because, as they say "it's there".
The incentive to hack will also be reduced by the fact that most people still seem to prefer to have a real-live book in front of them when they read, than be staring at a computer screen, even if it's a TFT screen on an electronic book.
But if anyone knows where I can get a copy of the sub-ethernet driven Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I'd love to know! (I don't mean the book by Douglas Adams, I mean the Guide refered to in the book by Adams, of the same name. :)
-Cesium
Answers (Score:4)
The answer is an unqualified, unhesitant yes, it is. This shouldn't be a surprise, because any ebook on the market is crackable. The current state of the art in computer security allows two people, each of whom trusts the other to communicate in good faith, to communicate securely.
If Alice and Bob want to talk privately, and Alice and Bob trust each other to respect the privacy of the conversation, there are wonderful tools (IPsec, OpenPGP, etc.) to facilitate secure communications. But if Alice and Bob don't trust each other to respect the privacy of the communication, there's no technology that will help. (Example: Alice suspects Bob is a shill for the NSA. Alice PGP-encrypts all of her emails to Bob. PGP won't help, though, because Bob will just decrypt the traffic and hand the plaintext to Fort Meade.)
The good-faith assumption is at the heart of most cryptographic protocols nowadays. As soon as that goes away, so does security. Now, if you're selling ebooks, can you really possess any certainty that all the people who buy ebooks from you have proper, lawful motives at heart? Apparently not, because then you wouldn't need security, right? But if you can't trust your customers, what sort of security can you reasonably expect? -- These questions are equal parts rhetorical and realistic. There are no good, pat answers to them.
Given the DMCA's anticircumvention standards, I do not feel the political climate is safe to give specifics. (If any Congressional aides are reading this, take note of the chilling effect the DMCA has on frank discussion of technological issues.)
If the signal gets sent to the PC screen at some point, that signal can be intercepted. Step through each page of the ebook, take a screenshot of each page, then run it through OCR to translate it into ASCII. Presto: you've stripped all watermarks from the book. There are some countermeasures, though--DVD decoder cards bypass the OS screen-drawing routines completely to render directly to the screen, precisely so that people can't take screenshots of DVD movies as they're being played.
It's really not very hard to do this. A computer program tends to possess very little real entropy. If you find a 16-byte block in a computer program which passes every statistical test for randomness, it's a decent bet that you've found a 128-bit key. Similar statistical analysis can find likely asymmetric keys. Once you've located likely places for the keys to be stored, it's pretty simple to pull the keys out.
Once you reverse-engineer the reader, there typically no longer exists any security anywhere in the system. Reverse-engineering a Kerberos client doesn't get you very far in cracking Kerberos, because Kerberos access is controlled at the server level; but since nobody wants to connect their Palm Pilot to the Net every time they want to read Alice in Wonderland, ebook access is controlled at the client level. Reverse-engineering a client thus gives you control of the security mechanisms.
Last year there were several ebook companies who were encrypting their text using severely broken cryptosystems. A 1024-bit RSA key provides no security when it's coupled with a 40-bit Blowfish implementation. 3DES provides minimal security when it's coupled with 512-bit RSA.
The most critical problem with ebook security is that the security precautions must protect the content for the entire duration of copyright--which, at this point, is darn near eternal. Last year, one of our competitors (which was using a 40-bit key) announced that they were making their cipher "over sixteen million times more secure" by switching to a 64-bit key. Well, gee. Given Moore's Law, that means in twenty years 64 bits will be as easy to break as 40 bits today--hardly a good forward-looking security strategy.
If anyone wants to talk to me further about this, feel free to email me. That's what my address is up there for.