You can access it, its just not that easy and Im sure the key expires somewhat quickly meaning you will need to get a new one
There are exact tutorials online on how to get the key and how to use them to decrypt streams using different tools. I can tell you its not worth the time and extracting the keys is just the beginning of obtaining a fully offline playable video file
I don’t plan on ever doing it, seems like way too much of a hassle. But being one year away from having a master in cs I feel like I should at least now how and if it’s possible. Same with torrenting, I feel like I should have at least done that once, you know?
I mean if you feel like you need to do it then go for it i guess. Torrenting will be a lot easier and if you just torrent actual linux ISOs it will actually be legal. Obtaining widevine decryption keys on the other hand might take you some days and I dont know if extraction alone is illegal already
Its called HDPC - a protocol built into the DVI, DisplayPort and HDMI standards to encrypt the traffic between the device and your display
I dont know much of how it works exactly, but I know that a screen recorder captures the video information before it has been decrypted and thus is unable to record the video data the way youre seeing it on your screen resulting in a black screen. Thats my understanding of how it works
A quick google search told me that each device has to be certified, so no random guy can do some soldering and make his own hdmi capture card, that allows screen recording - I guess there is some sort of certificate chain in use similar to SSL-Certificstes. Also the master key seems to have been leaked over a decade ago.
--> only my limited surface-level understanding of the topic ofc
Yes and no. Depending on the Widevine Level used, the key is either stored in software or actually embedded in a secure section of hardware on your device. There is no agreement with streaming services. It is simply a way to ensure the key can not be misused. However, obviously, keys have been extracted from such hardware because otherwise Web-DLs wouldn't exist.
There is basically no way to prevent an expert from eventually extracting the key one way or another. By expert, I mean someone who is highly skilled in hardware manipulation. Not some script kiddie.
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u/simon439 Green Jun 07 '25
Does this mean there is a key on my devices that I can’t access purely because of an agreement with streaming services?