Cinavia removal technique?

[Steve(MS)]

I have demonstrate to people the superior audio quality of my method, even BEFORE the method was perfected. People agree it gave very good audio quality. Now it's perfected, there is no noticeable audio artifact any more.

Your first sample sounded to me like a DJ CD scratching/skipping effect.
Cutting chunks out of the audio will never work because it produces pops and clicks.

So that method cannot work...unless you want to provide a new sample?

Every once in a while, you come out of the woodwork with the same propaganda, fantastic tales that any rational person will have a hard time believing.
I doubt there is anything new you can add here either.

Of course, you want to make money off an unheard method that likely doesn't work to begin with.

[Dougster]

This might be a useful link if anybody really wants to get into the nuts and bolts of Cinavia. Here is the
patent info which is public. That is if you have time to read it.

Link to description, then check under the documents tab as well as others.

http://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2006116270&recNum=1&maxRec=&o...PCTDescription

[Cienoway]

You cannot and I will say it again, cannot remove a watermark from an audio stream, the only way you can do it is with a " bypass" , create a file that removes the trigger for the watermark. That's it, nothing else. LOL.

The above is patently false and demonstrated so. "Can not remove a watermark" is only theoretically true. Practically, when the watermark is no longer detectable, it is thus removed. There are many many ways of doing it effectively without altering the audio quality. It can be shown that there are infinite possible ways of doing it. And none of such watermark removal method rely on any inside knowledge of how the watermark was embedded to begin with. So such watermark removal method is future proof.

Verance Inc. is in denial. They developed a product they know from day one to be vulnerable and insecure to begin with, but sold the technology to the public nevertheless. Now when it is finally proven, by a practical method that how easy it is to remove Cinavia, they just turn a blind eye to the facts and pretend that it does not exist, or that the science fact is not a fact, and continues to claim that Cinavia has not been cracked for 15 years. And that if any one successfully removed Cinavia it was because their trade secret was stolen. Just incredible.

Somebody DID leak their trade secrets already. But not by me, and it was done nearly FIVE years ago. A Russian computer engineer M.A., out of curiosity, researched the DVD Audio watermarking, which was Cinavia before it's current version. He successfully reverse engineered the watermark detection scheme and identified all parameters used, including the stego keys and delay hopping parameters and all that. The result was published as open source package that any one can still download today. And Verance knew about the leak but said NOTHING about that trade secret leak and did nothing about it, and just pretend that it did not happen. I only realized that recently.

That's not how a software technology company should operate. Companies like Microsoft etc., when they discover a severe vulnerability in their software products, they must immediately inform the public, and must work over time to work out a patch, and provide the patch to customers unconditionally. How come that when Verance Inc. has a problem with their product, they can just turn a blind eye to the vulnerability and just pretend it does not exist? That's because they knew from early stage of their product development, such vulnerability always existed. See publications by Dr. Darko Kirovski and Dr. Edward Felten. As a matter of fact, any one who wishes to develop a Cinavia removal tool, only need to read the science papers and then implement the ideas. Or just read the Verance patent documents and they discussed possible attacks themselves.

Google using "Audio watermark attacks" or phrases like that, you can find plenty of discussions how to get rid of watermarks. I recommend reading Darko Kirovski's paper which Verance itself referred to in their patent documents. In a sense, my method can be narrowly classified as a special case of Kirovski method, but is way much superior.

DVDRanger has done it. They successfully removed Cinavia without much audio quality degradation. I am not the least bit surprised. I see infinite possible ways of doing it. DVDRanger's method is one of the worst, requiring a huge amount of computation. But it works. Congratulation to them for being the No. 2 in successfully removing Cinavia (Mine is No. 1) but No. 1 in releasing it commercially to the public. You have to give it to them that they did it. And some how the US Recording Industry pretend that that did not happen, and that the Cinavia is still un-breakable. Just incredible.

[Cienoway]

I have demonstrate to people the superior audio quality of my method, even BEFORE the method was perfected. People agree it gave very good audio quality. Now it's perfected, there is no noticeable audio artifact any more.

Your first sample sounded to me like a DJ CD scratching/skipping effect.
Cutting chunks out of the audio will never work because it produces pops and clicks.

So that method cannot work...unless you want to provide a new sample?

My first sample did remove Cinavia. Admittedly it contained noticeable artifacts. A part of it simply due to my programming bug. A part of it due to the method was not polished yet. My latest results contain practically no audible artifact any more. I am not going to publicly release a sample, as there is an FBI investigation against me going on, for alleged theft of their trade secrets. Why were they so scared of me if my method did not work? They knew it works very well and it was a generic method without relying on any trade secret information, thus it is also future proof! I am innocent and they cannot shut off my first amendment freedom of speech. I am saying to Verance's face that they have to accept the fact that Cinavia doesn't work and they need to go back to drawing board and go back 20 years to re-think how to do watermarking properly and securely.

Any watermark that embeds any individual digital bits at all, can be easily defeated by my method or a variety of my method. That encompasses practically EVERY commercial watermarking scheme available today, including DigiMarc. Yes my method erases the Digimarc audio watermark as well.

Can they invent a watermark that does not use bits of 1s and 0s at all? They can't. It stretched beyond most people's imagination. Can you tell a number without using any decimal numbers? It's tough. Can you tell me the year 2014, without using decimal numbers 0, 1, 2, 4 or any other decimal number symbols? It may be possible, but very very difficult. But I know it can be done. I have actually patented such improved methods of audio watermarking.

[Cienoway]

This might be a useful link if anybody really wants to get into the nuts and bolts of Cinavia. Here is the
patent info which is public. That is if you have time to read it.

Link to description, then check under the documents tab as well as others.

http://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2006116270&recNum=1&maxRec=&o...PCTDescription

The Wikipedia page on Cinavia has links to Verance patents. I think the Google patent pages are easier to search and access any patent document. Here is one:

https://www.google.com/patents/US20100111355

Let me analysis a few points:

1. In third paragraph of "detailed description of invention". It was stated that "SDMI and DVD-audio requirements specify a false positive probability of less than 10^−12 per 15-second detection interval."

A random bit of 1 or 0 have a 50% chance of being a right bit. A random two bits have a 1/2^2 = 25% chance of both bits being right, etc. So for a watermark pattern of N bits of being of less than 10^-12 chance of being random coincident, with less than 25% of the bits being wrong, then the watermark needs to be nearly 200 bits long.

2. At the end of first paragraph of "Summary of invention". It was stated that "It is also the object of the invention to achieve all of the above without the need to establish a communication link between watermarking embedders and extractors."

Thus the detector can not extract from the media itself the exact method or parameters used in embedding, as there is no communication between the two. Thus such knowledge must be pre-determined and hard coded into the detector, and can not be modified. The media data itself must stick to the pre-determined parameters and expect to extract the right bits from the right spot. However the media data itself is subject to any modification possible, thus making it impossible for the detector to extract the bits.

3. I shall not get into the discussion of security enhancements. Many of those features that Verance thought enhances security, actually bring in vulnerability in making it impossible for the detector to work when the audio is modified.

4. Under "Detailed Description of Invention", sub-section "Attacks on Watermarks". Read this carefully to understand what Verance knows and how much they know about potential attacks. They acknowledged Kirovski's replacement attacks. So they should be familiar with the de-sychronization attacks that Kirovski and every one has been talking about in public literature. Bottom line is scientists all knew that the robustness and security of Cinavia is a laughing stoke all the time. They just have never bothered to develop a Cinavia removal tool. And all the hackers are just too lazy to read the science literature, or too illiterate to understand research papers.

I encourage people to read and understand those patent documents. Those are public information, not trade secrets. And people have the rights to freely discuss them and express opinions. Some how Verance perceives that because I used something similar to some public literature they once read. Those public literature some how became their trade secret and that I have stolen their trade secret if I have read those public research papers. Just incredible that FBI would waste their time on such a ridiculous claim and continue to investigate me on alleged trade secret theft.

[Steve(MS)]

I am not going to publicly release a sample, as there is an FBI investigation against me going on, for alleged theft of their trade secrets.

I call that convenient bullsht.
You knew someone would call your hand on this...that is would want a sample then your convenient paranoid FBI junk comes out.
You also worked for verance which is convenient to allow you to clam up when you don't know the answer to a question.

Why you bother coming on here in the first place is a mystery...actually it is not since you are the type looking for (and wanting) attention, claiming stuff that can't be proven.

Maybe you can post some more replies in a month,6 months from now to renew your incompetence...due to NDA and police camping on your front step, LOL.

[Cienoway]

I am not going to publicly release a sample, as there is an FBI investigation against me going on, for alleged theft of their trade secrets.

I call that convenient bullsht.

I have privately IMed you with a link to a sample file you can see (hear) for yourself. Other people can IM me to request the same.

[Noahtuck]

LOL @ Cienoway!!


You are so full of shit it must be running out of your ears!!!
LOL!!

[wulf109]

If you make B-U on a BD50,no compression,does Cinavia work?

[jagabo]

If you make B-U on a BD50,no compression,does Cinavia work?

Of course. What good would it be otherwise?

[jman98]

I have privately IMed you with a link to a sample file you can see (hear) for yourself. Other people can IM me to request the same.

As with DVDRanger at first, we have no way to verify that you really processed your sample.

I find it odd that you spout tons of crap about how "free speech" protects you from all harm in this situation, which by the way is really interesting legal argument you are welcome to test (and I know already with 99% certainty how that is going to work out for you) should you go to court, but then you seem to claim that the FBI is investigating you. Why would they investigate you if what you are doing is 100% for sure free speech? But any, this is just all bs.

wulf109 - Ignoring Clenoway's unverifiable claims, ALL, as in EVERY FREAKIN' ONE OF THEM, methods to date to make Cinavia undetectable have involved mucking with the audio and making it sound worse. It doesn't actually get rid of the watermark but it makes it undetectable to Cinavia at the price of living with noticeably worse sound quality.

[Cienoway]

I have privately IMed you with a link to a sample file you can see (hear) for yourself. Other people can IM me to request the same.

As with DVDRanger at first, we have no way to verify that you really processed your sample.

For a limited time, I will provide you or any one in doubt verifiable samples.

If you possess legally purchased BluRay disc and obtained Cinavia embedded audio from such disc, then IM me with a link to the audio file containing Cinavia. I shall process it using my method and give you back a Cinavia removed audio file so you can see and hear it yourself that Cinavia is removed without noticeable degradation of audio quality.

Why FBI is investigating me? Because Verance maliciously reported me to FBI for theft of their trade secret. They knew full well that I have NOT taken any of their trade secret. I explained many many times to them that my method was a generic developed without any knowledge of their trade secret, and even showed them the source code to show that it contains no secret parameters they used. And I told them that because of such, my method is future proof, meaning any modification or improvement of their Cinavia technology can NOT circumvent my processing method. Further, my method is a general purpose audio processing method that has no particular aim of targeting removal of Cinavia or any particular watermark, or for any one specific purpose. It just so happens as a side effect. And I told them that Cinavia was inherently weak to begin with since the early stage of its development, as it was demonstrated so by Prof. Edward Felten more than 13 years ago. So they have to go back to the drawing board and go back before 2000 to develop a replacement technology.

It is a wonder that NO ONE has consulted Dr. Edward Felten's publicly available research paper published so many years ago, when they are trying to develop a Cinavia removal method. Any one who is diligent enough to read all the papers written by scientists, would have known that there are infinite possible ways of removing any audio watermark without degradation of audio quality.

Verance knows full well throughout all the years that Cinavia is so vulnerable that childishly simple tricks like a little pitch shift, some crude reverberation or some cropping of the audio were sufficient to remove Cinavia, and they have struggled for years without much effective improvements against such simple tricks. See their patent document. Thus they know full well that it's a matter of time that somebody who knows a little bit more about audio, than a script kiddies who only knows to use Audacity, can come up with a little bit non-trivial tricks which result in successful removal of ALL watermarks, not just Cinavia.

Using audio watermarking for copyright protection was the wrong approach from the very beginning, and scientists warned such! There has been NO scientific proof that such watermarking is secure and robust against intentional removal, and there are plenty of scientific proof of the opposite. And it can be mathematically and logically shown that any imperceptible watermark can theoretically be removed. Darko Kirovski made such an elaboration in his famous paper on Replacement Attacks. He stated that artificially re-constructed audio or video content will contain no trace of original digital watermarks. At least that's my understanding.

So why people are still spreading the fairy tale that Cinavia is undefeatable without destruction of audio quality? I guess some one has a very big arse to cover, and a very big scandal to conceal. Didn't some one leak all secrets of DVD Audio watermarks already? Be aware that Verance watches posts here, and they have trolls who post here, too.

My methods, though results in no noticeable audio artifacts, are still primitive and in early stage of development, as my own audio knowledge is still primitive and not at expert level. I am sure once some one learns my method, a much better method can quickly be developed by some one with more resource than I have. As of now I am attempting a 4th possible method which is much better.

[anon1000]

I am not going to publicly release a sample, as there is an FBI investigation against me going on, for alleged theft of their trade secrets.

I call that convenient bullsht.

I have privately IMed you with a link to a sample file you can see (hear) for yourself. Other people can IM me to request the same.

Why not release it as it is. You can always improve it down the line.

[Cienoway]

I am not going to publicly release a sample, as there is an FBI investigation against me going on, for alleged theft of their trade secrets.

I call that convenient bullsht.

I have privately IMed you with a link to a sample file you can see (hear) for yourself. Other people can IM me to request the same.

Why not release it as it is. You can always improve it down the line.

What would you do when you have a family to support, you are out of job and you can't find a job due to all the fiasco, and FBI is after you and can find any excuse to arrest you at any moment if you do anything to upset a huge vested interest group like AACS? I don't have the legal resource to fight the litigation even if the evidence is compelling for me.

Releasing the 300+ line code program into the public is easy, how to deal with what comes out next, especially when have no money and no attorney to help you, is another thing. I am no longer in control of what I can or cannot do with that piece of code, unfortunately. Some one else is in control now, fortunately.

But I can freely talk about it until some one else "gets it", and then every one in the world suddenly realize how fragile Cinavia is. It's a laughing stoke really. Any reasonable modification of the audio content results in the watermark bits being lost for good. How some one would perceive the technology to be "secure" and can survive robustly, and marketing it as the same, knowing that an attacker has the full power to manipulate the audio content in anyway he/she see fit, is just beyond my comprehension.

[Steve(MS)]

See, there you go again about how the FBI is harassing you and that other stuff that doesn't pertain to removal.
If all that were true, you are one hard-headed sob that never gets enough.
If we were to take a poll, I bet there would be few that believes any of that.

Back to your sample and I am going to be blunt, no-one would want to pay for that.
The background audio is completely obliterated...even the FBI would laugh and declare there could be no case against you.

I would suggest you forget about making money for cinavia removal, it doesn't look like it will ever happen for you regardless
of whether you are really without a job...(find another way to make a living)...I don't see how you could have been out of a job
for this long...with a supposed family...with police and govt watching every move you make...LOL.

Come back when you have your head screwed on straight, present what you have (if anything) and perhaps others could help
or build on something for free...believe me, it is not going to happen for you to make any money off this.

I won't go to the trouble of correcting all of the inaccuracies of your posts...mainly that it is easy to defeat and still have good audio.
If you truely have something worth posting, do so and quit all the long winded, never going anywhere round and round in circle excuses.

Your samples aren't that good from what I have heard so far, Ranger's audio is much better and personally I prefer anon1000's methods to yours.

If you want to be paid for removal, we can't help you and you will find that only the brainless 'clickers' would be the only
market for such(very, very small market and you are late to the game with no perfected method).

[Cienoway]

Back to your sample and I am going to be blunt, no-one would want to pay for that.
The background audio is completely obliterated...even the FBI would laugh and declare there could be no case against you.

That proves what a troll you are. That sample sounds exactly like the original. I will let others to have their own opinion:
http://www.firedrive.com/file/B55593E1ED3690AE

As for DVDRanger solution, I am not going to comment on his audio quality. But a solution that requires downloading of a huge database file, is not a practical solution for most users.

[jagabo]

That sample sounds exactly like the original.http://www.firedrive.com/file/B55593E1ED3690AE

Given how bad that sample sounds I seriously doubt that. But since you didn't provide the source we can't tell for sure. And really, 128 kbps mono MP3?

[gonca]

That sample sounded crappy.

[Cienoway]

As I said, the original was like that.

Any one unconvinced can give me Cinavia infected sample audio files and I will process it to remove Cinavia.

[Hoser Rob]

I am not going to publicly release a sample, as there is an FBI investigation against me going on, for alleged theft of their trade secrets.

... Why you bother coming on here in the first place is a mystery...actually it is not since you are the type looking for (and wanting) attention, claiming stuff that can't be proven.

Maybe you can post some more replies in a month,6 months from now to renew your incompetence...due to NDA and police camping on your front step, LOL.

100%. Exactly. No one who actually fits this ridiculous masquerade would be talkina about here.

You just write better than the average stupid troll. Go find a dumber forum.

[jagabo]

As I said, the original was like that.

No it wasn't. No commercial movie release sounds that bad. And even if the original was that bad, why would you pick such a poor soundtrack to demonstrate how good your cinavia masking technique is?

[Guest34343]

Go find a dumber forum.

He tried Doom9 but we are not dumber.

[Cienoway]

As I said, the original was like that.

No it wasn't. No commercial movie release sounds that bad. And even if the original was that bad, why would you pick such a poor soundtrack to demonstrate how good your cinavia masking technique is?

Who said the original was commercial release?

The original was embedded with Cinavia Code 1, meaning it was theatrical release. I presume some one used a mic to record that audio in a movie theatre, thus the less than desired original audio quality. I got only a small section of the original file. After my processing, the audio quality remains the same, but the Cinavia code can no longer be detected.

As I said, any one in double can provide me with some good quality sound samples and I shall remove Cinavia for you. I don't have a lot of Cinavia samples to play with. So I am hoping for people giving me more samples.

[Guest34343]

Are you too poor to buy a Cinavia-enabled bluray disk? It seems like a good investment for someone hoping to monetize their vaporware.

Then you should provide before and after samples long enough for us to verify that the original triggers Cinavia and the processed one does not.

[Cienoway]

Are you too poor to buy a Civia-enabled bluray disk? It seems like a good investment for someone hoping to monetize their vaporware.

Then you should provide before and after samples long enough for us to verify that the original triggers Cinavia and the processed one does not.

I have the money but can not afford to spend it. I am still unemployed, and has no hope of finding a job soon due to the malicious FBI investigation on alleged trade theft from Verance. My savings are running out fast and I have kids to support. I am desperately trying to monetize my invention. Once again it's my invention that does NOT rely on any Verance trade secret. They knew it full well. FBI took away all my computers. So even putting some junk together into a self-assembled computer costs me some money. I am still running an old Win XP computer, and compiling programs using the old Visual Studio 6.0. I do have licensed copy of TMT 6.0 to verify Cinavia removal but that's about all.

If you guys are not convinced, or you want to help me. Give me some good Cinavia embedded audio sample. I can have them for more experiments and give you the result back. Once again I am looking for monetizing my invention in any way possible. And I have the legal right to do so because it is purely my invention, without infringing on any one's right, without breaking any laws. Everything I have done thus far are perfectly legal. But I must fight for not just my civil liberty, but my very human right to continue to exist and live as a human being. I have the right to speak out here.

The original you requested is now posted:

http://www.firedrive.com/file/34F24C6F0B5873A2

The process file is at here:
http://www.firedrive.com/file/B55593E1ED3690AE

Any one can compare and see and draw their own conclusions.

[Guest34343]

If your invention is as good as you say it is, it can make you millions of $$$. That you can't scrounge up $20 to actualize that is laughable.

"...fighting for your human right to continue to exist..."

Don't you see how ridiculous that sounds? And you expect to be taken seriously? I suppose you're too poor to afford your medications also?

[Cienoway]

If your invention is as good as you say it is, it can make you millions of $$$. That you can't scrounge up $20 to actualize that is laughable.

"...fighting for your human right to continue to exist..."

Don't you see how ridiculous that sounds? And you expect to be taken seriously? I suppose you're too poor to afford your medications also?

Ha.. Millions of $$s. You are day dreaming for me. I can spend $20 if it is needed to perfect my method, and I probably will do it. But I don't need to, the method is already very sophisticated and effective. What I need is buyer.

There were a few people approaching me on my method. But no one were really serious about acquiring it. After the FBI raid every one backed off. It seems as if every one take it as a foregone conclusion that Cinavia was already hacked and no one gives a damn about it, and Verance will continue to license it and make tons of money and every one will pretend that Cinavia is unhackable, and there is no need to develop a new watermark technology.

I have not only the method to remove Verance or any other current audio water technologies, but also a brand new idea how to create way much more robust watermarks. You think these are very valuable ideas? No one gives a damn what I have. It's true. No one gives a d*mn that Cinavis is cracked. The recording industry will continue to use it any way, and Verance will continue to make big money out of it. The hacker community will enjoy Cinavia free contents. General public will still complain about Cinavia warnings pop up. The fact of the matter is no one seems to care. Professor Edward Felten warned the industry that audio watermarks are insecure for copyright protection. Did any one gave a d*mn what Edward Felten said back then? No one cared about the truth.

Anyway I have posted the link for the original and new audio file. Any one can make their judgement. And any one can give me more Cinavia infected samples and I can demonstrate how Cinavia is removed effectively. Just give me the files.

[Guest34343]

Based on your posts, I'd just say I'm not surprised nobody is queuing up to pay you for your vaporware. You seem incapable of assimilating and acting on constructive criticism and advice. Nevertheless, enjoy your 15 minutes of "fame" and good luck with your projects.

[Cienoway]

Based on your posts, I'd just say I'm not surprised nobody is queuing up to pay you for your vaporware. You seem incapable of assimilating and acting on constructive criticism and advice. Nevertheless, enjoy your 15 minutes of "fame" and good luck with your projects.

See here is the problem. I have posted audio samples. I have encouraged people to listen and test those samples to draw their own conclusion. But no one gives a damn if Cinavia is indeed removed or not. And people have the audacity to call my method vaporware, while refusing to look at the samples and admit that they work. Simply closing your eyes and ignore the facts is not called ridiculous. But some how when I speak out the truth and present evidences, every one call me ridiculous? It's incredible. Back on the MYCE board people already confirmed that my method works. And here if people are in doubt I ask people to give samples so I can show to them that my method works. No one takes me up on that. But you still have the audacity to call it vaporware? You erased all my posts at Doom9 and banned me from there since you want to protect the Verance corporate interest.

[Guest34343]

Your original file is a low-quality MP3 of unknown content and origin! Nobody is interested in that. You claim you are too poor to buy a bluray disk. It is laughable.

Vaporware refers to a claimed product or method that is not actually available to use or test. Your claimed 300-line solution perfectly fits that definition, so lose the feigned outrage.

And now you lie: you were NOT banned at Doom9. You were NOT suspended at Doom9. You are a simple liar and paranoid. Your posts were indeed deleted as off-topic (as I explained to you in a PM), because Doom9 is a technical forum and we are not interested in wild unsubstantiated claims. They could equally as well have been deleted as spam. You cannot use Doom9 to try to actualize your dreams of monetizing your vaporware. Read our rules; you agreed to abide by them when you registered.

For the record, despite your paranoid ravings, I have no connection to, or interest in, Verance or their products. Your accusation borders on slander.

Now, forgive me if I find better things to do than feed your fantasies.