Blu-ray DRM Cracked By Hackers

A group of hackers has managed to crack the most rigorous layer of DRM on Blu-ray discs, reports MacUser.

While first layer of encryption was quickly circumvented, to the extent that even Blu-ray’s fiercest advocates deemed it redundant, BD+ had proved a much tougher nut to crack.

But this week, a successful workaround was posted on the Doom9 forum, a hangout for DVD and Blu-ray hackers. It works by reverse engineering the BD+ virtual machine, the software engine that loads each time a disc is inserted into a Blu-ray player and decodes the encrypted content on that disc.

Basic tools are in development that will enable Blu-ray disc backups and eventually lead to an open source BD player.