Blu-ray's advanced BD+ content protection system specifications complete
Back in April we reported that the Blu-ray Disc Association was keen to roll out its advanced BD Plus content protection system. Now, BD+ Technologies LLC, the company creating this additional copy protection system, has announced that the specification is complete.
Released documents include the BD+ system design, key management rules, the System Content Participation Agreement, and the System Adopter Agreement. The BD+ Key Issuing Centre is not available, meaning that content providers can now start releasing Blu-ray discs complete with BD+ protection.
The theory is that the current line of Blu-ray players should support this BD+ protection, but then given the BD-J issues, I wouldn't be surprised to see some problems.
BD+ offers a second level of protection, above AACS, and so should boost a Blu-ray disc's protection. It works by running a small 'virtual machine' on the Blu-ray player whenever a disc is inserted. Each disc has its own section of code, which can perform a number of functions, such as transforming and correcting deliberately corrupted video data, and providing countermeasures such as checking whether a standalone player has been hacked.
Once the Blu-ray disc is removed from the player, the virtual machine unloads from memory, returning the player to its initial state.
It's still not totally crack-proof, of course, but the BDA reckons that it'd take hackers a lot longer to reverse-engineer the virtual machine, even if they have the AACS keys.
(Via ArsTechnica)
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