

Google blocks movie service on rooted Android devices - d0ne
http://www.google.com/support/androidmarket/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1306490&topic=1100171

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Relwal
Here's what I believe is going on:

Honeycomb adds a framework to support DRM plugins. Android 3.1 adds an actual
implementation of a DRM plugin called Widevine (acquired by Google in Dec.
2010). Android 3.1 also supports HDCP. The DRM plugin is technically not built
into Android; it's a modular add-on. The interface to the DRM plugins is part
of Android.

In order for DRM and HDCP to actually work the DRM system has to validate that
the system can be trusted. (That's all that DRM does.) If the system is
rooted, apparently the DRM system can not validly claim that the system can be
trusted.

Google's YouTube Movie Rental service that's part of the Android Market on
Android 3.1 apparently relies on the DRM system to validate that the system
can be trusted. (This condition may have been part of the deal to get the
movie studios to allow their content to be distributed and rented through the
Android Market.) If the DRM framework reports that the system can not be
trusted because the system has been rooted then the jig's up -- no movies.

Bottom line: you can't have a movie rental service that requires that the
system be trustworthy and a possibly untrustworthy system that would result
from the system being rooted. You can have one or the other -- not both.

~~~
darklajid
What I'd like to understand is how pluggable these DRM plugins are. For most
things on Android you can just replace the default thingy with your own
(dialer, home screen are prominent examples).

How long until someone comes up with a custom DRM plugin that returns true for
all validation requests?

~~~
Relwal
An app that is using android.drm will probably be looking for specific DRM
plugins.

~~~
odiroot
Plugins that would be signed. It'd also make sense if the whole communication
with content owners (or Google) was encrypted.

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tomjen3
Ha that is really going to help reduce piracy. Sorry you can't see our movies
(even if you are willing to pay for them) because you _might_ share them with
your friends.

On the other hand, if you get them for free of some torrent or from rapidshare
(and finding the links are much, much easier than rooting your phone) there
are no such restrictions and the studio doesn't make a dime.

When did these people stop thinking?

~~~
dexen
A case of <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malicious_compliance> perhaps,
guessing some expernal entity demanded such steps from Google?

~~~
tomjen3
Nah to make it malicious, they would have redirected to a search on google for
the movie in question with "avi download" appended.

That would have been malicious.

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Xuzz
The most interesting thing here, to me, is not that this happened — with the
MPAA as it is — but this is the first time we've really seen something like
this.

For example, the MPAA does not require Apple to block movie purchases or
playback on jailbroken iPhones or Apple TVs. Maybe that something overlooked
in the Apple contacts that they've gotten a chance to correct in their deals
with Google?

~~~
Entlin
The difference is of course: with Apple, rooting a device is not an officially
sanctioned thing to do. With Google, it is.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
There is probably a huge amount of truth to this. Apple puts enough effort
into stopping jail breaking that they can easily claim their movie blocking is
done through those efforts.

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jbert
How are they performing the check?

Surely it's subvertable. If you have root - you can provide any information
you like to the movie playing application?

Or is there a crypto chain of trust in android devices, analagous to the
"trusted computing" on the PC platform?

~~~
SwellJoe
_Or is there a crypto chain of trust in android devices, analagous to the
"trusted computing" on the PC platform?_

There is. Everything on an Android device, including stuff in the OS image, is
signed. I would assume that the movie player would converse with the movie
service and it would easily be determined that the player is not running on a
system image provided by a trusted signer.

Subverting it would, I assume, require cracking the signing algorithm.

~~~
rdl
There are probably much easier ways; extracting keys from a local device (but
this may only be a break of a single device, not a class break of all devices,
hopefully), or exploiting bugs in any of the trusted binaries to load other
code.

The trusted/measured boot process on PCs (which is not actually used by
anything widely deployed, as of 2011) is similar, but I think the Android
device will have an easier time.

~~~
evangineer
The likes of HTC and Motorola are already shipping Android devices with signed
bootloaders. It is increasingly likely that with tablet content deals for
movies and tv shows in the works that there will be more use of signed
bootloaders in combination with Android 3.1+ DRM frameworks.

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bigmac
This is completely unsurprising. The licensing agreements with the studios
mandate these kinds of measures. If Google didn't do it, they wouldn't be able
to play the game.

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dsl
Android is open, so we can just go in and remove that check... oh right.

~~~
kkowalczyk
The openness of Android, the OS, has nothing to do with it.

Google Movies service is just another application running on Android.

If you had "Dsl Movies" application for Android (or iOS or Windows) you would
have a right to protect your service from people trying to watch the movies
for free or extract them from your service and post them on the internet.

Why do you think that Google has no such right to protect their movie service?

As to general snarkiness about openness of Android: please come back when you
can download source code to iOS or WP7 or BlackBerry, compile it and then
install on your device.

~~~
AllenKids
Still waiting on Honeycomb. And point to me barebone OSS android without
Google's proprietary magic dust's market share.

~~~
technomancy
> Still waiting on Honeycomb.

How is that remotely related to the article?

~~~
AllenKids
It's very relevant to the comment I was replying to.

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daimyoyo
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you have root access to your phone, can't you
work around this block?

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stcredzero
I wonder if they can keep this up? If they can successfully keep those devices
blocked, there are other services that could be built on top of such
technology, even if it's just Google throwing manpower and dollars at the
problem to keep those cracking the system busy.

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_frog
Correct me if I'm wrong, but won't this hurt Google's business rather than
protect it? With no legitimate means of buying/renting movies on their Android
devices people will likely resort to piracy.

~~~
yanw
These are the wishes of the studios, Google can do little about it.

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njs12345
You'd expect better from Google really, even if they are at the behest of the
film companies here..

~~~
jfr
For the users, it is either this or no movie player for them. No movie player
means a big product disadvantage compared to competitors, which is very bad
for Google as a company.

The problem is not Google, it is DRM and DMCA.

~~~
aphexairlines
I'd rather have no movies and no music than to have our technology become
increasingly hobbled by the entertainment industry.

~~~
elithrar
> I'd rather have no movies and no music than to have our technology become
> increasingly hobbled by the entertainment industry.

Unfortunately, whilst you're not alone in your sentiment, the majority of
users to whom Android devices are sold don't care either way, and those are
the same users that make Google the most money.

~~~
aphexairlines
Not sure if that's the case. The company makes the most money from online ads,
so is it better to foster long-term technology growth or to convince more
people to use Android?

~~~
elithrar
> Not sure if that's the case. The company makes the most money from online
> ads, so is it better to foster long-term technology growth or to convince
> more people to use Android?

Getting more Android devices into the hands of users _now_ is important to
Google: it increases developer appeal (growing the platform), which draws even
more users (increasing advertising revenue). Having competitive, consumer-
orientated features like this—that stack up against Apple (and Amazon)—are far
more important to these goals than things like whether a device is rootable,
themeable and/or side-loadable.

~~~
chopsueyar
Consumers will become very discouraged quickly when they try to add a skin, or
theme, or any customization, and all of a sudden certain applications will no
longer work.

I feel this is akin to having a Windows PC that would disable Netflix
streaming if you wanted to dual-boot your PC.

Android devices are the current generation of the previous Windows-era
ecosystem. A bunch of clone hardware running slightly tweaked OEM versions of
an OS.

The biggest difference, which consumers will really start to have issues with,
is tying a software OS update to a hardware revision (If Dell prevented you
from upgrading a Windows 98 machine to a Windows 2000 machine, not because of
hardware limitations, but simply to generate more device sales).

~~~
daeken
> I feel this is akin to having a Windows PC that would disable Netflix
> streaming if you wanted to dual-boot your PC.

It's more akin to having a Windows PC that would disable Windows Media DRM
files if you had unsigned drivers loaded into the kernel. Which it does. This
isn't without precedent, by any means.

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gcb
So what movies are we talking about?

titles says "Movie service" which one? netflix? some gMovie i've never heard
about? youtube?!?!

The linked page also does not help.

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gcb
ok, navigating a little on the linked page it seems it's option "some gMovie
i've never heard about"

Quote some 2 clicks away from the linked "article": Q: Where is my Videos app?
A: At this time, the Videos application is only available to Verizon Motorola
Xoom users.[...]

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j2d2j2d2
This affects rooted devices only. Perhaps a little less than 1% of users will
even notice.

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antihero
Ah, piracy, the sweet smell of not being judged by anyone other that those who
are cunts anyway.

