Jon Lech Johansen
Encyclopedia
Jon Lech Johansen also known as DVD Jon, is a Norwegian programmer famous for his work on reverse engineering
data formats.
He is most famous for his involvement in the release of the DeCSS
software, which decodes the content-scrambling system used for DVD
licensing enforcement. Jon is a self-trained software engineer
, who quit high school at the first year to spend more time with the DeCSS case. He moved to the United States and worked as a software engineer in October 2005 until November 2006. He then moved to Norway but moved back to the United States in June 2007.
Johansen is featured in the documentary film info wars
.
's site was a goldmine") and IRC ("Lurked in a x86 assembly IRC channel and picked up tips from wise wizards.")
, an open source program which dumps the raw output of a QuickTime Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) stream to a file, which could bypass the Digital Rights Management
(DRM) software used to encrypt content of music from media such as those distributed by the iTunes Music Store, Apple Computer's online music store. Although these resulting raw AAC files were unplayable by most media players at the time of release, they represent the first attempt at circumventing Apple's encryption.
developer, and had reverse engineered FairPlay
and written VLC's FairPlay support. It has been available in VideoLAN CVS
since January 2004, but the first release to include FairPlay support is VLC 0.7.1 (released March 2, 2004).
On April 25, 2004 Johansen released yet another program: DeDRMS. Written in C#, this 230 line program also removes copy protection.
On July 7, 2004 he released FairKeys, a program that can be used to retrieve the keys needed by DeDRMS from the iTunes Music Store servers themselves.
On August 12, 2004 Johansen announced on his website that he defeated Apple's AirPort Express
's encryption which lets users stream Apple Lossless files to their AirPort Expresses.
On November 25, 2004 he released a proof of concept
program that allows Linux users (via VLC
) to play video encoded with Microsoft's proprietary WMV9 codec, by porting the reference version of the software. This was a significant development as Microsoft had been lobbying to have their codec used with the next DVD standard.
based program which allows the download of purchased files from the iTunes Music Store without DRM
encryption. This was possible because Apple Computer's iTunes software adds the DRM to the music file after the music file is downloaded. On March 22, Apple released a patch
for the iTunes Music Store blocking the use of his PyMusique program. The same day, an update to PyMusique was released, circumventing the new patch.
On June 26, 2005, Johansen created a modification of Google's new in-browser video player (which was based on the open source VLC media player) in less than 24 hours after its release, to allow the user to play videos that are not hosted on Google’s servers. The significance of the modification was exaggerated by the online media.
In late summer, Håkon Wium Lie
, the Norwegian CTO of Opera Software
, co-creator of Cascading Style Sheets and long-time supporter of open source, named Jon Lech Johansen a "hero" in a net meeting arranged by one of Norway's biggest newspapers.
On September 2, 2005, The Register published news that DVD Jon had defeated encryption in Microsoft's Windows Media Player by reverse engineering a proprietary algorithm that was ostensibly used to protect Windows Media Station
NSC files from engineers sniffing for the files' source IP address, port or stream format. Johansen had also made a decoder available.
In September 2005, Johansen announced the release of SharpMusique
1.0, an alternative to the default iTunes program. The program allows Linux and Windows users to buy songs from the iTunes music store without copy protection.
In 2005, Johansen worked for MP3tunes in San Diego as a software engineer. His first project was a new digital music product, code-named Oboe.
.
On June 7, 2006, Johansen announced that he had moved to San Francisco and was joining DoubleTwist Ventures.
In October 2006, Johansen and DoubleTwist Ventures announced they had reverse engineered Apple Computer's DRM
for iTunes, called FairPlay. Rather than allow people to strip the DRM, DoubleTwist would license the ability to apply FairPlay to media companies who wanted their music and videos to play on the iPod, without having to sign a distribution contract with Apple.
, which allows customers to route around digital rights management in music files and convert files between various formats. The software converts digital music of any bitrate encoded with any popular codec into a format that can be played on any device.
BART exit outside of the San Francisco Apple Store, just days before the 2009 WWDC event. On June 9, it was reported that the ad was removed by BART for allegedly "being too opaque" (the background was blueish) and not allowing enough light into the adjoining transit station. The ad was later redesigned and redeployed with a transparent background.
Reverse engineering
Reverse engineering is the process of discovering the technological principles of a device, object, or system through analysis of its structure, function, and operation...
data formats.
He is most famous for his involvement in the release of the DeCSS
DeCSS
DeCSS is a computer program capable of decrypting content on a commercially produced DVD video disc. Before the release of DeCSS, there was no way for computers running a Linux-based operating system to play video DVDs....
software, which decodes the content-scrambling system used for DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
licensing enforcement. Jon is a self-trained software engineer
Software engineer
A software engineer is an engineer who applies the principles of software engineering to the design, development, testing, and evaluation of the software and systems that make computers or anything containing software, such as computer chips, work.- Overview :...
, who quit high school at the first year to spend more time with the DeCSS case. He moved to the United States and worked as a software engineer in October 2005 until November 2006. He then moved to Norway but moved back to the United States in June 2007.
Johansen is featured in the documentary film info wars
Info wars
Info Wars is a 2004 film which shows the mechanics of modern information warfare and media hacking. The featured stories are intertwined but circle around the central subject of the film: How the modern mass media can be used to reach certain ends by all involved parties.The film is named after...
.
Education
About his reverse engineering skills, in a post on his blog he said that in the '90s he started with a book ("Programming the 8086 8088"), the web ("FraviaFravia
Francesco Vianello , better known by his nickname Fravia, was a software reverse engineer and “seeker” known for his web archive of reverse engineering techniques and papers.-Fravia as Francesco Vianello:...
's site was a goldmine") and IRC ("Lurked in a x86 assembly IRC channel and picked up tips from wise wizards.")
Other projects
In the first decade of the 21st century, Johansen's career has included many other projects.2001
In 2001, Johansen released OpenJaz, a reverse-engineered set of drivers for Linux, BeOS and Windows 2000 that allow operation of the JazPiper MP3 digital audio player without its proprietary drivers.2003
In November 2003, Johansen released QTFairUseQTFairUse
QTFairUse is a software application first released in November 2003 by Jon Lech Johansen. It dumps the raw output of a QuickTime AAC stream to a file, which could bypass the digital rights management algorithm called FairPlay used to encrypt music content of media files such as those distributed...
, an open source program which dumps the raw output of a QuickTime Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) stream to a file, which could bypass the Digital Rights Management
Digital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
(DRM) software used to encrypt content of music from media such as those distributed by the iTunes Music Store, Apple Computer's online music store. Although these resulting raw AAC files were unplayable by most media players at the time of release, they represent the first attempt at circumventing Apple's encryption.
2004
Johansen had by now become a VideoLANVideoLAN
VideoLAN is a project that develops software for playing video and other media formats across a local area network . It originally developed two programs for media streaming, VideoLAN Client and VideoLAN Server , but most of the features of VLS have been incorporated into VLC, with the result...
developer, and had reverse engineered FairPlay
FairPlay
FairPlay is a digital rights management technology created by Apple Inc., based on technology created by the company Veridisc. FairPlay is built into the QuickTime multimedia software and used by the iPhone, iPod, iPad, Apple TV, iTunes, and iTunes Store and the App Store. Formerly, all songs in...
and written VLC's FairPlay support. It has been available in VideoLAN CVS
Concurrent Versions System
The Concurrent Versions System , also known as the Concurrent Versioning System, is a client-server free software revision control system in the field of software development. Version control system software keeps track of all work and all changes in a set of files, and allows several developers ...
since January 2004, but the first release to include FairPlay support is VLC 0.7.1 (released March 2, 2004).
On April 25, 2004 Johansen released yet another program: DeDRMS. Written in C#, this 230 line program also removes copy protection.
On July 7, 2004 he released FairKeys, a program that can be used to retrieve the keys needed by DeDRMS from the iTunes Music Store servers themselves.
On August 12, 2004 Johansen announced on his website that he defeated Apple's AirPort Express
AirPort
AirPort and AirPort Extreme are local area wireless networking products from Apple Inc. based on the IEEE 802.11 standard ....
's encryption which lets users stream Apple Lossless files to their AirPort Expresses.
On November 25, 2004 he released a proof of concept
Proof of concept
A proof of concept or a proof of principle is a realization of a certain method or idea to demonstrate its feasibility, or a demonstration in principle, whose purpose is to verify that some concept or theory that has the potential of being used...
program that allows Linux users (via VLC
VLC media player
VLC media player is a free and open source media player and multimedia framework written by the VideoLAN project.VLC is a portable multimedia player, encoder, and streamer supporting many audio and video codecs and file formats as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It is able to...
) to play video encoded with Microsoft's proprietary WMV9 codec, by porting the reference version of the software. This was a significant development as Microsoft had been lobbying to have their codec used with the next DVD standard.
2005
On March 18, 2005, Travis Watkins and Cody Brocious, along with Johansen, wrote PyMusique, a PythonPython (programming language)
Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...
based program which allows the download of purchased files from the iTunes Music Store without DRM
Digital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
encryption. This was possible because Apple Computer's iTunes software adds the DRM to the music file after the music file is downloaded. On March 22, Apple released a patch
Patch (computing)
A patch is a piece of software designed to fix problems with, or update a computer program or its supporting data. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, and improving the usability or performance...
for the iTunes Music Store blocking the use of his PyMusique program. The same day, an update to PyMusique was released, circumventing the new patch.
On June 26, 2005, Johansen created a modification of Google's new in-browser video player (which was based on the open source VLC media player) in less than 24 hours after its release, to allow the user to play videos that are not hosted on Google’s servers. The significance of the modification was exaggerated by the online media.
In late summer, Håkon Wium Lie
Håkon Wium Lie
Håkon Wium Lie is a web pioneer, a standards activist, and, , the Chief Technology Officer of Opera Software.He is best known for proposing the concept of Cascading Style Sheets while working with Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau at CERN in 1994. As an employee at W3C, he developed CSS into a...
, the Norwegian CTO of Opera Software
Opera Software
Opera Software ASA is a Norwegian software company, primarily known for its Opera family of web browsers with over 220 million users worldwide. Opera Software is also involved in promoting Web standards through participation in the W3C. The company has its headquarters in Oslo, Norway and is...
, co-creator of Cascading Style Sheets and long-time supporter of open source, named Jon Lech Johansen a "hero" in a net meeting arranged by one of Norway's biggest newspapers.
On September 2, 2005, The Register published news that DVD Jon had defeated encryption in Microsoft's Windows Media Player by reverse engineering a proprietary algorithm that was ostensibly used to protect Windows Media Station
Windows Media Station
Windows Media Station file is the session description file for Microsoft's Media Stream Broadcast protocol.Introduced with Microsoft NetShow 2.0, the file extension .NSC stands for NetShow Channel, the former name of the service...
NSC files from engineers sniffing for the files' source IP address, port or stream format. Johansen had also made a decoder available.
In September 2005, Johansen announced the release of SharpMusique
SharpMusique
SharpMusique was a rewrite in C# of PyMusique, which was an iTunes Music Store client written in Python by Travis Watkins, Cody Brocious, and Jon Lech Johansen for the purpose of allowing downloading songs from the iTunes Music Store before DRM was applied to them from a Mac, Linux, or Windows...
1.0, an alternative to the default iTunes program. The program allows Linux and Windows users to buy songs from the iTunes music store without copy protection.
In 2005, Johansen worked for MP3tunes in San Diego as a software engineer. His first project was a new digital music product, code-named Oboe.
Sony BMG DRM rootkit
In November 2005, a Slashdot story notes that Sony-BMGs XCP DRM software includes code and comments (such as "copyright (c) Apple Computer, Inc. All Rights Reserved.") illegally copied from an iTunes DRM circumvention program by Jon Lech Johansen. A popular claim was that, using the criteria that RIAA uses in its copyright lawsuits, Johansen could sue for billions of dollars in damages.2006
On January 8, 2006, Johansen revealed his intent to defeat the encryption of Next-Generation DVD encryption, AACSAdvanced Access Content System
The Advanced Access Content System is a standard for content distribution and digital rights management, intended to restrict access to and copying of the "next generation" of optical discs and DVDs. The specification was publicly released in April 2005 and the standard has been adopted as the...
.
On June 7, 2006, Johansen announced that he had moved to San Francisco and was joining DoubleTwist Ventures.
In October 2006, Johansen and DoubleTwist Ventures announced they had reverse engineered Apple Computer's DRM
Digital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
for iTunes, called FairPlay. Rather than allow people to strip the DRM, DoubleTwist would license the ability to apply FairPlay to media companies who wanted their music and videos to play on the iPod, without having to sign a distribution contract with Apple.
2007
In July 2007, Jon managed to allow the iPhone to work as an iPod with WiFi, without AT&T activation.2008
On February 2, 2008, Johansen launched doubleTwistDoubleTwist
doubleTwist Corporation is a digital media company founded by Monique Farantzos and Jon Lech Johansen. It is backed by Index Ventures and Northzone Ventures....
, which allows customers to route around digital rights management in music files and convert files between various formats. The software converts digital music of any bitrate encoded with any popular codec into a format that can be played on any device.
2009
In June, he managed to get an ad for his application doubleTwist on the wall of theBART exit outside of the San Francisco Apple Store, just days before the 2009 WWDC event. On June 9, it was reported that the ad was removed by BART for allegedly "being too opaque" (the background was blueish) and not allowing enough light into the adjoining transit station. The ad was later redesigned and redeployed with a transparent background.
Awards
- January 2000 - Karoline award, given to high-school students with excellent grades and noteworthy achievements in sports, arts or culture
- April 2002 - EFF Pioneer AwardEFF Pioneer AwardThe EFF Pioneer Award is an annual prize for people who have made significant contributions to the empowerment of individuals in using computers. Until 1998 it was presented at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., USA. Thereafter it was presented at the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference...
Sources
- ReutersReutersReuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
news report (February 28, 2003) – http://news.com.com/2100-1025-990583.html?tag=fd_top, http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030228/people_nm/tech_norway_dvd_dc_6 – Appeals court agrees to hear the DeCSS case
- Articles at The RegisterThe RegisterThe Register is a British technology news and opinion website. It was founded by John Lettice, Mike Magee and Ross Alderson in 1994 as a newsletter called "Chip Connection", initially as an email service...
:- Smith, Tony (March 18, 2005) – "DVD Jon: buy DRM-less tracks from Apple iTunes"
- Orlowski, Andrew (August 12, 2004) – "DVD Jon cracks Airport music streaming"
- Libbenga, Jan (January 2, 2004) – "DVD Jon wins again"
- Clarke, Gavin (San Francisco. September 2, 2005) – "DVD Jon hacks Media Player file encryption"
- Articles in AftenpostenAftenpostenAftenposten is Norway's largest newspaper. It retook this position in 2010, taking it from the tabloid Verdens Gang which had been the largest newspaper for several decades. It is based in Oslo. The morning edition, which is distributed across all of Norway, had a circulation of 250,179 in 2007...
:- December 22, 2003 – "DVD-Jon wins new legal victory"
- January 5, 2004 – "Prosecutors let DVD-Jon's victory stand"
External links
- Jon Johansen's blog
- Electronic Frontier Norway's link collection on the Jon Johansen case: Complete (Norwegian) version, English version (links only)
- DVD Jon releases program to bypass iTunes DRM
- Interview with DVD Jon, from slyck.comSlyck.comSlyck.com is a website dedicated to file sharing. It offers news, reviews, and opinion, and has a user forum.-History of Slyck:Slyck began operations as Slyway.com in 2000, owned by Ray Hoffman. During this time, Slyck was an aggregate news site with some original content. It also had guides to the...
- CNN interview
- Jon Lech Johansen talks to DVDfuture
- Wired News: DVD Jon Lands Dream Job Stateside
- Hacker Claims to Have Cracked iPod, iTunes (UCF Central Florida Future article)