Play a Sony BMG cd on your computer - get a virus for free.

[moot]

Nuke, Skuzzy linked this article:  http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/analog-hole.ars//url
That article links to other articles, including
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20020527-2141.html
and
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/i-tunespaper.ars
and
http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/1042652465.html

[NUKE]

Links don't tell me what Skuzzy thinks. I'm just wondering what he thinks is the source of the problem. I don't really see a problem.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Umm.. seeing the problem and understanding what it is are two different things NUKE. You can lead a cow to water but you can't force it to drink.

You had DRM and DMCA way before our government introduced the very notion. Only difference is that nobody in US seemed to care.

[NUKE]

Originally posted by MrRiplEy[H]
Umm.. seeing the problem and understanding what it is are two different things NUKE.

Like global warming? Some people see a problem, others see reality.

[lada]

Originally posted by Skuzzy
There is that Chairboy, but you want to take MS to court?  hehe.  I can pretty well bet you how that would turn out.

umm no we will bother HT with " we wanna AH live CD"

[MrRiplEy[H]]

AH live cd.. now there's a great concept. No more 'enditall' or other crap. Awesome.

Now if HT would just add Openoffice to the clipboard map menu, who needs windoze anymore?

[lada]

Originally posted by MrRiplEy[H]
AH live cd.. now there's a great concept. No more 'enditall' or other crap. Awesome.

Now if HT would just add Openoffice to the clipboard map menu, who needs windoze anymore?

Well live CD might have some problems with storing configs, but selfwritable image for USB storage would be fine. FAT16, 256MB USB pendrive with bootable image, you can easily customize it in your "whatever support USB mass storage" and thats it.

Download, plug, execute, upload custom files, reboot & Vulch dweebs.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

But Lada livecd's don't have a problem with accessing HD for information. Nothing stops from storing config data there just as usual. Only the enviroment gets loaded live.

[lada]

But it will prevent you from using it on your PC at work...... for example

Keep it at one place, plug&Vulch... anytime anywhere..

[btw this is serious hijack isnt it ? ]

[Skuzzy]

Microsoft and AMD/Intel have the means to fight this, but instead, they are supporting it.  The DRM license in XP allows any content provider to take any means neccessary to protect that content within the guidelines of DRM.

This includes, and is not limited to, installing software on your computer without your knowledge.

If you think it is bad in XP, wait until you see Vista.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

To be honest I don't want to see Vista. Ever.

But I'm afraid my line of work means I'll have to work on it.

[lada]

Originally posted by Skuzzy
Microsoft and AMD/Intel have the means to fight this, but instead, they are supporting it.  

{
Sure .. because if Intel will fight them, then AMD will be best choice by Microsoft for Vista.

"Vista run best on AMD"


and so on...


Every comercial company go toward bigger profit. If there will be someone who will figure profit out of oposing to MS, then he will do it for sure.

But untill it happen you can "rely" only on non-profit "players"

}IMO

[NUKE]

Originally posted by Skuzzy
Microsoft and AMD/Intel have the means to fight this, but instead, they are supporting it.  The DRM license in XP allows any content provider to take any means neccessary to protect that content within the guidelines of DRM.

This includes, and is not limited to, installing software on your computer without your knowledge.

If you think it is bad in XP, wait until you see Vista.

They install software on your operating system, which you use under lincense.

[navajoboy]

Originally posted by Wolfala
Wired Followup article.


Wired News Staff  |   Also by this reporter

02:07 PM Nov. 02, 2005 PT

Sony BMG is facing a cacophony of criticism this week following the revelation that some of its CDs are packed with special copy-protection software that conceals itself with an advanced hacker cloaking technique. We think the company is getting off easy.

The firestorm began when Mark Russinovich, a computer security expert with Sysinternals, discovered evidence of a "rootkit" on his Windows PC. Through heroic forensic work, he traced the code to First 4 Internet, a British provider of copy-restriction technology that has a deal with Sony to put digital rights management on its CDs. It turns out Russinovich was infected with the software when he played the Sony BMG CD Get Right With the Man by the Van Zant brothers.

A rootkit is a particularly insidious type of Trojan horse that hides its existence from users and programs by tampering with the operating system on the most fundamental level. Where normal malicious code might be content to choose a deceptive file name, a rootkit "hooks" operating system calls that might reveal its presence, and essentially reprograms them to lie -- like bribing the coroner to conceal a murder.

And the lie the First 4 Internet code tells is a whopper. Under the program's influence, Windows will deny the existence of any file, directory, process or registry key whose name begins with "$sys$." Russinovich verified this by making a copy of Notepad named "$sys$notepad.exe," which promptly vanished from view.

That means that any hacker who can gain even rudimentary access to a Windows machine infected with the program now has the power to hide anything he wants under the "$sys$" cloak of invisibility. Criticism of Sony has largely focused on this theoretical possibility -- that black hats might piggyback on the First 4 Internet software for their own ends.

On Wednesday, Sony answered its critics by promising to issue a patch that allows antivirus software to pierce First 4 Internet's cloaking function. But in our view, the hacker and virus threat is something of a red herring. The harm of the Sony DRM scheme is not that it enables evildoers, but that Sony itself did evil.

We needn't go skulking through the computer underground to find malicious action here. By deliberately corrupting the most basic functionality of their customers' computers, Sony broke the rules of fair play and crossed a bright line separating legitimate software from computer trespass. Their actions may be civilly actionable.


!! IMPORTANT PART !!


Sony may even have committed a crime under the U.S. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which can carry fines and prison terms for anyone who "knowingly causes the transmission of a program ... and as a result of such conduct, intentionally causes damage, without authorization, to a protected computer." Corrupting Windows so it misreports the contents of a hard drive sounds a lot like "damage," and the click-wrap license agreement on the Sony disk amounts to pretty thin "authorization" -- disclosing only that "this CD will automatically install a small proprietary software program ... intended to protect the audio files embodied on the CD."

Nor are we comforted by assurances from First 4 Internet's CEO Mathew Gilliat-Smith, who, in an interview with CNET's News.com, defended his software this way: "For the eight months that these CDs have been out, we haven't had any comments about malware (malicious software) at all." Rootkits, like other cover-ups, rarely generate complaints before they're discovered.

!! Rest of the BS !!

Sony should immediately disclose the full details of its deployment of the First 4 Internet software, and assure the public that it will not use similar tactics in the future. Honest programs have no need to conceal themselves or their actions from users. Honest companies, too.

WOW that is deep! This is the kind of stuff i like to read while i have one hand on the scroll mouse and the other in a bag of cheetos puffs.  

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Heh just wait untill the RFID in your cheetos puffs bag sends a notice to cheetos agents that you're violating EatingUserLicenceAgreement by munching the stuff and reading about DRM.