Hacker News Reader

asherlangtonon Anonabox Analysis

The "acquisition" is rather questionable: https://twitter.com/asherlangton/status/575768324757266432 https://twitter.com/asherlangton/status/583509322946125824

asherlangtonon Anonabox Analysis

I should clarify: I don't think they're adding backdoors maliciously. It's their conduct -- proceeding despite the concerns raised, attacking critics, etc. -- that is greedy and malicious.

asherlangtonon Anonabox Analysis

Considering that their Kickstarter was shut down 6 months ago due to their lies, and that they started up again at Indiegogo despite the warnings, and that they've been concealing information and attacking their critics through sockpuppets? Yes, I think it's fair at this point to call them malicious.

asherlangtonon Anonabox Analysis

Yeah, and the remote root shell with password "admin"?

asherlangtonon Is “genius” hacker Walter O'Brien a fraud?

Ah, I see what you're saying. Fair enough.

asherlangtonon Is “genius” hacker Walter O'Brien a fraud?

The subject, sure, but the author? Why?

asherlangtonon Leaping Brain's "Virtually Uncrackable" DRM is just an XOR with "RANDOM_STRING"

The CEO of Leaping Brain (or someone pretending to be him) has now joined the Google Plus thread, implying that the "DRM" was intended as satire...

asherlangtonon Leaping Brain's "Virtually Uncrackable" DRM is just an XOR with "RANDOM_STRING"

Or just (unintentional) truth in marketing...

asherlangtonon Leaping Brain's "Virtually Uncrackable" DRM is just an XOR with "RANDOM_STRING"

Once I had both versions of the files, I looked at them in a hex editor. Since there were some null bytes at the beginning of the video file, it wasn't hard to guess the string they were using. I'm not going to post the file themselves (for obvious reasons), but here's the first 16 bytes of the unencrypted and encrypted files (in hex and ascii, from xxd). Unencrypted:

0000000: 0000 0020 6674 7970 7174 2020 2005 0300 ... ftypqt ...

Encrypted:

0000000: 5241 4e64 2939 2623 2526 696e 6705 0300 RANd)9&#%&ing...

asherlangtonon Leaping Brain's "Virtually Uncrackable" DRM is just an XOR with "RANDOM_STRING"

You're right, actually. I'm glad it's broken, because it's a lot easier for me to watch the videos I purchased without the DRM. I was just struck by the audacity of their marketing claims.

asherlangtonon Leaping Brain's "Virtually Uncrackable" DRM is just an XOR with "RANDOM_STRING"

The wrapper script is GPL'd, so I copied it here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15447644/brainplayer_py.txt

My modifications are on lines 553-556. The compiled app "fixes" the .mov file just long enough for it to be loaded into the player. If you have Leaping Brain's player installed (often branded with the content owner's name), the .mov files are in a hidden .media folder. On my Mac, they were in $HOME/Library/Application Support/LeapingBrain/catalog/$VIDEONAME/.media