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MS DRM Version 2 - Cracked
As the title says: Microsoft Digital Rights Management Version 2 has been cracked. The Register has the story, including a link to a downloadable zip file which contains source code, explanation and a small DOS utility. Grab it while you can. You can also read the explanation directly here, and you can also find it with Google.
in the immortal words of someone who's name escapes me:
"Information wants to be free."
There's a lot of bored but bright minds out there, and putting mountains up in their way just BEGS them to be climbed. As the old adage goes, Why do people climb mountains? well, there's actually 2 reasons, 1) because they're there.. 2) they're in the way of where you're trying to go..
*yawn* nice try MS, better luck next time eh?
What I don't get is why not use some proven technologies to get this done right? secure key-based encryption, rotating key servers, etc?
The notion that "information wants to be free" is a rather interesting case study of anthropomorphism gone horribly wrong. Information doesn't want anything. Truth, the facts, raw data, none of them want anything. They're just sentences, numbers, claims, opinions, ideas. Unless you're willing to extend the definition of a meme to the extreme, they're hardly capable of even Darwinian ambition.
But people often want information -- want it to be free, or secure, or copyrighted, or burned, or locked away for the greater good. People want the latest news, the biased studies, the most accurate statistics. They want each other's secrets, their inventions, their inspirations, their dirty laundry . They want to be the first in the know, the winner in the argument, the smartest in the class. They want to be told what to think, to make others think like themselves, and to be the first with a new idea.
People in the Western world are conditioned to believe that with a little applied brain power, they can be anything they want. So they insist that information should be free, despite omnipresent evidence to the contrary. They ignore the fact that library books cost ten cents per day late, that a reliable Internet connection costs fifteen dollars a month, and that university tuition costs four thousand dollars a year.
Knowledge is power. The right kind of information is all that's needed to upend governments, bankrupt companies, exile citizens, and execute prisoners. It can turn a housewife into a millionaire, a CEO into an inmate, and a celebrity into a punch line. A poor man will kill for money, but a rich man will kill for secrecy. The patent office is filled with millions upon millions of facts which are worth anywhere from pennies to princedoms to the right people.
Information doesn't want to be anything. Information just is, which makes it an asset, which makes it vulnerable to the economic laws of supply and demand. So if your information is about Linux, it's probably worth nothing at all, save your reputation as a programmer. But if your information is about, say, Microsoft Office... in that case, it's worth whatever Bill Gates can get you to pay.
Zone Alarm just told me that Windows Media Player is tring to ping my default gateway.
Now WHY would it want to do that? Is it part of a security scheme?
If it tell ZoneAlarm to not allow Internet access to WMP, am I in violation of DMCA? Is ZoneAlarm a circumvention tool?
Really? Consider this:
Suppose I produce $50,000 worth of code in a year. My employer hands me a fat check. After taxes and living expenses, I have about $10,000.
Scenario 1: I purchase 588 compact discs (at $17 each, for $10,000) of RIAA-approved content.
- Some artists get $600 to spend on tax, living expenses, guitars, and syntheziers.
- The music seller gets about $2500 or so. He buys food with it.
- A CD pressing factory gets about $1000. They buy fancy chemicals and mastering equipment with it.
- Hilary Rosen and her friends get about $4100 to spend on hookers and booze Congresscritters, to pass more laws to restrict my freedom.
Scenario 2: I download the music "for free".Now... explain to me again why paying $17 per CD is good for overall economic growth?
Is there a Scientology Microsoft connection? Their tactics seem awful similar sometimes.
Believe it or not, yes there is! Take a look at this e-mail I got. Fell free to check the sources:
<old Inbox digging>
>> Well, personally I did stay away from Windows 2000 not because of product
>> activation keys, but because I do not and will not support dangerous
>> organizations like Scientology, and cannot entrust a system which
>> includes their Diskeeper disk maintenance software with any sensitive data.
>>
> WHAAAAAT???? Scientology makes software included in Windows?????
Yes, they do, unfortunately.
> Where did you get that information from?
Well, this has been in the technical press in Europe for months in 1999 and 2000 and it was part of a boycott campaign against Windows 2000 for this very reason. These are not rumours, but proven facts.
Major parts of the disk maintenance software in Microsofts Windows 2000 are written by Executive Software, a software company led by and heavily influenced by very "high" Scientologists. They even talk (or talked - I havent visited them recently) about this on their web-site.
Offical German government and church authorities asked Microsoft to remove this code or open it up so that it could be checked for possibly included malware, but Microsoft refused to do this and just said they could not understand the problem and that this would be a form of religious discrimination...
Meanwhile Microsoft has published patch instructions (at least here in Germany) how to remove this component from Windows 2000, but I am afraid I can no longer trust them.
PS. If you speak German, I suggest to check ct magazine at www.heise.de. They have backlogs of all their articles available, and you should be able to find the issue discussed in all details and with names, dates, and cites in there. Otherwise, a search engine like www.google.com might help to point you to similar info in English.
</old Inbox digging>