From Doug Burbidge
In Technofile
(22 January, p 13), you say that the DVD Content Scrambling
System (CSS) is “designed to stop people making multiple copies of DVD-Audio
discs and DVD movies”. This is not in fact the case. It is quite possible to
copy a DVD without understanding or breaking the CSS, and indeed this is being
done en masse in South-East Asia.
What the reverse engineering of the CSS allows is for anyone anywhere to
create DVDs that can be played on any DVD player, regardless of the zone.
Imagine you have a piece of paper, with a coded message on it. You can easily
copy the piece of paper (and the message), using a photocopier. But copying has
nothing whatsoever to do with decryption.
Further, imagine that these pieces of paper with coded messages were your DVD
collection. A DVD player has to be able to decode the message to play the
movie.
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If you want to be able to build your own DVD player, your player has to be
able to decrypt the code, just like existing players. Decoding is necessary for
playing; it’s not necessary for copying.
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