EME? CDM? DRM? CENC? IDK!

What hacking Netflix can tell us about Browser APIs & the open web. A deep dive into the world of Web Video behind paywalls.

Once there was the <video/> tag, but content distributors decided it wasn't enough. They wanted more - more power, more protection, more control, more features. So, Encrypted Media Extensions were born & Digital Rights Management appeared in our browsers.

In this talk, we'll explore the technical details behind Encrypted Media Extension (EME), Content Decryption Modules (CDM) like Widevine, and the foundation of Web Digital Rights Management (DRM). How? By reverse engineering Netflix and building our own personal Netflix video player!

We´ve all used Netflix, but most of us (developers included) do not know how to deliver or implement encrypted video to the browser ourselves. I´d like to invite you to join me as I recap my jour ney into reverse engineering Netflix. I'll let you know how I came to understand the messy, monstrous world of DRMed videos on the web, how fragmented this ecosystem is, and who is in control of what.

It´s a depressing but fun journey full of WTFs and technical/legal constraints that I had no idea about when I first set sail watching Netflix on my Raspberry PI.

Friday, 2018-10-05 @ 15:35
> Skill level: intermediate
> Duration: 45 min

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Sebastian Golasch

Sebastian works as a “Specialist Senior Manager Software Developer” at Deutsche Telekom, after some time developing backend applications with Java and PHP he became a citizen of the JavaScript world. Recently he´s getting his hands dirty with Python and Rust. For the last six years Sebastian tries to improve our lives, working on Deutsche Telekoms Smart Home platform Qivicon.

Famous last words: “If I would’ve wanted to work in ‘Enterprise’, I’d have joined Starfleet…”