On Thu, 2015-08-27 at 09:03 +0200, Thomas Schmitt wrote: > Hi, > > the reason why i am insisiting in getting facts is that > i want to know whether drive firmware can get altered > by just inserting and reading a commercial Blu-ray disc.
Yes, it can - if you consider that the firmware on a BD drive contains more than just the controller, but secondary chips. It is important to remember that the feature is normally only used on AACS encoded discs, that is movies that you watch. BD's used for backup will probably not be a concern. That is not why I posted to the list, though. I just wanted you to be aware that BD is not everything that it is made out to be. In my experience, the changes to the drive's chips do not usually tamper with the controller in normal operation, but my point is that there are no guarantees here - it is flash, after all. BD hardware is designed specifically to be beholden to whatever controls the Blu-Ray Consortium or the OEM want to exert over its use through frequent updates in order to use media. Any update at all could potentially render the drive useless to your work. It's something that you should simply be aware of. Whether you believe me or not, think me paranoid, or do with that knowledge, is as I have said, entirely your own affair. > I sincerely doubt that the drive firmware will do this, > but rather believe it is about software on the level > of operating system and application software. > (Both of kinds which i would not touch with fire tongs.) If you don't want to believe me after I said I have seen my drive's firmware be belligerent, that's perfectly okay by me. I am absolutely not offended. Go digging around on Internet. There are plenty of instances. If you think that then why don't you ask people on the makemkv forum why they get key revocation warnings even when using Linux. I found that after a mere 5 minutes of searches. The majority of Makemkv users are Linux btw, so perhaps you will consider the forum posts as proof that OS does not matter. > But WinDVD 8 is MS-Windows software, not drive firmware. True, but BD discs update the drive whenever a new disc is inserted. This is hardware based, not software. > > One BD spares you four exchanges of the DVD in the drive > when you make a large backup. True. > A BD allows to make incremental backups up to 23 GiB whereas > DVD+R DL allows only 8 GiB of poor reliablilty. Says who? I have not had a DVD write fail for some time. > With reliable DVD media you are restricted to 4.4 GiB. Any disc: BD, DVD, or otherwise really depend on the age of your drive, whether it is properly maintained (the lens kept clean and firmware updated) and the quality of the media that you buy. If you buy cheap, uncertified blanks, then yes you will have problems and some of them will be bad. That's just physics and capitalism. Cheap discs means less care is taken in making them. > Of course, hard disks are cheaper per GB. But they have other > needs when it comes to long term storage or rough transport. > Further they are large and non divisible. I don't see what "divisible" has to do with it, since you can easily partition a drive for any number of uses. If durability during transport is a concern then yes BD might be a consideration, but at the rate that flash discs are dropping in price, it won't be for much longer. > > I would commercially compare BD media to USB sticks. > The sellers of BD-RE take care to stay cheaper than the > sellers of 16 or 32 GiB sticks. Only for the present. BD's days are numbered outside of the film industry. There are new forms of flash that will eventually render that moot. > > One big problem is that the burners deteriorate with time. > The begin to fail recording readable data. But this affects > only new recordings. The old recorded media do not die with > the burner that wrote them. True, but I have found that burned discs can be unreadable in other drives of a different make and model, especially multi-session media. That is why I prefer to use a different media for backups as overall, they do not have that quirk. > I believe no BD problem is so sincere as the problem of > USB sticks which can be programmed to emulate a keyboard. > > http://www.zdnet.com/article/usb-flash-drives-masquerading-as-keyboards-mean-more-byod-security-headaches/ USB has been and always will be a security issue. It was never designed with security in mind. That is one of the reasons I do not like Linux automounters running with elevated permissions. As for Windows, if you use that OS, and swap USB drives with your friends like candy, you deserve what you get. > Have a nice day :) And you as well, Thomas! Do take care. t.j.
