Slashdot Mirror
Felt Tip Marker Defeats Copy-Protected CDs
We posted this story over a week ago but the mainstream media
has flooded us with stories about felt tip markers and
copy protected CDs so I figured I'd post it again since I'm really sick of
deleting hundreds of submissions from people who didn't read Slashdot on May 13 ;)
Basically you can mark the rim of some CDs and defeat the copy protection.
And we all know what the DMCA says about tools for circumventing copy protection.
Haha they posted a repeat the editors are such...
Ummmm nevermind
I stole this Sig
Where have I heard that before?
I threw out all my felt-tip markers when I read about this... I wouldn't want to have any tools for the circumvention of copy protection around my house.
-Berj
And we all know what the DMCA says about tools for circumventing copy protection.
I thought the DMCA only stipulates laws for devices designed specifically copyright violation? A marker pen clearly doesn't fall into this category. Otherwise they could have outlawed CD burners, photocopiers and who knows what else by now.
If 2600 couldn't even link to sites offering DeCSS downloads, does the DMCA also prohibit news sites and Slashdot from even mentioning that markers can defeat Sony's CD copy protection mechanism? Whoops, did I just incriminate myself?
In a surprise announcement today the justice department attempted to release the details of "Operation Sharpie" in which all felt tip markers are to be confiscated. The press conference ended prematurely when a SWAT team crashed in and siezed the whiteboard and all other presentation materials as evidence.
All my previous sigs now look like this one, I wish they were permanetly recorded when used.
I just love the low tech solution to their high falootin attempt to screw us. There's gotta be a lot of RIAA people pulling their hair out the last couple weeks. :)
Remember those dongles you had to put on your parallel port to get AutoCAD to work? Well, I remember getting around that (not actually the AutoCAD one, was for another app) by copying the circuitry inside the dongle... it was really simple, just a couple of wires looping back. Does this mean a soldering iron is illegal? What about the circuit board, or the wire? Or what if I employed someone else to do it? Are they themselves illegal (how does that work!?) since I'm just using them as a tool.
And, if the copy protection is so lame that it's trivial to break, doesn't that mean that general purpose things can be used to break the protection, and that's just mad. Think of password protected software... is a dictionary illegal since I might try to type in every word in it to gain access so I can copy it.
Stop the madness!!!
We used felt tip markers to get high. Damn these kids with their fancy gadgets and such.
Has anyone actually been able to prove that this works? I'm not talking about anecdotal evidence, I mean, has any geek with /.'s general communal respect actually taken a stack of CDs, tried to rip them, gotten errors, marked the CDs up, and then got them to rip with no errors?
:) But I'd swear that an earlier posting talked about marking the inside, not outside, of the CD. Anyway, my question still holds -- any geek-written report on this, or do we only have the mainstream press to trust as to whether this actually works, and for which CDs?]
And then documented the crap out of it?
This all smells too much like the audiophile tricks of the 80's where coloring the outside rim of a CD was supposed to "trap stray laser radiation and improve the [clarity | transparency | imaging | other-nonsense-claptrap] of the music." (see the snopes entry on this one).
I ask because I'm really curious what the scientific explanation for this would be. It was my understanding that they (the infamous "they") did something to the actual track of the CD, with bad physical spacing, introduced errors, or something like that, but did it *throughout* the CD. How on earth would marking the inside of the CD fix that?
[okay, I just actually *read* the article.
"I wonder what type of copy protection will come next?" one posting on alt.music.prince read. "Maybe they'll ban markers."
Maybe they'll just ban Prince. I think that would be one use of the DMCA that we could all approve of.
Ok, ok. Kidding. I know: DMCA evil. You guys are right. Now move along.
If you use the black marker to defeat the copy protection, can you still use the green magic marker to make it sound better? And will that improve the sound of your MP3s?
You pry it out of my cold dead hand.
Or...
When Sharpies are outlawed, only outlaws will have Sharpies
-- Chris Martin, System Administrator
At this point, I long for the days of trolls posting haikus about a petrified Natalie Portman slathered in hot grits driving the Slashdot Cruiser over to a Beowulf cluster. At least those posts tended to get appopriately modded down as trolls rather than modded up as both insightful and funny.
The DMCA circumvention device joke has been made. Several times. Stop mindlessly repeating it like you're Raymond going through the Who's On First routine. Besides, I hear Amazon.com has a patent on the business model of mindlessly repeating a joke.
(I apologize for cluttering up the comments with meta-discussion, but I felt the point needed to be made. Also, since this is just a repost, most important points have already been made.)
of violating the DMCA. It's illegal to spread information on how copy protection systems can be circumvented. Just ask Dmitry...
this is classic. this article is really about how the editors hate our story submissions, and how they really don't care about the news anymore. but that's nothing new either. so it's a double repeat!
I'm really sick of deleting hundreds of submissions from people who didn't read Slashdot on May 13
Taco, sounds like you have a problem here. One solution is to post a duplicate story. Allow me to suggest an alternative.
void processSubmission( char* submissionString, char* toExclude[], int toExcludeLength ) {
int x;
for( x = 0; x < toExcludeLength; x++ ) {
if( strstr( submissionString, toExclude[x] ) ) {
return;
}
}
askTaco( submissionString );
}
Of course, if you need a little more power, there's always regex.
An unjust law is no law at all. - St. Augustine
Therefore, shouldn't there sales be discounted from the CD charts?
Specifically:
Felt tip markers are not primarially designed to circumvent access controls. Felt tip markers have lots of commercially significant purposes other than circumvention.
But, if you marketed a felt tip pen with the name CD Rip (TM) brand felt tip pens and included instructions for how to circumvent CD protection than you should expect a C&D letter.
It's the same situation as the fellow who's program unset the true type embedded bits and a generic hex editor. The first tool has one purpose, to twiddle embedding bits. The second tool has lots of commercially significant purposes many unrelated to any kind of circumvention.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
The DMCA was used to smack-down 2600.com for simply linking to a copy circumvention device (DeCSS) -- they were successfully prosecuted for providing information on copy protection circumvention devices even though they did not distribute the device or engage in the circumvention themselves.
While Sharpie markers are not likely to be outlawed since they have known legitimate functions (whereas making a non-CD workin your computer is illegal), giving information on how to use a Sharpie marker to circumvent a copy protection device probably is illegal. That's the absurdity of the law and proof that the legislators responsible for the piece of filth known as the DMCA deserve to be shot. And stabbed. And beaten. And boiled. And whipped. And drawn and quartered.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
I'm surprised that the tech industry, especially slashdot isn't taking proper advantage of the current situation. Shame on you, just think of all the jobs around at the moment to develop copy-protection/drm systems - no, obviously im not saying you should actually try and develop a good system (if thats even possible) what im saying is that you could work for these companies and produce equally bad systems and make lots of money. not only that, but you could purposely build in back doors. These companies simply must understand that they are inferior, stupid people, and we are all laughing at them while gnutella runs in the background :)
:)
- oh yeah, and the pen thing? I've known for along time that pens are very dangerous. They allow people to express ideas, write encrypted messages (you can do simple encryption with pen, paper, and calculator) and even let people draw pornographic pictures (well that's pretty much all I did in art class). Pens and all other writing equipment should be replaced with government approved electronic note-pads that scan the user input for illegal ideas, and banned words and just delete them.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Everyone's favorite Senator has already proposed legislation to stop the menace of the marker.
In other news, CNN is reporting that a Waste Minimization Assessment for a Manufacturer of Felt Tip Markers has just been published, highlighting the many environmental dangers behind the production of Felt Tip Markers...
All over the country, newspapers and TV news stations are running stories about inhalant abuse, saying that "Inhalants are the third most abused substances among 12 to 14-year-olds in the United States, coming in right behind alcohol and tobacco." (emphasis in original)
Shop owners are being interviewed for upcoming movies which depict them as being devastated by marker graffiti on their shop windows...
And parents are complaining (on national television news, every day) that their kids are coming home covered in marks from classroom marker fights!
WARNING: The following image may be illegal under the DMCA. Further, the image depicts the actual commission of a felony offense in the USA. You have been warned.
Marker Method Illustrated.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
And yes, a paperclip could be considered a circumvention device. It enables you to unlock some CD drive drawers so you can keep trying low level circumvention hacks.
Life:
Customer: Hi, where can I find blank CDs?
Employee: Making Copies. huh? They are on isle five.
If Life were like OfficeMAX:
Customer: Hi, where can I find blank CDs?
Employee: Making Copies. huh? They are on isle five.Right next to the felt tip pens which can be used to circumvent the copy protection of the CDs taht you may be copying. Here I'll print out the instructions for you. And here is my username and password to ftp.phat-warez.com
From OfficeDepot, I figure I will get all the felt tip pens i can now - and i will corner the illicit felt tip pen market in no time. Screw coke and pot sales... illegal felt tip pens are gunna bring in a fortune! Its like prohibition all over again. Just call me Al!!
Let's see what you folks make of this.
The way that democracy and judicial system of yours works at the moment, just about the only thing that will get lawmakers to stick up for Joe and Jane is public outrage/ridicule.
Basically, I think the EFF should throw the DMCA at the people who make Crayola. Sue the pirating bastards.
Don't tell me that wouldn't make headlines. And headlines would raise public awareness of the DMCA issue.
If the DMCA is ridiculed in public over its potential uses, I don't think it'll last long.
Never mind whether the EFF would win or lose; the whole point is to showcase the idiocy of this law.
Anyone listening?
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
The president of Sharpie today was dragged from his office by federal agents and is being transported to an undisclosed maximum security federal jail. He stands accused to breaking the security of CD protection and is being treated as a domestic terrorist that endangers our national economy.
Federal authorities also raided local Taco Bells today in seach for the terrorist known as 'CmdrTaco'. Unable to find the self proclaimed commander of the Tacos, John Ashcroft vowed to keep the search for the Taco Commander until he is found and brought to justice.
-Henry
"Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
A haiku "about a petrified Natalie Portman slathered in hot grits driving the Slashdot Cruiser over to a Beowulf cluster" would probably get modded up to +5 for the sheer creativity inherent in the thing.
Best Slashdot Co
dude:
"all your marker are belong to us"
now those "CD Markers" you can buy which are sold for marking on your CD-Rs etc. are going to face the courts.. oh, no, i live in England so im safe from your pathetic laws
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I keep kicking it up, but there's only so high it'll go...
"That rant got you some karma but it wont change \."
Nope, no karma. I'm already capped like quite a few other people.
"In all likelyhood 75% of those people thought they were the first to post what they said. The other 25% want to get on everyone's nerves and repeat crap endlessly. You just validated their existence."
I think you're selling people a little short, but there is that. Still, you're leaving out the moderation factor. If my rant causes people to think about just how repetitive the official DMCA joke is getting, maybe they'll be more likely to moderate it as redundant or trolling.
I don't know about the rest of you but I think that ThinkGeek should start selling DMCA Circumvention Devices. e.g. a Sharpie with a custom label with a caution symbol and the text "This object may be used as a device for circumventing copyright protection methods as outlined in the DMCA."
I think they'd sell. Who wants an entire office toolbox filled with copyright protection circumvention devices? I do, I do!
This is what it is supposed to look like.
No idea if it works, however...
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
Marker pens should be included in the list of dual use goods and technologies.
No more exports to Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Tajikistan, Vietnam, Burma, China, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), Haiti, Liberia, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan and Zaire.
I don't know, but I'm pretty sure you can find out on the DMCA author page. ;)
"Old man yells at systemd"
I think the EFF needs to pursue cases that showcase the absurdity of the DMCA. I want to see Staples get sued over this!
No, the DMCA in section 1201(E) stipulates that the devices are banned if they are (a) designed to circumvent, or (b) have limited commercial purpose other than to circumvent, or (c) are marketed as circumventing a "technological measure that effectively controls access to a work".
...provide ... any ... device ... that is marketed by that person ... for use in circumventing [encrypted content access]." So my guess is, can tell you a marker pen can be used to defeat access controls on non-redbook CDs, but then I am not allowed to give you a marker pen.
The third part is important and reads "No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."
Cut out the guff not related to marker pens, and we get: "No person shall
In California I can't keep pet snails, molest butterflies or ride a bicycle in a swimming pool either.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
Insightful??
I guess there's no "doesn't get the joke" category.
This latest hack is a twist on that theme - the marked lines invalidate the disc track that's supposed to keep make your PC think it has a bad disc. If you kill the bogus track, the PC's CD-ROM drive can simply go on to rendering the next one, the real one.
No matter what you do in the digital world, there is still the possibility of ripping at the analog level. Standard consumer equipment exists that can make a really good A/D conversion and get a high-quality rendering of the audio content back into the digital realm without any DRM encumbrances. CD players exist that have digital output (S/PDIF) - run that output back into a sound card with matching inputs and you're done. Any of these so-called protected discs can be played, and ripped, in such a set-up. My goofy DVD/CD/MP3 player has such an output (yours too?). Once you have one digital copy, it'll show up on the Internet all over again.
Only by encrypting the data all the way to a closed rendering subsystem (decrypting speakers or headphones?) could you prevent this - and consumers will never stand still for that. Any solution that prevents consumers from getting their fair use out of purchased content, by that I mean the ability to play it wherever they want (iPod anyone?) is akin to handcuffing everyone in order to prevent crime.
This is a war that can never truly be won, the only solution is for the content producers to embrace the technology rather than trying to kill it. A new business model that exploits the Internet and its bandwidth and provides a reasonable exchange of fair value for goods received is the only way they can inhibit (not wipe out) piracy. If discs were fairly priced, rather than selling for 30 times their manufacturing cost, there would be little need or impetus for Joe-Sixpack to participate in piracy. If you could buy the songs you wanted, rather than pay full price for an album that has more filler than meat, that would also help.
I'd really like to see an unbiased, non-knee-jerk-reaction analysis of the so-called harm done to RIAA member studio profits by the file sharing. We've all read analysis that suggests CD sales were actually helped by the emergence of Napster. Recent downturns in the industry are more likely due to general lagging in the economy rather than lost sales due to piracy. Any 'solution' to this problem needs to take a cold, hard look at those facts, first.
I have a very curious view on this given that my 'job' for the last few years has been on the side of the protectors...
Ok ok ok, we get the jokes (most of us anyway).
The important thing is not whether felt tip pens will become illegal. It's that somebody figured out a laughably simple way to defeat something Sony must have spent a good chunk of money coming up with. I'm thinking meetings, demos, testing, approval, and at least one large congratulatory catered lunch. And now they look like idiots. Nothing, I mean NOTHING, upsets corporate management more than being made fools.
Right on.
for the Lameness filter, too...
You should know that the way you defined your arguments to processSubmission() is not canonical.
Here is a discussion:(Live link doesn't seem to work).
The perfered form would beAlternatively, you could have usedI don't think it matters much; isn't Slash written in Perl? (How does *it* pass the Lameness filter?)
Given that Slashdot gets all of its stories from other sources, and that it (demonstrably) only runs stories after many submissions (so the "last" submitter gets his name on it rather than the first), and that the "editors" (I use the term loosely) very demonstrably don't even read their own stories, then this is just business as usual.
How about you change the site policy and actually go out and find stories yourself or even (gasp!) do some actual investigative journalism?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
`(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that--
`(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;
`(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or
`(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
Move on. There's nothing to see here.
"public school is front for mass CD copy circumvention"
> Tell that to Dmitry.
You know, I'm not kidding when I say that I accidentally read that line:
"Tell that to Disney."
It's really sad when when people have started to subconsciously associate wholesale abuse of the law and the public with the company which brought us Mickey Mouse and DisneyWorld. Wow. I guess the real question becomes--what have they done for us lately, versus what have they taken from us lately?
Draconian copyright laws designed solely to keep Mickey from becoming public property like he would have years ago, and to keep their artificial-scarcity DVD racket going. The shredding of tons of documentation to prevent the family of Pooh's copyright licensor from proving that they weren't given their contractual percentage of the incredible sales. Some "family" company it's become, eh Walt?
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
(B) a technological measure ''effectively controls access to a work'' if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.
I'd agree that the CD copy protection doesn't fit this definition either (in what sense does it require application of information/process/treatment?), but it has nothing to do with "how effective" the protection is.
Sorry, just sick of hearing this particular argument (I had it suggested to me many times in my own DMCA battle ... I think that having the good guys understand the law is an important step.
Yes indeed. In fact, the "twiddling" that my program does isn't even always "circumvention", since circumvention only occurs when it is done without the authority of the copyright holder. I guess Royster should read the whole DMCA!
Seriously, get a black Sharpie marker. The permanent kind. Take every one of your CDs, audio, data, etc., and black out the outside 1/2" of the whole CD on the shiny side. This will not only make sure that none of them are copy protected, it will allow you to write to them over and over. Even AUDIO CDs you buy in the store. It is like cutting out the notch on the old 5.25" floppy diskettes to make them double sided - ONLY BETTER! Free CDRWs! The DMCA doesn't want you to know about this, so pass it on.
Holy crap, I hope nobody really tries that...
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Doesnt' a CD begin from the inner tracks and progress outwards (opposite of a vinyl record)? Wouldn't this allow the drive to see the audio tracks first? Or would a computer CD drive go for the data which is mapped in the TOC to the outter track first as opposed to a regular CD player which says "skip the data BS and move to audio track 1"?
If anyone can explain how this works, I'm pretty sure you're not violating the DMCA...
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
bbspot have a very good take on this whole thing - http://www.bbspot.com/News/2002/05/markers.html
This post will enter the public domain 70 years after my death, unless Disney buys another extension.
While not really cutting-edge news, interactive interviews, Ask Slashdot and book/movie reviews do fall into the investigative journalism category.
/. material.)
(The reviews may be more opinion than news, but it's still original
However, I agree that the story selection process has many faults.
Winamp's take on pens being used for evil.