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IDs For MO Drives To Counter Copyright Violations
CaptMondo writes: "It seems like HD manufacturers may be feeling the heat about MP3s and MPEGs. Fujitsu has just put out a press release about putting what they are calling 'Media ID' for their hard drives, which will identify each individual hard drive. Applications utilizing this feature can 'prevent reading of copied information.' Ugh!" From the description that link offers, it sounds like media, drives and applications would have to cooperate for this to work as intended, and that it only applies to 3.5" MO storage. Can you say technological tangle? It sure sounds like a good way to sell media though ... hmmm.
Take a look at Richard Stallman's 1997 text The Right to Read. Very interesting and far-sighted perspective on the things that RMS saw coming three years ago and that are becoming reality much more quickly than even the more paranoid among us had thought.
--
Violence is necessary, it is as American as cherry pie.
H. Rap Brown
Now all those 'misplaced' disks at US research facilities can be tracked down much more easily!
Best new white rapper since Pimp Daddy Welfare... Pimp-T!
I remember various copy-protected floppy schemes. People stopped buying copy protected programs because they failed in various ways.
That brings back memories. One of my least favorite copy protections was that utilised by a PC game called "D/Generation". Not only did it have the usual weird sector arrangements, it also had code to read Ids on the computer hardware, and after only 2 changes of any hardware ID, the game would no longer install [it would save information on it's own diskette]. Talk about planned obselescence. ;-(
Back on topic, the nice thing is that are so many storage options these days that an overall copy protection strategy would be extremely hard to enforce. We have hard drives, zip disks, CD-Rs, MOs, DVD-RAM, etc.
maybe I'm the only one who got this out of the story, but it has nothing to do with an ID for the drive. It is MO disks with their own unique ID incorporated into it by the manufacturer. The drive reads the ID... not real sure how this would affect piracy, unless they plan to make MO disks the primary means of software distribution. I dont know anyone who uses them personally and few companies I've worked for have used them either, but primarily just for running small backups.
If he wants to repeatedly post something helpful /. newbies understand what's at stake in
so that
these IP posts, why should you bitch? I note that
his post genuinely provides useful information,
while your post, on the other hand, simply
derides him for offering help. Who's post is
the more insightful?
> Just imagine if to register a copy Windows you had to call M$, give them your windows registration code and your HD ID.
Simple "solution" to that. Just keep pestering them ever few weeks giving them a new id, until M$ realizes "its more trouble then its worth"
Seriously, though. timothy mentions that "media, drives and applications" must cooperate in order for the plan to work. That's done easily enough with enough man hours working on proprietary software. But why does fujitsu think that they'll actually be able to sell any of these drives? Yours in sarcasm, Matt
Just imagine if to register a copy Windows you had to call M$, give them your windows registration code and your HD ID. Then you would receive a password needed to install windows. If your hard drive crashed and you bought another, you'd have to call them again for another install password. Now imagine M$ started to require it's OEMs to use this type of drive to get the "best" price. Since most people buy instead of build their machines, next time they buy a new machine their stuck with one.
I've never had them say that when I *buy* a CD, but they do when I RENT one.
So strange a concept (renting new CDs) but it is very popular here. Just like renting videos.
The minidiscs are usually right by the counter, too, but you can always find them cheaper somewhere else...
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.
Have you scene the sheer size of a LaserDisk? Can you imagine trying to put a drive that size in your computer? I doesn't matter whether someone wants a LaserDisk drive available or not. The fact is, you can't have one! It's too big!
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No, I am a person who is technically competent enough to understand the issues and build my own systems (and systems for clients) yet still be concerned for those without the funds to buy my systems (I build using high-quality, brand name parts) or otherwise lacking technical sophistication.
And, the tatooing movement has now moved to the corporate desktop as well. I have my own consulting company, but until recently I advised people to buy brand-name computers. The profit margin is not high enough for me to focus my resources on system builds.
However, the latest Microsoft crap has made me rethink that, and I am now actively building (or subcontracting out, depending on the order size) systems again, because I cannot in good faith recommend purchase of the latest crippled machines.
I generally find that those who are the most arrogant are the least experienced.
Is it supposed to prevent you from copying information to it? Because that would make one darn useful removable drive, not being able to write to it. How would a program using the Media ID tell if what it's writing is "copyrighted material"?
Is it supposed to prevent you from copying information from it? Because that would make one darn useful removable drive, not being able to read from it. How would a program using Media ID tell if what's being read from the disk is "copyrighted material"?
I can imagine a scheme where a "specially certified application" could write data to the disk with information about how many times the data had been read, but that really doesn't have anything to do with an ID. How the heck does the ID help?
The only answer that I can think of is that all this ID and Copyright Protection BS is going to get in the way, and nothing else. And you know what? It will kill the format. These things will never become popular if people have to jump through hoops to use them.
Besides, how many Evil Pirates do you know swapping Copyrighted Material on Big Floppies? Give me a break. CD-Rs and the Internet, that's the tools of their trade.
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I remember reading in the paper that the US Trade Representative (Carla Hills) wanted CD rental to be shut down as it was contra-copyright. No such luck, apparently.
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
Fujitsu and Western digital go hand in hand when it comes to making cheap hard drives. I sure as hell wouldn't buy one. Strangely enough fujitsu also makes (or made) Sparc cpu's.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
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(IIGS( Scott Alfter (remove Voyager's hull # to send mail)
\_^_/
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Not everyone has money. I mean, I can afford to buy every CD and DVD I want now, but in my youth, I had to tape albums from my friends, and the local library.
Now maybe if I hadn't been able to then, I wouldn't be so obsessed now, and the MPAA/RIAA wouldn't have me now as the enormous revenue stream that I am, now that I actually have money.
Even though I know that any copy protection system can be cracked, I hope they succeed, just so they completely alienate their market, and drive themselves into the sea.
>And judging from the actions of Hasbro & Co, most companies don't seem to even care much if they make mistakes that inconvienence users, as long as they keep the majority of people happy and/or oblivious to the problem. (*cough*hasbro*cough*)
Mattel shurely (hic)... really shouldn't post under the influence, but they make it so damn hard to get hold of weed these days that in order to get out of it, I have to drink, and drinking makes me type loudly and incessantly... damn, there goes all that hard won karma, guess I won't be moderating again for a while... still, at least that means IE wont be falling over under the weight of all those pop-list thingies... arse... where's my vodka...?
(IMO) We are witnessing a trend in the industry to include technology in products that can be used for copy protection purposes.
Right now it is still possible to circumvent those technologies (like it has been in the past) but i expect that this will change as technology gets more powerful, and copy protection tech is backed by law.
We are heading towards a situation where the pubishers of information have very strong control over who may read it. Since most people do not see what is wrong with that (or expect someone else to take care of it), i do not think it can be stopped.
With the DMCA it is just about to happen in the US, and since the EU tends to copy US laws we will have it over here soon. I am worried for the people who will not be rich enough to participate in the 'information age'...
Exactly. What's to stop joe hax0r from applying the dissassembler, locating the check, and nop'ing it out? Having cracked, and written a number of copy protection systems myself, I can say from first hand experience, all it takes is a little time, and a programmer who's strapped for cash. Not that I'd do anything like that these days, not that there's anything worth cracking anymore...;(
So lets get this right... You are watching a low quality actual pirate DVD of a movie, coming out of China, which odds on, your actual criminals *have* made money from and your conscience is *clear*? In what way is it clear? Is this the same clear that has you refusing to pay taxes for the police but paying the mafia protection money?
"You know you want me baby!" - Crow T Robot
BTW, anyone know how to get around that Macrovision thing? My GeForce 2 apparently has it, but I'm running it with reference drivers. Any suggestions?
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Seems like as time has marched on in the software industry, documentation and support are approaching zero while users are tangled up in more and more licensing/protection strings. The "Corporate Model" (even in our lovely 'New Economy') has not bode well for software. In the hire-today-fire-tomorrow devlopment environment, bloated buggy code is thriving. Throw in schemes like these at you have to wonder what your "buying".
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess? - Joshua (Wargames)
And the final problem with this. You cannot update the fsck-ing hard disk. If you do, since most of the major OEMs are now not permitted to actually give you a Windows install disk, you have to go buy another operating system (or download one). The other option would be buying another disk from the OEM, and we can all predict how quickly the prices on those will rise, can't we? Locked-in demand, only one source of supply... Either Microsoft gets more money or the OEM does. Either way, you have to pay at least twice for something you should already own.
-RickHunter
sounds like the CD-WOM drive I saw once. It was two pieces of wood with no real physical connection to a computer. You placed the CD-WOM media between the two pieces of wood, waited as long as you wanted (or as briefly -- the transfer rate was astounding) and lifted the top board. There was no disputing the data had been written to the disk. Of course, being CD-WOM, there was no way to prove it had been written. But there was no need to. Looks like Hitachi has just updated the mechanical side of things.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
-- LoonXTall
~~~LXT~~~
Life is like a computer program: anything that can't happen, will.
Maybe it's because I'm an old guy, but why are slashdotters so obsessed about their "right" to be able to steal copyrighted content?
Answer 1: see my sig.
Answer 2: they've never created any art themselves, so they don't credit the blood-sweat-tears argument for IP ownership.
Answer 3: they ignore the fact that the creator should be able to control to a limited extent something that would not exist without them. DeCSS is OK, because deciding where the DVD is (not) viewable is wrong. It should be viewable wherever the hardware exists. MP3 is OK for similar reasons. Emailing MP3s to friends is OK, as the rough equivalent of tape swapping. Napster's users are wrong because they don't care whether the artist wants to be on it or not. Napster itself is just a sword: whether it does good or bad is dependent on those who wield it.
Answer 4: they don't remember the controversy over Voices of the Hellmouth. It's your post? Too bad, it wants to be free.
___ CmdrTHAC0 ___
__CmdrTHAC0__
In Soviet Russia, Spanish Inquisition doesn't expect YOU!!
Who buys Fujitsu MO drives anyway? :)
I finally got the press release to load, and I guess it is not just Fujitsu, but several Japanese media companies involved. Moreover, we're only talking about MO disks. Still, the boycott advice holds. If you don't like this idea, don't use MO disks from this coalition. CDR(W)s work fine for my needs.
--
Build a man a fire, and he's warm for a day.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
In the past there would have been no way to keep a manufacturer from making such disks. HOWEVER: The copy protection part of the DMCA does make it possible to stop the manufacturing of such disks.
All anyone has to do is come up with some sort of utterly lame copy protection scheme involving the serial number on the disk and the DMCA springs into effect with its draconian penalties against a non serial number manufacturer - since they would be circumventing a digital protection means.
This means that one manufacturer of any type of digital media who puts a serial number on their media could force EVERYONE to put serial numbers on their media of the same type. This includes floppies - and it would be a felony to erase a floppy serial number!
Isn't the DMCA just swell?
And, oh yes, "one license is all you get?" Fine. That's part of the whole model. But I should NOT have to pay extra money if I want to upgrade my harddrive.
With the recovery disks, you can reimage your system. A non-destructive reinstall of Windows is much more difficult.
Obviously, you have the luxury of playing with your own toys. I, on the other hand, have to help consumers who are finding out that their copies of Windows are now useless without some form of hacking if they dare to upgrade their hard drives.
He probably does, but gods why should he? There are far more important issues. GNUtella can't scale to support any more than 2k people [and poorly at that], most of which would have access to free sh1t anyways. Napster, on the other hand, is an entirely different animal due to its proven size, scalability, and ease of use.
Didn't we go through this same BS a few months ago with the embedded ID numbers in intel PIII chips? I assume this feature will be able to be turned off or else the companies that incorporate this privacy invading feature will get hit with major lawsuits. Or better yet, they'll spend 4 years bitching about a standard like the RIAA and the SDMI standard. [Menacing laughter]
Kris
botboy60@hotmail.com
Nerdnetwork.net
Kris
botboy60@hotmail.com
Nerdnetwork.net
The media ID will apply to new discs with the unique media ID factory programmed, announced company officials, which combined with media access software requiring the IDs will create new market opportunities for the media. Officials also commented while the MO discs with a media ID will read with legacy MO drives, new Media ID-compatible MO disk drives will be required to enable content playback with Media-ID aware client agent software, creating additional market opportunities for the new Media-ID aware drives that will be required for content playback.
The companies participating in the Media ID initiative plan to make the function compatible with the copyright protection function that Microsoft Corporation will add to its forthcoming Windows Millennium Edition. By bundling media access control with protected industry leading proprietary software from Microsoft, the participating companies, copyright protection will be enhanced by control of the platform and software that access the Media-ID.
Saving information to a removable MO disk with the Media ID function not only protects copyrighted content distributed over the Internet but also makes it possible to save an unlimited amount of information by simply adding more MO disks. Because Media-ID discs will be required, MO discs which have enjoyed an average annual growth rate of 140% on the number of units sold, are expected to become be in even greater demand, thereby promoting the further acceptance of MO technology.
Saving information to a removable MO disk with the Media ID function not only protects copyrighted content distributed over the Internet but also makes it possible to save an unlimited amount of information by simply adding more MO disks, as well as easily carry information and store it safely and conveniently, even when replacing computers. Indeed, because protected copyrighted digital content will be protected by the unique Media-ID, the MO manufacturers forcast an additional demand for the MO Media-ID enabled discs, as consumers carry and safely store their copyrighted digital content rather than copy it digitally over the internet. They further believe that the realization of an environment which protects intellectual property and the popularization of a new removable memory media used with it will lay the groundwork for various types of new content businesses.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
No kidding. It's a normal HDD, and a normal Asus board but with customized BIOS code. The tatoo is software, written in a sector of the HDD & portion of the BIOS that I cannot remember the address for at the moment. As for where I heard it, perhaps it was my HP Technician training class? Or maybe it was in the HP service center I worked in?
(I am no longer affiliated with HP, thank God. Great high-end stuff, but their low end stuff is crap, and now with the M$ licensing garbage I can no longer recommend ANY HP desktop). I once had the misfortune of supporting the Pavilion
Tell you what. Don't believe? I assume you have a stock Pavilion. Use another HDD, and image your drive to the blank HDD. Then, take a third HDD, from a non-HP computer, and atttempt to boot from the recovery CD in the CD-ROM, selecting the "Full system restore" option. Odds are, it will say something like "This only works on an HP computer." (I say "odds are" because there are a few systems that did not have this "feature".)
In related news, Melbourne, Australia Linux user Goonie, in between receiving massive email attachments with spy shots of the opening ceremony rehearsal, and discussing appropriate drinking games for the occasion, agreed with friartux. He added "If you want speed and rewritability, you'd use an orb drive anyway".
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Indeed...a customer of mine got a Compaq Presario notebook (one of the really skinny models; I don't remember the model # offhand) last Christmas. After sending it back to Compaq to replace the built-in modem (because the bastards @ CompUSA wouldn't take it back), he complained that it ran fairly slow for what was in it (a mid-speed PII). I said it was all the preloaded crap that Compaq put on it. I nuked the hard drive and did a clean install of Win98 with the necessary drivers (modem and display drivers were available from Lucent and ATI, but I had to go to Toshiba's website to get a driver for the ESS sound controller). It ran much faster after that.
Since then, he's also bought a couple of new machines...650-MHz Durons with 7200-rpm hard drives and no WinHardware (one with 128 megs of RAM, the other with 256). OEM Win98 SE CDs were provided with each machine. (I also burned restore CDs for each machine...Ghost is great for that. Pop the CD in and it's restored in less than five minutes.) The new machines have run like champs, and there's no proprietary crap in them like you'd get with a Compaq, Dell, etc.
_/_
/ v \
(IIGS( Scott Alfter (remove Voyager's hull # to send mail)
\_^_/
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Today I had to flash the firmware on a Pioneer drive so I could watch a DVD at a friend's place (he came back from China with X-Men on DVD, and I wanted to see it. Based on the quality and such, I'm assuming the MPAA didn't see any money from it, so my concience is clear).
:-)
I'm sorry that Fujitsu had to do this. Now I either have to stop supporting them (probably what I'll do), or deal with having to work around their silly artificial limitations on my usage of a device (like I did with the region coding). Hopefully they'll learn their lesson and end this madness. Either that, or I buy more Seagate drives
--
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Maybe it's because I'm an old guy, but why are slashdotters so obsessed about their "right" to be able to steal copyrighted content?
I think you are missing the point that most people are upset about. The issue here isn't that it would prevent you from doing illegal/immoral things. The troubling fact is that someone else, some faceless, nameless division of some company somewhere is the one who would get to decide for YOU what would be moral usages of their device. And that kind of large corperation hasn't been especially renouned recenetly for acting in the best interest of the consumer. (or anyone else but themselves, really...) So you can see how it would make people edgy letting such an organization dictate what is ethical.
The other issue is that this is yet one more step in a fairly disturbing trend that has been going on recently in corperate thinking. As you has doubtlessly often heard quoted in DMCA discussions, originally when you bought a product, it was yours, you could do whatever you wanted to it, since as soon as you purchased it, it was entirely your proprety. However, corperations seem to want to change that, and retain quite a bit more control over their products, even after purchase, and dictate what you can and cannot do with them. For example region codes on DVDs. Region codes allow companies to make arbitrary decisions about what you can do with DVDs you legally purchased, and enforce them. (For example, you can't play them in a country different from the one you bought it in. There is no law to this effect, but Sony effectivly enforces one anyway with their region coding. And there is no apeal to this kind of law.
And lets not forget the ever popular problem of pattern matching errors. Such as the problems that have plagued nearly all "net nanny" software packages since the dawn of time. (or at least "net nannies") While deciding what is "moral and legal use" of a product is ticklish enough, programming the product to recognize the difference and act on this information is even trickier. And judging from the actions of Hasbro & Co, most companies don't seem to even care much if they make mistakes that inconvienence users, as long as they keep the majority of people happy and/or oblivious to the problem. (*cough*hasbro*cough*)
This is what makes people edgy about this kind of thing: This product would give someone else (who's trustworthyness is questionable) the ability to create "laws" governing the useage of their product, with no real apeal. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but that's a little more trust than I'm willing to give them. And judging from the general tone of most of the responses to this artical, I think I'm not the only one.
Sorry if I'm ranting, it's been a weird week.
I don't see why they don't just give the software away for free... of course, instead of a "cd key", you'd be required to enter a credit card number. Charge at time of install.
Yes, many people ask, "Why do they load so much crap on there?"
I have heard horror stories of Pavilions coming out of the box, brand spanking new, with 63% resources free because so much crap is loading at startup.
Simply put, the marketing weenies do their research, and ask people, "Do you want free this, this and that on your PC, would it make it more likely that you will buy it?"
Joe consumer says, "duh! yes!"
HP goes to Big Software Company and says, "Please give us a "lite" version of your latest bloat to put on your system to get your name out there & encourage people to upgrade!"
Big Software Company says (most but not all of the time), "Sure, but only if you make it load at start up so people see it!"
HP, of course, pauses about 1 millisecond and says, "OK! Where do we sign?"
The same goes for Dell, Gateway, etc. Lately, some of them seem to be better. Dell, Gateway & HP I *THINK* allow you to have some input. BTW, an HP tech just told me that now the tatoo is ONLY on the motherboard, the HDD tatoo is no longer used on the currently shipping systems.
And who says it's me using the computer or the attached hardware? Ever heard of multiple user accounts or People Using Your Machine Temporarily? =)
Besides, why bother using something as hopelessly arcane and hardware-architecture-dependent for identification when we already have prefectly good and widely supported authentication schemes that do not depend on something as bogus as those two methods mentioned? =)
Right, but a large proportion of the 'Doze world barely knows how to start Microsoft Word w/out clicking on a Word document directly, let alone fire up a debugger. Cheats and cracks help out the tech-saavy users, but the bulk of the $$ come from people who know just enough to be dangerous.
I've cracked a few copy-protection schemes myself. But still, I'm usually the one in my family which sets up the computers and stuff for everyone else, while most everyone else in the family knows a a handful of cookbook operations, such as how to click on "Connect to the Internet".
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
Imagine the disappointment when they buy that bigger, faster hard drive and then find out that none of their files will play because they weren't created on that drive. Which brings up an interesting scenario: What happens if you create all your content on one drive but then move it to another?
> Unless you have to use a 1-900 number to call MS
Yes they could do that, but if they "inconvenience" the customer too much, I would imagine there would be a huge outcry.
While M$ would certainly love to go to that model, other software (for the most apart except high-end stuff like 3D Studio Max) DOESN'T require a person phone in to be able to install software they bought* off the shelf. If Microsoft started doing that, people would just start "flocking" to the competition.
[* Yes I know you don't buy software. You just purchase the license to it. ]
As I see it, Fujitsu is the only manufacturer currently going this route. Just boycott Fujitsu. Problem: solved.
In Japan, we've heard it said here before, the media is the prime mover in the market. If you buy a music CD, some clerks ask, "Would you like a Sony MiniDisc or two with that?"
[
I remember in 1992, I found a utility that I've still got somewhere on a BBS called something like 'disk_id'. It allowed you to set the ID on your floppy to whatever ####-#### hex value you chose.
Oh what fun we had changing the codes to things like 'EFFF-0FFF'.
thenerd.
The camels are coming. I'm in love.
...and there goes the ID. The CPU ID had a chance to work, since it was unsing an actual instruction, bypassing the OS (well, I think, don't flame me). However, this hard drive ID has no chance of success. It will need to ask the OS about the ID of the drive. There's nothing that prevents the OS of always answering the same ID for everybody... and there goes the system. Under Linux, it's quite easy to bybass... you just don't implement the system. Under windows... I'm pretty sure some people will come up with modified disk drivers..
I think this move is more meant to look like they're doing something to prevent copyright violations. And if the MPAA believed there CSS was secure, they'll probably believe the hard disk ID will be too!
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
Erm. Are you all on drugs? ;) The purpose of this technology with REMOVABLE MAGNETIC OPTICAL DISKS only (that's all fujitsu has designed it for) is to prevent piracy. Each FO disk (not drive, disk) will have a specific ID, so that when you buy copyrighted software or what not, they can do a check on the disk to make sure that you are using the original, and not a backup.
This is NOT about identifying you.
This is NOT about mp3's or anything you are going to put on the equivilant of a floppy.
This is NOT about hard drives at ALL!
I wonder how many people actually read the article that was linked, and how many people just read the summary? Apparently not many...
This sounds similar to the practice that HP & some otehr vendors have been following for years, and which is now REQUIRED by Microsoft if you're one of the top ten or so OEM's.
An HP Pavilion HDD has a "tatoo" in a section of the hard drive that can only be reached by debug scripts and the like. FDISK can't touch it. "Recovery" disks look for the HDD tatoo & and the BIOS tatoo and if they don't find it, they will not install. This means if you have one of these types of systems, you need to take your system to an OEM-approved "service center" and they will run the script to make your new hard drive able to function with the recovery disk should you buy a new hard drive.
Some OEM's (notably HP) used to foist this travesty on consumers in return for cheaper licensing for their protection payments to Microsoft for Windows. Now, this is REQUIRED by M$ on all new system.
The solution, of course, is refusing to by OEM systems that have "recovery disks". Use Linux, BSD, ANYTHING, or if you MUST use Windows, by from a smaller OEM which will still give you a genuine Windows OEM CD - the big boys are now PROHIBITED by M$ from distributing Windows CD's, they can only distribute "image" CD's.
I'm sure there's disgruntled techs out there somewhere who have the debug routines to duplicate the tatoos, or a good assembly language hacker can do it. Of course, who wants all the crap the major OEM's load up anyways?
I don't see how this is a big deal at all. First, MO is kind of marginal in it's usefulness. Expensive media, slow data rates, drivers required. We all burn CDs now don't we? What's so compelling about 1.3G MO drives if DVD-RAM is around the corner?
If anything the use of large media is in decline, with the advent of online drive websites, faster internet access and even home LANs becoming more common. I burn CDs to share photos. For backing up data I slot in another hard drive, or copy it over the net to somewhere else.
This probably doesn't pose a big threat to our freedom to copy anything at all, just a threat to the appeal of these MO drives.
If your hard drive crashed and you bought another, you'd have to call them again for another install password.
:^).
There is one falacy to this. There is a dos program that will allow you to change the Volume ID on your HD (Works great for stupid companies that have their serial # based on your HD Vol ID! can you say Aldon!). So if this situation came up, just have a pre-created boot disk with this dos program on it and change the Volume ID on your HD to the One you previously had (make sure you make note of it when you install the first time!) and Whola! you don't have to call M$ ever again! The program is called VolumeID You can get it by clicking on the "VolumeID" Link Provided!
There is ALWAYS a way around companies blatenly being stupid!
Remember: "There is no such thing as a stupid question, Just a stupid person!"
The Truth is a Virus!!!
They got trounced on by the EVERYONE.
The potential for abuse is too overwhelming. I dont care if you are the RIAA, the MPAA, or the freaking president of the USA. It isn't going to happen.
Feed The Need[goatse.cx]
I thought MS was focused on eliminating CDs in the near future -- that is, the OS comes on the 'puter you buy, and only licensed depots have CDs.
This way, you send in your bad hard drive to get an exchange or repair.
Obviously, for this to work, HDs have to have some type of individual id, to prevent DD 'duping.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
I don't think you get it. The ID isn't to prevent copying software from working. Rather, it's to prevent "aware" applications from running on media other than its original.
Here's an example. Suppose, for instance, I install SuperApp on my drive, and it records the fact that I installed it to a drive with ID# 123456 in some super-secret way. Now, you come along, copy it to your drive, with ID# 654321. SuperApp, because it's aware of the drive ID#, looks at the drive ID when you try to start up your copy. It sees 654321 != 123456 and refuses to start.
All that matters is that SuperApp (the application in this example) is aware of the ID. The copying software and other software doesn't need to know about it for the ID to be effective.
At any rate, I think this will fly as far as Pentium III ID#'s, or maybe even less far. "What do you mean I have to repurchase all my software because I upgraded to a larger drive?"
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
Media ID on a hard drive would be meaningless. One could keep music on Zip Disks or some other large removable media then make CDs of mp3 files. Not to mention this ID plan would create market for mod chips and software to defeat the ID. Once you have people forking out money specifically to break the law it's a short step to trying to recover your cost through resale or even make a profit. Then the RIAA would really have something to panic over. Worse than people pirating free music would be to have people paying for pirated music. This would mean they have less money to spend on ligitimate music.
You can't give someone access to information without giving her the ability to manipulate that information in some way. (Aside from terminating the recepient, which would definitely affect your customer loyalty factor, not to mention squelching any repeat business.)
DVDs failed at this with CSS
Sony failed at this with the Minidisk "Do not copy" bit.
DIVX... well, 'nough said.
VHS Macrovision
The list goes on and on, from movies and music, to email and "read once and destroy" messages. If you present information to someone, they can recreate it. Period. Preventing that is not within the realm of current technology, no matter what type of encryption/timestamping/client-side security you put on it. It will be reverse engineered and automated within hours.
As we say in the south- "You can't un-ring a bell!"
(Note: There are no x's in my email address.)
The article is about MO drives. Some previous comments to which I referred had already referred to hard drive behavior.
Gee I guess that means we'll have a few more companies to boycott. I am saddened by all these events. Now of course who really gives two shits about this, since we don't use Windows and ME is of course out of the question.
Just like the Pentium serial number and the CueCat serial number - it allows eCommerce sites to tailor content to your patterns. Customized content isn't so bad, now is it?
It may be a play to gain more of the acceptance that the MO disks have found so hard to receive. "Please the RIAA and the consumer will follow", or some such.
Sorry for beeing ignorant -
/proc/ide/hda/identify
cat
Hdd's already have an serial number since, uh, foreaver?
signatures pending - ansa@kos.to - (dont mail there)
What about RAID 1 volumes?
I believe, that is you have a mirror of the drive, that you would have *many* of the installed images. Mirroring does not just imply one copy, as triple mirroring is common as a means of providing backups of 7 x 24 sites.
So generate these, then store the drivs away for upgrade time - or not. I can't think of a bigger waste of resouces than this.
mod this down.
.
external drive maybe?
eudas
Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
Unless Fujitsu magneto-optical disks get a lot cheaper, nobody is going to use them as a distribution medium for content. CD-ROMs cost about $0.50 in volume. So what's the point? We're missing something here.
Which would be more frightening: We live in a society where a few pirates steal some media for entertainment purposes, while most people still purchase it; or a society where large corporations control how everybody gets their media, how they play it, and what hardware they play it on?
I'm all about fair. You give me crap, I'll do whatever I want with it without giving you anything but the middle finger. You give me quality, and I'll reward you. I AM IN CONTROL.
--
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
Just don't buy a Fujitisu drive. Corporate line is the bottom line. If a product or design implimentation isin't making money the model/line/product will go out of production in favor of one that does.
simple.
-ravage
-- "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."- Albert E.
Unless you have to use a 1-900 number to call MS
I don't think the data lifetime really matters.. I hope to GOD that we are not still using CD's and DVD's 100 years from now.. :)
"user by force, root by attrition" to email remove the NO~SPAM
It may be a good way to placate the Prime Evils (RIAA, MPAA, but Baal escaped), but "this media will stop you from copying things that you aren't authorized to copy" won't have a lot of appeal to any user, average or saavy. A good example is definitely the Intel chip ID fiasco. This may be fine for people who don't know better, since they may not care one way or another, but those are the people that the technology would be for anyhow. Let them repulse consumers if they want.
These have a number of non-evil uses, particularly when it comes to figuring out the topography of a redundant dual-ported setup..
That said, technical copy-prevention schemes continue to be doomed to failure..
How many PC hardware companies have come and gone since 1980? I couldn't count 'em. Hopefully this will never catch on. It would really suck to have my entire CD collection made obsolete because Seagate folds.
-Scott scott@surrealistic.org
Much as I'd love to have the MPAA and RIAA Go Away, it would be nice if they could be convinced this was secure.
The problem is, if you see that your MO disk is about ti fail, and wisely copy it's contents to another disk knowing that the stupid serial# thing won't affect you (because of your hacked dirver), you commit a felony in the U.S. every time you access the songs you PAID FOR!
Personally, I'd rather NEVER listen to a disc from an RIAA label again (even if it means nothing but off key gar(b)age bands) than deal with media that is ACTIVELY hostile to me.
At this point, I'll buy a DVD IFF I can flash new firmware that does not refuse to do what I tell it to when I want to read a 'secured' sector on the disk. One of the reasons I dumped Pascal for C and Windows for Linux was that the former would refuse to perform simple tasks I told them to (for my own good) and the latter never do that.
it sounds like a terrible way to sell media - no one will buy it. :)
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
The difference here is that hard drives do tend to last longer than floppy disks. On the other hand, they're also awfully inexpensive now -- can't someone who wants to copy just sell stuff on preinstalled hard drives?
Oh, and as for the other comments about Microsoft requiring this...I did say that programs failed in various ways... :-)
[Merrimack, New Hampshire] 14 Sept 2000 -- Linux user friartux, never impressed by Fujitsu storage products, has announced a personal resolution to avoid buying any Fujitsu media.
"This shouldn't be difficult," he said. "Compared to Maxtor and IBM hard drives, in my opinion, Fujitsu sucks anyway. Their capacities are low, and their buffers small in comparison. And who uses MO drives these days, anyway?"
Backup media such as CD-R have become more popular than MO in recent times, and DVD-style storage promises more than either.
Friartux looks forward to the first DVD-writable solution certified compatible with Linux -- without any corrupt tracking schemes, and with large buffers and good speeds.
Now, if they required online registration as part of install (before activation) and if this linked your CD-key to your hard drive identifier... then we'd be in buissiness.
Actually though, the hard drive is a pretty lousy place for this. Would be comparativly easy to patch the OS to change it (see the standard work-around for software region checking of DVDs).
CPU would be harder to patch universally.
Fortunatly though, Intel got burnt trying to add unique chip ids for privacy reasons. No software vendor will require ID'd processors untill they are ubiquitious (can't risk loosing market share). No hardware vendor wants the privacy loss uproar.
Be interesting to see how long this 'hard drive id' idea lasts.
The applications have to make use of this technology. If they don't, the Media ID doesn't mean a damn thing.
(Tangent mode for a moment here...)
- Look at what's happening with piracy in the DVD market -- the pirated works aren't being distributed as DVDs. It's even a point of pride that they are in a different format with different encoding! The people doing this are using a perfectly legal copy, and extracting the information. Once it's in the new format (whatever it ends up being), there is no CSS, no Macrovision, no region coding...
- nothing. You can copy it all you want now, it's not a DVD anymore!
(Okay, back on topic now...)It seems that there are enough incredibly talented people out there, and they're willing and able to write software capable of doing things like this. As long as the media is designed to be used in conjunction with computers, people are going to find ways to use it that the authors did not intend... and probably aren't going to like. LaserDiscs have phenomenal data volume, but when was the last time you saw a LaserDisc drive for your computer?
Remember how long Macrovision lasted when it first came out on Back to the Future? (At least, that was the first movie I saw it used on...) It was just a matter of months before Macrovision filter boxes showed up -- end of problem! We had control of our movies back!
This Media ID thing really isn't going to cause any problems, I think. People are going to attack the "don't copy me" bit instead of the Media ID. People are going to use different software that ignores the ID #. I think this will be about as effective as region codes. Heck, I can even think of interesting uses for it, like as a holder for encryption keys. Imagine this:
- Include the (encrypted) Media ID as part of your key. Use that in conjunction with SSH to access your systems from... wherever. If someone tries to copy your client key, it's signature won't validate because they don't have the original disk. You also have a convenient place to store a whole bunch of portable data. (MP3 collection?)
Now back to earth. Why would these things be popular? The largest one is 1.3 GB. I can get a 10 GB hard drive for just over $50 -- why do I want one of these? What is the price-per-gig going to compete with?On the down side, you could lose it just like your keys.
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
"All that matters is that SuperApp (the application in this example) is aware of the ID. The copying software and other software doesn't need to know about it for the ID to be effective."
First, the SuperApp will have to store the drive ID number somewhere as part of its installation so it refuses to run anywhere else. Right there, you can runn a 'diff' between two versions of the install to figure out where this id is stored. If that fails, then just write a hacked version of the driver to supply a generic drive ID.
i think it is b/c you're an old guy; one thats been brainwashed to believe that ideas, art, etc IS actually something that can really be owned, that somehow, making an exact duplicate hurts someone in some way. Don't give me that buiness has a right to crap either. Businesses are not people and cannot have rights. They exist only b/c we allow them to, to serve a purpose.
I work for a games company who sell their games exclusively online for about a third of the price of retail boxed games. You can download the whole game online, (we keep it down to less than 15Mb on the whole) and play the demo parts of it, and you can buy a license to unlock the rest of the game.
;)
Now, when we first started the key that you bought would have a special ID number that we had generated from your system configuration, and the game would not run unless your configuration matched that key. If you changed your system you could log into our website and it would generate a new one for you - and by default you could do this 5 or 10 times or so before you'd have to write to us to get a new version. The motivation for this was to prevent people from simply handing around their keys to other people.
Obviusly, a Hard Drive ID systems is quite similar (and actually would have made our job easier...
However, we found that many of our customers found this process very confusing, and it caused a lot of problems, so we dropped it. The system now uses keys that will work on any computer, but it has the name of the person who bought in encoded into it, which is displayed on the main menu of the game. Obviously this system does mean that it is easier for people to rip us off by passing the keys around, but it is also much better for our customers. Having a few more illegal copies is better than losing customers through a difficult process.
I think with this Hard Drive ID system, you'll see a similar thing happen - not many companies will use it because they'll get so much hassle through their support lines.
cheers,
Tim
Much as I hate to agree with someone using the name of a Pokemon character, I am entirely with you.
In a vague way this technology reminds me of the film 'Westworld' (I think its a Micheal Crichton number, not sure though). In the film the main charcters were issued with guns. Real ones, but modified so that they couldn't shoot real people. They were 'censored'. This made me think somewhat. Most people could be trusted to use the guns responsibly, without hurting anyone else. However, due to the few idiots that might abuse the power they had to be restrained. Drawing a parallel to this new media technology, the few (or maybe the majority if piracy is really as rife as some make out) people that would use this technology to illegaly copy copyrighted material have to be helped out by the only people able to limit such abuse. Sure, most of us are against this censorship, I personally don't think I need my hand held by Microsoft/Intel/Seagate and so on, but I am someone that respects the fact that if I want something I'm going to have to pay for it. Unfortunately those people that trade 'warez', copyright MP3s and so on make life less free for the rest of us. My freedom to use technology is important, but so is that of the artist/record companies and so on too.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
The drives were normal full-height SCSI drives, but had some form of 'signature' written somewhere. Using normal drives of the same model just wouldn't work, as filesystems could not be made on the partitions. Of course the charge for these drives was around 3 times the normal cost.
I eventually discovered how to sign any drive, using the in-built diagnostics program and an undocumented password. I never had the chance to dump the contents of the disk via dd to determine what the signature was, or where it was written.
and when they do you replace them, get the backups out and but the data back on.
the HD ID is not friendly to this, nor using RAID arrays/network mounted filesystems to give greater speed/reliability etc.
Can't see it working except in the home environment and even then it may have problems.
When you implement a technological protection measure, you can override copyright law with your own "legislation" that applies to your content. Whatever your code tries to prevent is now illegal.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
If it's not widespread, I won't buy the media.
If it is widespread, someone will write the drivers.
So i'll find another job. Thats exactly what my dad had to do when his job disappeared. Your arguement is flawed anyway; i don't sell software, i sell my time during which i create software. Artists won't be going away any time soon, they were around long before we had record labels raping consumers and the artist alike. And artists did make a living off their work before the labels. Why do you think they wouldn't be able to do so because of mp3?
See, your problem is you think i have no moral fiber, just like you are lacking. Its spineless fucks like you that is messing up the world. 'Anything to make a buck' You people with that attitude make me sick. As far as what Malda did with his money; i don't know, maybe he did donate it. I honestly don't know either way. At anyrate, its hard to think i was brainwashed since i've had my thoughts against being able to own ideas long before i started reading slashdot. Don't assume that other people are as shallow and corrupt as you; i know i could be prefectly happy living in the middle of nowhere without the 'comfort level' i currently have. Selfish people like you should be shot; you obviously have no care of anyone but yourself. Go rot in hell.
I'm not sure exactly what his paradox means, but by his examples I take it to mean no one will buy this technology and it will fail in the marketplace. History has shown this to be true, and it doesn't matter how hard it is to circumvent it - it will be circumvented by default, because no one will use it. Why would you pay more for a hard drive that just made life more difficult for you? Given the equally-priced choice of a hard drive that makes life difficult and one that doesn't, which one would you buy?
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Ok, 8 companies in. 3,350 (just a wild figure that came out of nowhere) to go. When it hits 300, that will be the day when I give damn. Until then, I consider this vapor. IMO, this is just going to fall down into the giant pit of crappy ideas that never amounted to anything. This may sound a little ignorant, but I really dont care. It seems like every day we here about crap like this that doesn't amount to anything. Even if this does amount to something, will it really concern us?
Buying a Dell computer is equivalent to dropping the soap in a prison shower.