DVD Jon (briefly) on AACS

For those not paying extremely close attention to the ridiculous cloud of minutiae surrounding the two competing next-gen optical disc formats, HD DVD and Blu-ray, both formats have (over)duly and dutifully replaced DVD's aging copy "protection" technology, CSS, with a number of anti-piracy countermeasures, AACS being the most notable. So what does "DVD" Jon Johansen (the Scandi-man who cracked CSS) have to say about it?

AACS, like CSS, will be a success. Not at preventing piracy. That’s not the primary objective of any DRM system. Anyone who has read the CSS license agreement knows that the primary objective is to control the market for players. Don’t you just love when your DVD player tells you “This operation is prohibited” when you try to skip the intro?

True that, Jon. Oh, and did we mention he registered deaacs.com as his followup? Ya damn right he did (though there's nothing there yet, of course). Stay tuned, everybody, this could get interesting sooner than later.

[Via eHomeUpgrade]

[fagnuts @ Jan 13th 2006 9:37AM]

Bit off topic, but when was the last time this guy got laid?

[dmek @ Jan 13th 2006 9:39AM]

If I was a woman, I would have his babies.

[Nick @ Jan 13th 2006 10:02AM]

Post 1, that's messed up dude.



But, I will worship him as my new god. Can anyone really imagine what the world would be like if no one had ever broken CSS? What a dull world we would live in...

[Thor @ Jan 13th 2006 10:20AM]

Well seeing as even Stephen Hawkings is married he shouldn�t have any problem wooing all the female nerds :) :P

[Dave @ Jan 13th 2006 10:47AM]

I don't know whether he gets laid or not--but the guy's a hero.

[Mr. B @ Jan 13th 2006 11:24AM]

Who's the man?

[ChillyWilly @ Jan 13th 2006 11:35AM]

DVD Jon... this guy knows his stuff.



Now I hope he has time while cracking ACSS to help us "reasonably" use iTunes 6 downloaded songs It's the main reason I'm still at iTunes 5.

[Andrew @ Jan 13th 2006 12:20PM]

He's using a CRT... that's so 90's.

[Nick @ Jan 13th 2006 12:39PM]

Wow. that is one ugly lookin' fella.

[Paranoised @ Jan 13th 2006 12:52PM]

Kudos to DVD John!



AACS decryption is gonna be interesting...

[ez @ Jan 13th 2006 12:58PM]

He's one of the guys on "Beauty and the Geek", right? Not the one who solved a Rubik's cube behind his back, though. That guy was cool!

[jnasato @ Jan 13th 2006 2:05PM]

So that is the face of an international hero... I would've never guessed it, had I seen him walking down the street.

[formfactor @ Jan 13th 2006 2:52PM]

hey #1 I would like to ask the same question to you!



Judging by your name youll pronbaably say something like last night... but I mean by the OPPISITE sex.... its easy to get laid when your gay... much harder when your hetero.





Yo Jon! Yoour my hero man! You keep up the great work!

[Roger @ Jan 13th 2006 5:15PM]

I'm starting the "Buy DVD Jon a REAL computer" fund. What do you guys say? He's got like a 14" VGA CRT and beige components. I say we chip and build him a rig worthy of his reputation. I'm sure we can get some corporate sponsorships.

[Ciber @ Jan 13th 2006 7:01PM]

LOL @#14.



I'll gladly donate to that fund.

[hk @ Jan 13th 2006 7:21PM]

wow those new hd dvd things are huge! its like, bigger than his face. and the monitor!



but seriously, preventing piracy is like preventing terrorism, big money for the ppl who claim to do the job.. and yet we live with pirates, and we live in terror. we're just a bunch of suckas aint we?

[Contribunator @ Jan 13th 2006 11:52PM]

DVD John does have donations set up:



http://nanocrew.net/donations/



I contributed last month, I urge you to do the same.

[Antonio Cardenas @ Jan 14th 2006 1:42AM]

He looks like Tony Hawk with glasses.



PD: He also is a hero :D.

[gargleroadside @ Jan 14th 2006 9:00AM]

There's no doubt about it -



this geek is GOD!

[M_Mickey @ Jan 14th 2006 5:04PM]

Thats an old picture from the css-battle.

He is now working on this: www.mp3tunes.com for Micahel Robertson.



At the moment its a very buggy and unstable service, so i sugest he use his magic to save this miserable piece of crap first. And its tied to itunes at the moment...



When its done its suposed to have an open APIs into the system.



Lets hope he can do a better job on AACS decryption.

[King Bigos @ Jan 16th 2006 2:38AM]

I wanna kick his ass so bad cause he looks like a retard in that picture.

[ozseaeagle @ Jan 18th 2006 11:15AM]

Nerd or not, and I prefer not to get too personal about people (especially superstars!?!?) DVD John cetainly did all right by us all. Unfortunately his task in cracking CSS was not terribly difficult and I will be surprised if he (or anybody else for that matter) manages to perform a similar feat on AACS (without insider help of course). For that reason alone expect to see the old technology linger for some considerable time yet.

[Chris Steele @ Jan 20th 2007 5:08PM]

Wait a Second, this Man's Appearance, Sexuality, Sex Life, is none of anyone's damn business. People Grow up and ask intelligent questions. How would you like it if you cracked AACS, and instead people praising you, you got berated with irrelevant comments.