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TurboTax DRM Writes to Your Boot Sector?!

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the now-that-ain't-cool dept.

ltwally writes "As reported on Slashdot (amongst other sites) recently, the latest version of TurboTax is laden with DRM software. Even worse, however, is that it apparently writes to your hard drive's boot-sector , as reported at Extreme Tech here. As I'm sure most Slashdotters already know, the boot-sector is often times used for silly things like boot-loaders and such. "

7 of 733 comments (clear)

  1. Just file your taxes electronically for free by macemoneta · · Score: 5, Informative
    Here is the intro page at the IRS, where you can select a tax preparer that will let you file and submit electronically for free. Check the criteria for qualification; most people qualify.


    If you insist on using TurboTax, use their web-based vesion; it's alway current and no software gets installed on your PC.


    Personally, even though I've been using TurboTax for over 10 years, I will be using a different tax preparerer this year. I find their association with this kind of DRM crap distastful.

    --

    Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.

  2. Re:Um... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...and the Mac version has no "DRM" at all.

    ~jeff

  3. Administrator by yerricde · · Score: 5, Informative

    As I understand it, a program running as Administrator on NT can elevate its privileges to LocalSystem and do just about anything, such as write sectors to physical drives.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
  4. Re:CDilla by Erik+Hollensbe · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you had read the article, this is C-Dilla's LMS that they're using.

    They also proved using a sector editor that the location is correct.

  5. Re:CDilla by Ldir · · Score: 5, Informative
    They are the same thing. TurboTax uses the Macrovision C-Dilla (Safecast) license manager. It is covertly installed when you install TurboTax. It is not removed when you remove TurboTax, however. Intuit now offers a C-Dilla uninstaller on their web site.

    I'm one of the legions of long-time TurboTax users who switched to TaxCut this year. Glad I did, TaxCut works just as well, costs half as much, and has no DRM or other installation games. As a bonus, it imports TurboTax data flawlessly.

    We went through this before, in the early days of the PC (early 80's). Companies kept using more and more obnoxious forms of copy protection, making software more brittle, and more and more difficult to install and use. Finally enough consumers revolted and the software companies wised up. Looks like Intuit needs a history lesson.

  6. As has been pointed out. . . by kfg · · Score: 5, Informative

    like, by the article and stuff, it doesn't write to the MBR. It writes to sector 33 of the boot *track.*

    The problem is that since the entire track is reserved for boot information, not just the sector holding your MBR, things like LILO and GRUB may be residing there as well.

    Boot loaders are legitimate boot records. Software registration codes are not. They don't belong in the boot track, whether they write to the MBR or not.

    KFG

  7. Macrovision by Eraser_ · · Score: 5, Informative

    Get This.

    TurboTax also broke my DX8.1 install. Turns out, those fancy movies that come with it are Macrovision encoded. NT user? check your Services for a magical new service (I can't remember the name, I've long since ripped it a new one) which even if you disable it, running turbotax fires it right back up to automatic. Lord this gives me a new reason to get a full refund from them. How can one tell if their bootsector has some extra bits in it?