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Was there anyway to make this work unless every CD was burned with a different key used to do the encryption?
by ekelsen 1mo ago
Was there anyway to make this work unless every CD was burned with a different key used to do the encryption?
- netsharc 1mo agoMaybe have n versions of the CD (maybe 16, or 32), so there are n decryption keys. When the buyer recites the code over the phone, the program run by the salesperson can identify which key is used based on the number. The hacker groups would be a little frustrated trying to find all of the different CDs.
- duskwuff 1mo agoThe setup costs for a pressed CD are substantial - manufacturing many different designs would have been much more expensive, and would have only slowed down crackers marginally. It's unlikely that this would have recovered enough sales to be worth it.
- kg 1mo agoYou would need some sort of hardware serial number system for PCs and a whole security infrastructure to verify that the serial number being used for the unlock wasn't faked. Then you could do per-PC unlocks. I'm not aware of anything like that being widespread back in the Quake days, though these days every computing device you own probably has a unique ID burned into ROM somewhere.
- chocochunks 1mo agoSupposedly Xbox One+ discs are individually serialized which was originally going to be used for their DRM system at launch that was walked back.
- loeg 1mo agoSome sort of public key crypto scheme + including hard-to-change local device characteristics in the challenge.
- fluoridation 1mo agoA reminder that CD-ROMs are pressed from glass masters, not burned like CD-Rs. I wonder if anyone has tried something like this with burned discs, though.
- ekelsen 1mo agoYes, my point, if the answer is that there is no way this works without every disc being different. It was not possible to manufacture at the time at scale.
- fluoridation 1mo agoIt's still not possible. You would need to make a unique master for every individual unit.
- vanviegen 1mo agoYou'd use CD-R of course.
- fluoridation 1mo agoWith CD-Rs it was already possible in the mid '90s, if we're talking mass production. CD-Rs are a little more expensive to produce, but not much more so. A slight concern is that readers of the time might not have been able to read the discs, because CD-Rs are not quite as reflective as CD-ROMs.
- kevin_thibedeau 1mo agoThe multisession standard actually afforded the possibility of CD-PROM; a hybrid disc with a pressed read-only session followed by a writable section. It was only used for Kodak Picture CD (not the same as Photo CD) to hold software in the pressed session. It also apparently standardized a magneto-optical hybrid that never made it to market.
- 1mo ago
- jasonfarnon 1mo agoNo. That cracking group would have known a priori the phone call was a pretense, because id was very unlikely to press distinct CDs. So they could focus on conventional cracking techniques.
- KellyCriterion 29d agoWouldnt you need different master-CDs for doing that, as AFAIR when pressing CDs commercially, you usually have exactly only one master? (maybe a different one per geo-locatoin, if at all)