I would like to hear your comments, Sony rootkit may have been intended to work with iPods

Remember the sony root kits will not go away!

I am thinking about down the road,as like a year or two.
and the sory rootkit is forgotten and the used cd are past around and newbies put it on there computer to play.how do we protect them?


THE WORLD COURTS
should make sony track down every rootkit cd sold..by making sony to offer a premium of $25 for each cd returned to them.and pay the buyer the cost of the cd..

 

just info

O'Reilly Podcast: Security, DRM, and Sony
http://www.malwarehelp.org/news/View.php?ArticleID=1329
sonyWhen you install software, you understand some of the risks involved. The Sony DRM case feels different. If you want to listen to a music CD, should you be expected to know that this could result in security holes on your system? This week, O'Reilly's audio magazine program Distributing the Future looks at DRM, security, and the Sony case. You'll hear from an interview with Ben Laurie from the Apache Software Foundation and The Bunker Secure Hosting by Intel's Danese Cooper, from a keynote address by Cory Doctorow of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and from O'Reilly book editor Andy Oram. (DTF 007 beta: 26 minutes, 46 seconds, 12.3MB) O'Reilly Network: Security, DRM, and Sony

Security, DRM, and Sony
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2005/12/01/distributing-the-future.html

 

You can always do what I did. Disable autorun on all of your optical drives.

Some folks don't know about Rootkit, yet, unfortunately. And, you can't simply have Windows ask you what you want to do, when you put in a CD. By that time, it is too late. Sony's .exe file has already installed the "trash" to your computer. The only way to prevent it is to disable autorun entirely.

 

Enable/Disable Autorun

How To Enable/Disable Autorun (Windows 95/98/Me)
Access the System Properties Dialog. Using Control Panel: My Computer: Properties or Explorer: My Computer: Properties.

Select the Device Manager tab.

Select the CD-ROM folder.

Select the entry for your CD-ROM drive.

Select Properties.

Select the Settings tab.

Turn on or off the Auto insert notification option.

Select OK.

Select OK


How To Enable/Disable Autorun (Windows NT/2000)
Start RegEdit (regedt32.exe).

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/CurrentControlSet/Services/Cdrom.

Edit the Autorun value to '1' to enable autorn, and '0' to disable autorun.

Close RegEdit


How To Enable/Disable Autorun (Windows XP)
Open Windows Explorer by pressing the Windows + "e" key.

Right-click the desired CD-ROM and select Properties from the menu.

Select the AutoPlay tab.

Select each item from the pulldown list and for the Action to perform, select "Take no action" to disable autorun, or pick the apporpriate action to take if enabling autorun.

Select OK.

 

Sony's rootkit debacle hurting its artists?

USA Today reports that, in the wake of the Sony rootkit scandal, Sony/BMG artists whose discs include the spyware-like copy protection have seen their sales plummet.

When Sony announced the XCP recall, it said it would replace the infected CDs with new, non-protected versions.

In the interim, many of the artists with XCP CDs have seen their sales tumble.

Neil Diamond, whose widely praised 12 Songs opened at No. 4 on Billboard's Top 200 chart just two weeks ago, has fallen to No. 52 in the most recent chart. Bette Midler's Peggy Lee Songbook fell to No. 157 from No. 51, while Chris Botti's To Love Again:The Duets tumbled to No. 172 from No. 74.

The article discusses how Sony has yet to make a new uninstaller for the copy protection software widely available. Its original uninstaller created additional security problems and is no longer being distributed.

Wait! <sarcasm>I thought copy protection was there to protect artists!</sarcasm> Hmmmm . . . .

Posted by Dwight at December 4, 2005 11:16 PM



Sony closes in on new program to cleanse PCs
By Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY
LOS ANGELES — The flap over Sony BMG Music Entertainment's infected copy-protected CDs shows few signs of abating.
Neil Diamond's 12 Songs opened at No. 4 on Billboard's Top 200 chart just two weeks ago, but has fallen to No. 52 amid Sony's woes. Neil Diamond's 12 Songs opened at No. 4 on Billboard's Top 200 chart just two weeks ago, but has fallen to No. 52 amid Sony's woes.
Sony

Consumers, bloggers and lawyers are furious at the giant music label. On Nov. 14, Sony BMG said it would recall nearly 5 million CDs discovered to be susceptible to viruses from its Extended Copy Protection, or XCP, software.

When one of the CDs is played on a Windows computer, the XCP software controls how many times the CD can be copied. The software was found to have hidden files that could attract viruses.

Sony at first offered an uninstall program to get rid of the software, but that was found to attract viruses. On Nov. 18, the label said that it planned to release an updated virus-free uninstall program. Almost three weeks later, that program is scheduled to be released Monday on Sony BMG's website. Many of the infected CDs are still in record stores.

"I could write the uninstall program in one day," says Mark Russinovich, the blogger who first brought the world's attention to the problem CDs.

The label is being sued by the state of Texas, a California consumer advocacy group and some individuals. State attorneys general in New York and Massachusetts last week criticized Sony for still having the CDs in stores in their states.

California's attorney general "is monitoring developments," says Tom Dresslar, a spokesman for California Attorney General Bill Lockyer. "What happened is bad business practice. You can't achieve protection of intellectual property by invading consumers' privacy."

Massachusetts is investigating to see if Sony BMG violated the state's consumer protection act, spokeswoman Sarah Nathan says.

USA TODAY late last week found XCP-free versions of some of the CDs, including titles by Bette Midler and Neil Diamond, at Tower Records, FYE and Virgin record stores in Los Angeles and San Francisco. But many CDs with XCP labels remained, including titles by Midler, Celine Dion and Switchfoot.

"This is a debacle," says Gene Munster, an analyst with securities firm Piper Jaffray.

CD buyer Ron Sheban, 56, a St. Louis photographer, says he's waited patiently for Sony's uninstall program and has e-mailed the company several times.

"I never got a response," says Sheban, who purchased a Chris Botti CD at his local Barnes & Noble. "I'm extremely frustrated."

Sony says it's been working diligently on getting the uninstaller ready. But "security is more important than speed," Thomas Hesse, president of Sony's Global Digital Business division, said Friday. "I have the best security experts triple-checking it."

When Sony announced the XCP recall, it said it would replace the infected CDs with new, non-protected versions.

In the interim, many of the artists with XCP CDs have seen their sales tumble.

Neil Diamond, whose widely praised 12 Songs opened at No. 4 on Billboard's Top 200 chart just two weeks ago, has fallen to No. 52 in the most recent chart. Bette Midler's Peggy Lee Songbook fell to No. 157 from No. 51, while Chris Botti's To Love Again:The Duets tumbled to No. 172 from No. 74.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2005-12-04-sony-cd-flap_x.htm

 

Ireland,


Thank you for the instructions on how to disable autorun.

I believe we all have to get the information out and hopefully word of mouth will spread to the public.

What has me worried is the new copyprotect symbol on the packaging of newer dvds. This is on my PolarExpress "This dvd is copyprotected and may only be played on licenced devices" Licenced devices???

This is the symbol and link on other dvds:

http://www.copyprotected.com/language/english/index.asp?country=US

Is this another form of vigilantism on the part of the movie studios?

 

Hidden Feature in Sony DRM Uses Open Source Code to Add Apple DRM

sony For weeks, the blogosphere has been abuzz with tales of intrigue about Sony’s XCP copy protection system. Among the strangest revelations was that XCP itself infringes on the copyrights to several open source software projects. In one case, Sam Hocevar found conclusive evidence that part of XCP’s code was copied from a program called DRMS, which he co-authored with DVD Jon and released under the terms of the GPL open source license. What made this finding particularly curious is that the purpose of DRMS is to break the copy protection on songs sold in Apple’s iTunes Music Store. Why would XCP rip off code intended to defeat another vendor’s DRM?

The answer is that XCP utilizes the DRMS code not to remove Apple DRM but to add it. I’ve discovered that XCP uses code from DRMS as part of a hidden XCP feature that provides iTunes and iPod compatibility. This functionality has shipped on nearly every XCP CD, but it has never been enabled or made visible in the XCP user interface.

Tue Dec6 2005 1:52am EST by shanmuga ...Read more


Hidden Feature in Sony DRM Uses Open Source Code to Add Apple DRM
Monday December 5, 2005 by J. Alex Halderman

For weeks, the blogosphere has been abuzz with tales of intrigue about Sony’s XCP copy protection system. Among the strangest revelations was that XCP itself infringes on the copyrights to several open source software projects. In one case, Sam Hocevar found conclusive evidence that part of XCP’s code was copied from a program called DRMS, which he co-authored with DVD Jon and released under the terms of the GPL open source license. What made this finding particularly curious is that the purpose of DRMS is to break the copy protection on songs sold in Apple’s iTunes Music Store. Why would XCP rip off code intended to defeat another vendor’s DRM?

The answer is that XCP utilizes the DRMS code not to remove Apple DRM but to add it. I’ve discovered that XCP uses code from DRMS as part of a hidden XCP feature that provides iTunes and iPod compatibility. This functionality has shipped on nearly every XCP CD, but it has never been enabled or made visible in the XCP user interface. Despite being inactive, the code appears to be fully functional and was compatible with the current version of iTunes when the first XCP CDs were released. This strongly suggests that the infringing DRMS code was deliberately copied by XCP’s creator, First4Internet, rather than accidentally included as part of a more general purpose media library used for other functions in the copy protection system.

This isn’t the first time another vendor has tried to make its DRM compatible with Apple’s. Apple’s DRM, a system called FairPlay, places restrictions on songs purchased through the iTunes Music Store. FairPlay is the only DRM compatible with the immensely popular iPod, and Apple has declined to license it to rival music distributors, effectively locking rivals out from the iPod platform (at least as long as the rivals insist on using DRM). In 2004, RealNetworks attempted to work around Apple and reverse engineered FairPlay so that Real Player could create FairPlay files for use with the iPod. Apple responded by making vague legal threats and updating iTunes to break this compatibility. It looks like the people at First4Internet wanted to create their own iPod compatibility system, but rather than take the time to reverse engineer FairPlay themselves, they copied critical pieces of code from DRMS in violation of the GPL license.

Intriguingly, the FairPlay compatibility code in XCP is not limited to converting files from XCP CDs. The code appears to support conversion into FairPlay of files in a wide variety of input formats — MP3s, WAV files, raw audio files, and standard unprotected audio CDs — in addition to XCP-protected discs. It’s also strange that the FairPlay compatibility code is shipped but not made available for use by applications, not even XCP’s own player software. (Technically, the code is not exported from the shared library where it is stored.) This might indicate that First4Internet decided to remove the feature at the very last minute, shortly before XCP CDs started to ship.

In any case, the code is present and still works. It’s possible to execute it by jumping to the right memory location after performing some basic setup. I’ve used this method to test various aspects of the software. Here is a screenshot of iTunes playing a protected file that I made from a regular MP3 file using the hidden XCP functionality:

It seems these findings raise more questions than they answer. Where did the code come from? Since it supports audio sources other than XCP CDs, did First4Internet license it from another vendor? Why did Sony disable the code but continue to ship it? How does iTunes compatibility fit in with Sony’s overall copy protection strategy? Which is the greater evil — incompatible DRM platforms or GPL violations? Tune in again tomorrow when Ed will weigh in on these and other conundrums.

* * *

[This rest of this post contains technical information about how XCP uses the DRMS code. Feel free to stop reading now if you aren’t interested in the details.]

Understanding how XCP uses code from DRMS requires some basic knowledge about FairPlay. When you buy a song from the iTunes Music Store, you receive a FairPlay encrypted audio file that can only be played with knowledge of a secret key assigned to you by Apple. iTunes retrieves this key from an Apple server, which prompts you to log in with your Apple ID and password. Your user key is stored on your hard drive in an encrypted key database (a file called SC Info.sidb). When you play the song again, or if you try to copy it to an iPod, iTunes reads your key from the database instead of reconnecting to the server.

FairPlay’s security depends on the encrypted key database being difficult for anyone but Apple to decipher, so it is protected using a proprietary encryption method and a system-dependent secret key. (As security experts predicted, this protection was quickly broken; today DRMS is able to defeat FairPlay because DVD Jon painstakingly reverse engineered the database decryption code in iTunes.) iTunes encrypts the key database using a two step process. First, it XORs the plaintext database with the output from a proprietary pseudorandom number generator (PRNG) using a system-dependent seed; then it applies AES encryption with a system-dependent key. As a consequence of this design, the code for the PRNG is exactly the same whether the file is being encrypted or decrypted. To decrypt, iTunes applies AES decryption, then XORs the same PRNG output again. This explains why parts of the DRMS code — in particular, a function called DoShuffle, which computes the PRNG’s output — are useful for encryption as well as their original purpose, decryption.

The complex, proprietary PRNG must have been especially difficult to reverse engineer. Rather than expend this effort themselves, XCP’s authors appear to have lifted the DoShuffle code verbatim from DRMS. XCP uses this code to manipulate the iTunes key database in the process of adding FairPlay protection. Starting with an unencrypted audio file, such as a track from a protected CD, XCP compresses the audio in memory, then encrypts it using the same algorithm as FairPlay. Instead of using an Apple-assigned user key, XCP creates a new random user key and, with the help of the DRMS code, adds it to the iTunes key database. This ensures that the song file can only be used on the computer where it was created.

The XCP FairPlay compatibility code is contained in a file named ECDPlayerControl.ocx that is installed the first time an XCP CD is played. Here is how the DRMS code ties in with the rest of the library. (I’ve provided a debugger offset for each function as an aid to other investigators.) The DRMS DoShuffle subroutine (0×10089E00) is called from only two places, a function that encrypts the iTunes key database (0×1008A0C0) and a function that decrypts it (0×1008A300). Both these functions are called from only one other routine, which serves to read the key database, decrypt it, and, if necessary, to add the XCP user key to the database and write it out again in encrypted form (0×1008A470). This routine is called by a higher level function that converts an audio file into a FairPlay-protected AAC file (0×10027D20). You can test these functions by jumping into an earlier routine (0×10010380, apparently the start of a thread for transferring music to iTunes) after some simple initialization. I’ll happily provide serious investigators with rough sample code and instructions.

My tests indicate that XCP’s FairPlay-compatibility code works with iTunes up to iTunes version 4.8. iTunes 4.9, released June 28, 2005, included changes unrelated to FairPlay that cause the XCP code to fail. XCP CDs released after this date do not appear to contain an updated version of the code.
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=940

25 Responses to “Hidden Feature in Sony DRM Uses Open Source Code to Add Apple DRM”
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=940

 

Sony creates new public relations disaster

12/5/2005 3:00:11 PM, by Charles Jade

For Sony, 2005 was a year of declining sales, falling stock valuation, and a shakeup of corporate leadership. And that was the good news. It all began at Macworld in San Francisco with then Sony President Kunitake Ando inexplicably on stage with Steve Jobs, the man who took an iPod-shaped shaped sledgehammer to the iconic Walkman. The end of the year saw the Xbox 360 stealing Christmas from the PlayStation 3, as Microsoft beat Sony to market with the next-generation game console. In between there was the rootkit debacle, which has gone from a large black eye to a potential source of litigation. If there has been any good news this year, it has been the success of the PlayStation Portable.

Might as well taint that too.

In a relatively minor gaffe, but one that is nonetheless illustrative of a disconnect between Sony leadership and the Real World™, Sony has been caught in an embarrassing marketing campaign. The company has hired vandals, or artists, depending upon you point of view, to paint images of PSP players on the sides of buildings. This has resulted in a counter-defacing backlash in cities including Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, and San Francisco. The thing is, it's not really graffiti and defacing property, at least according to Sony spokesperson Molly Smith.

When asked about the criticism, Smith countered that art is subjective and that both the content and the medium dovetailed with Sony's belief that the PSP is a "disrupter product" that lets people play games, surf the internet and watch movies wherever they want.

Perhaps the rootkit was a "disruptor" product too; if so it was an indisputable success. For aspiring artists, it appears a day's work can net you about US$250. Details of the program have been reported here.

* Characters cannot be no smaller than 2 feet in height.
* Characters are TradeMarked by Sony Corp. and cannot be altered in any way; meaning, No different outfits, No additional items can be added such as jewlery, hats, logos, etc...
* Sony PSP logo cannot be used

You have to love that, protecting your logo as an act of counter-culture defiance.

Of course, this isn't the first time this has happened. In 2001, IBM was busted for sidewalk "art" and forced to pay fines and cleaning costs totaling US$120,000. While it should be noted that Sony is paying business owners for use of property, whether or not municipalities will have something to say about the issue is another matter. It's likely Sony will be faced with a similar backlash and end result, cleaning up another mess. It makes you wonder what Sony was thinking. That question probably gets asked a lot lately.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051205-5685.html

 

Microsoft: Stealth Rootkits Are Bombarding XP SP2 Boxes
By Ryan Naraine
December 6, 2005

1 comment posted
Add your opinion


More than 20 percent of all malware removed from Windows XP SP2 (Service Pack 2) systems are stealth rootkits, according to senior official in Microsoft Corp.'s security unit.
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Jason Garms, architect and group program manager in Microsoft's Anti-Malware Technology Team, said the open-source FU rootkit ranks high on the list of malicious software programs deleted by the free Windows worm zapping utility.

"I can tell you that FU is the fifth most removed piece of malware. We're finding the FU rootkit in many different versions of Rbot," Garms said, referring to the IRC controlled backdoor used to illegally infect Windows PCs with spyware.

In addition to the FU rootkit, Garms said the WinNT/Ispro family of kernel mode rootkits features in the top-five list every month.

WinNT/Ispro, like FU, is often bundled with illegally installed spyware to allow an attacker to modify certain files and registry keys to avoid detection on an infected machine.

"Hacker Defender," another rootkit program that is available for sale on the Internet, has also been detected and deleted regularly.

Garms shared statistics culled from the worm cleansing tool in an interview with Ziff Davis Internet News and warned that the high rate of rootkit infections confirm fears that virus writers are using the most sophisticated techniques to hide malicious programs.

PointerRead more here about how security vendors are struggling to deal with rootkit invasions.

The worm zapper, which is updated and released once a month, has counted more than 1.7 billion executions since it first shipped in January. "It has the largest footprint of any tool you'll ever find," Garms said, noting that Windows users run the tool about 200 million times every month.

For the most part, the rootkits are being detected and removed from Windows XP (gold) versions but infection rates on XP SP1 and XP SP2 machines are also high.

The Ispro rootkit, for example, was prevalent on 50 percent of all Windows XP machines without a service pack. About 20 percent of all scans of machines running XP SP1 and SP2 also found the rootkit.

The numbers are roughly the same for the FU rootkit while the Win32/HackDef stealth rootkit is lower down on the list, Garms said.

Beyond rootkits, the rate of XP SP2 infections from malware that use social engineering techniques is staggering, Garms said.

"The social engineering tactic is working for virus writers. People are still clicking on attachments and links in IM messages and becoming infected. Even with all the education programs, there's still a large number of customers being tricked everyday," Garms said.

PointerRead more here about Microsoft's decision to zap Sony's DRM rootkit.

The Netsky mass-mailing worm is the fourth most prevalent piece of malware removed by Microsoft this year, while worms like Kelvir and Lovgate were removed from 40 percent of all XP SP2 machines that ran the tool.

Kelvir is a family of worms that uses social engineering tactics to spread through MSN Messenger or Windows Messenger. The Lovgate worm and its mutants also use clever text in spammed e-mails to trick users into executing a malicious attachment.

Garms said the data from the worm cleanser is used to guide Microsoft's decisions on improving its consumer-facing security products. These include the Windows Defender anti-spyware application, the Windows OneCare PC health utility and the free Safety Center virus scanner.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1896605,00.asp

 

1st RIAA trial: victim to defend herself

p2p news / p2pnet: Laws were written to protect people, not to give huge, multi-billion dollar mega-corporations a way to terrorize them.

Will the law work equally well for an ordinary person with no heavyweight legal team and no unimaginably vast financial resources behind her?

Patricia Santangelo will find out as she represents herself in the first of the 17,000 or so Organized Music p2p file sharing cases to actually reach a court.

Santangelo, the mother of five children, was the first person to dare to stand up to Sony BMG, Vivendi Universal, Warner Music and EMI, the Big Four members of the Organized Music cartel. And up until now, she's had the New York firm of Beldock Levine & Hoffman working for her pro bono.

But to everyone's shock, judge Colleen McMahon recently denied Santangelo's appeal to have the case dismissed.

"I'm very nervous about it," Santangelo told p2pnet. "But I still feel it's got to go forward and I'm sure that even though I'll be representing myself, there are so many people out there who are willing to help me and give me advice on how to do it that I'll be OK."

The cartel has been, and still is, using formulaic boilerplate complaints to force anyone and everyone named as a defendant to defend each case on the merits. And as Ray Beckerman, who's been working with Santangelo told us, this in turn means every person sued will, "inevitably incur tens of thousands of dollars in legal costs for the pretrial discovery, and then a summary judgment motion and/or a trial".

Whether or not there's sufficient basis for the case doesn't enter the equation.

Meanwhile, obviously, the money has to come from somewhere and just as obviously, few law firms can hope to carry that kind of burden forever, a reality Sony BMG, Vivendi Universal, Warner Music and EMI are fully aware of.

In fact, they're counting on it to allow them to continue to victimize and terrorize - not too strong a word - their customers.

"Patricia Santangelo and her lawyers, Beldock Levine & Hoffman, have agreed that Ms. Santangelo should be substituted into the case as her own lawyer, in Elektra v. Santangelo, and submitted a stipulation and proposed order to that effect to Judge Colleen McMahon, who on November 28th had denied Ms. Santangelo's motion to dismiss complaint," say her former lawyers on their Recording Industry vs The People site.

"In his affidavit submitted with the stipulation and proposed order, Ray Beckerman, one of Ms. Santangelo's lawyers, said:

t was jointly decided by defendant and by her counsel that it would be in defendant's best interests for defendant to be substituted as her own counsel, and to proceed pro se.

4. Additionally, (a) defendant does not appear to have the financial resources that would be required for the pretrial discovery, and summary judgment and/or trial work, that lay ahead, and (b) it is clear to the undersigned that the plaintiff's case is frivolous, so that it would be unwarranted for defendant to go to extraordinary means to finance her defense of this case.

Now, when Santangelo faces the Organized Music cartel's legal teams, she'll be doing it by herself. There will be no lawyer watching her back.

But this first landmark trial will be a trial by jury and we'll finally find out if Big Music can abuse a group of ordinary citizens in the same way it's been abusing the law.

The cartel wields its so-called trade organizations around the world to bludgeon ordinary men and women, and even children, for the awful offence of sharing music with each other online.

The Big Four call file sharers thieves and imply that every day, millions of people like Patricia Santangelo or Britanny Chan or Tanya Andersen deliberately and consciously set out to rob them of their rightful dues.

But file sharing means exactly what it says.

Sharing.

Nothing has been physically or digitally removed from its owners, depriving them of what's rightfully theirs, and no money changes hands. And more importantly, neither Sony BMG, Vivendi Universal, Warner Music and EMI nor any of the countless record companies they own has ever been able to prove that a file shared equals a sale lost.

"It's very important to me," Santangelo told p2pnet. "I still feel people shouldn't give in to them. Normal people can't afford to go through this, but I'm going to give it a try.

"Nothing has changed since I first received the papers.

"It seems like they're attacking people every day and they're getting away with it."
http://p2pnet.net/story/7230

 

Sony rootkit may have been intended to work with iPods

12/6/2005 3:26:33 PM, by Jeremy Reimer

Researchers at the University of Princeton have uncovered additional information about the rootkit that was shipped without users' knowledge on Sony BMG music CDs.

The findings indicate that the Sony software had a hidden component that would convert the songs on the CD into compressed, protected AAC files, using a reverse-engineered implementation of FairPlay, Apple's own Digital Rights Management (DRM) format.

This explains the earlier discovery in the rootkit software of the open-sourced music encoder LAME, which had been modified and distributed without releasing changes to its source code, in violation of its LGPL license terms.

What was Sony's motivation in including this code? There is a very small possibility that this was part of a secret deal with Apple to bolster support for its iPod and DRMed AAC format. However, given Steve Jobs' propensity for making major announcements whenever new companies come on board, the secretive and copyright-violating nature of the software itself, and the continuing massive popularity of the iPod, it seems much more likely that Sony was trying to hitch a ride on the iPod's black and white coattails.

If it is confirmed that Sony used Apple's FairPlay format without permission, Apple could conceivably have a case against Sony by invoking the infamous Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA. Alternatively, and more likely, Apple could make minor modifications to the iPod software to refuse to play these unauthorized files, as they did with Real Networks' Fairplay hack.

A more interesting question is how exactly Sony thought they would benefit by secretly converting people's music files into an iPod format. If it was being done covertly, how would the consumer ever know to place the files on an iPod in the first place? Perhaps the move was intended to secretly convert all files, including existing MP3 files on the user's hard drive, into a protected format. One thing is for sure: the more information that comes out about Sony BMG's software, the more confused and desperate the company seems. Would it be too much to ask the company to stop messing around with people's computers and simply concentrate on developing and producing better music?

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051206-5697.html

 

Ireland,

I would like to add MY opinion, as an average citizen.

I don't have all the facts, but in the Santangelo case, I think it's absolutely ludicrous to go after this SINGLE mom. Like she has the time to monitor what her kids/friends are doing? Ban them from the computer? We live in a technical age, they have to have access or they can't learn. Egads, we have rules in our house for appropriate computer use, but do they follow the rules, does any kid? Did these people from the Big Music Cartels follow rules growing up? How would they fair going under OUR microscope? Of course, THEY are perfect and also have perfect children! I THINK NOT! Judge not, that ye may be judged!

This brings to mind a conversion I had YESTERDAY with my oldest son. He has free access to our home, we don't to his. LOL When the 2 oldest moved out, we formatted our harddrive to get rid of all the crap put on by them. Rule #1....don't install/download anything without our permission. Everytime I boot up that computer, I get the message of "Window XP has stopped so and so drivers from installing", some software that came with our LG cd burner......GRRRRRRRRRRRR! Getting rid of boxes in son #2's room, I came across pages on pages of .........Now, I know what happened to all our ink! Confronting them, I get sheepish grins and shrugged shoulders.

Son #3 follows rules (somewhat)....but went to addictinggames.com, that site wouldn't let him out without pressing OK to download, something he did NOT want to do. Spyware galore. NOW THAT'S A CRIME!