SlySoft claims to have cracked BD+, naysayers fall quiet
We haven't broken down the minutes and seconds or anything, but we're fairly certain that July 10th wasn't exactly ten years ago. Nevertheless, the so-called "impenetrable" BD+ DRM scheme has reportedly already been subverted, and it's no shock to hear that the folks behind SlySoft had a hand in it. Regrettably, there's not a lot of details beyond that just yet, but according to the outfit's CEO, the software is ready to rock and should be released before the end of 2007. Chalk (yet another) one up to the hackers.

"SlySoft was recently honored by AACS-LA, being declared as public enemy number one in the ongoing battle for copyright protection. To prove them right and to take on the challenge, SlySoft has just released the latest AnyDVD version which beats the latest 4th generation HD-DVD and Blu-Ray copy protection MKBv4, which was expected to be unbreakable," the company said in a statement.

Slysoft also said that it is ready to defeat the upcoming BD+ feature of the Blu-ray titles.

"All that AACS-LA has to offer now is BD+, but even that is on the verge of being circumvented and a release is expected by the end of this year," said Slysoft.

BD+ is a content code that interacts with the Virtual Machine found on Blu-Ray players and decides whether the player is hacked. According to the BDA, to successfully attack the BD+ system, pirates would have to overcome the AV content security system (e.g. extract AACS keys) and also overcome title-specific security code (e.g. reverse engineer security code). But until now, it is uncertain whether this title-specific security code (BD+ content code) will be included by Studios on a title-by-title basis. In that case, breaking the whole protection scheme would be more complicated.

James Wong, Head of development at SlySoft: "We already found a way to crack BD+ and we have just turned to fine-tuning. I should really think about hiring a bodyguard now, since this product won't please everybody."