Don't Smudge The Sensor When You Press 'Play'

mattyrobinson69 writes "According to The Register, 'The RIAA wants your fingerprints.' They've teamed up with VeriTouch, who say 'In practical terms, VeriTouch's breakthrough in anti-piracy technology means that no delivered content to a customer may be copied, shared or otherwise distributed because each file is uniquely locked by the customer's live fingerprint scan.'" No details, but the article talks about a locked-down "wireless media player" to prevent such passing around.

Comments

Time to stock up on Gummi Bears!

[grnchile]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/05/16/gummi_bear s_defeat_fingerprint_sensors/

Re:Time to stock up on Gummi Bears!

[Anonymous Coward]

Non-retarded link http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/05/16/gummi_bear s_defeat_fingerprint_sensors/

Copying your fingerprints...

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably a violation of RIAA, but you can always copy your fingerprints using that red wax stuff that comes with certain types of cheese, not forgetting plain ordinary sellotape.

Here's a link that actually works

[xSquaredAdmin]

Linkie

Yes!

[Kreigaffe]

This is perfect! I've always wanted to pay more for something because it comes with some sort of arcane and pointless feature that decreases functionality! It's like they read my mind! I don't even pirate music, the rewards vs. time invested for me just doesn't work out (apparently, no one else with a computer likes the music I look for). However it's measures like this that would drive me to rip&burn my way through anything i ever might want. Yes let's not even get into the fact that fingerprints change, and I've no faith in fingerprint scanners to begin with, and when you couple that with a cheap piece of crap stuck on to a portable player.. I'm sure it'll work just fine. Even after I wind up with a few new scars across my fingerpads, I'm SURE it won't accidentally lock me out of my own music! Oh and I bet if that DID happen the RIAA would gladly and with all due haste remedy the situation with a new copy of those now-locked songs for me.

Guess they never heard of Tsutomu Matsumoto...

[hethatishere]

The RIAA is very excited about their newly discovered way to stifle fair-use and beat down consumer rights.

They seemed to have forgotten that two years ago Finger Print scanners were tricked by then a little known Japanese cyptogropher named Tsutomu Matsumoto. This pretty much stalled adoption of finger-print scanners indefinetely since supporters were unable to prove they could outsmart his meddling.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1991517.stm [BBC.UK]

I'm sure those who want to will find an even easier way of defeating it on a hardware/software level rather than resorting to copying finger-prints. But still you think the RIAA themselves would follow security news.

Re:Not the point

[Xzzy]

They can give you incentives for using plastic, but they cannot refuse to accept cash.

Actually yes they can. The rules for it are a bit convoluted, but what it amounts to is that as long as it's made clear cash won't be accepted prior to any services, they can reject it as a payment.

If that isn't adhered to, the eventual result is that any debt is forgiven by the courts.

I may be sketchy a bit on some of that, but I looked it up a year or so ago and the point was that there are some situations where one doesn't have to accept cash.

Re:Not the point

[FryGuy1013]

"We do not accept bills larger than $20"

I'm sure that $100 bills have the same markings, but refusing to accept them is perfectly acceptable. What "this note is LEGAL TENDER for all debts public and private" (emphasis mine) means is that the money is "real" since it's not backed by any gold bullion but rather is fiat money and is money because the gubment says so.

Re:Not the point

[LoocSiMit]

Nope. Take a bill out of your wallet and read what it says:

THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS PUBLIC AND PRIVATE.

They can give you incentives for using plastic, but they cannot refuse to accept cash.

Of course they can refuse to accept cash. We're not talking about debts, we're talking about sales. If you had a debt with a music vendor then sure, you could pay it in cash, but all they have to do to avoid that is avoid letting you run up a debt. What kind of a fool lets people run up debts without knowing who they are anyway? They need only require payment at the time of sale with a traceable card, which AFAIK they are well within their rights to do.

Warm Hot dog

[cgenman]

I worked at a place that required finger prints as a confirmation that employees weren't checking in / out for eachother. After a few years the system got so bad that you could check in with the wrong finger, with someone else's finger, with toes, with an elbow... I've even signed in using a warm hot dog.

In short, the real-world performance of these systems is still greatly up in the air, and is by no means a solution to security problems. The idea of etching a fingerprint photograph onto a PCB and into a gummy bear is ingenious, but somehow I doubt that after a few years of being kicked around any of these systems will be sensitive enough to tell if you took a picture of a fingerprint or of the president's head.

Re:Not the point

[tftp]

Feed each into one input of an op-amp and the only thing that will come out is the sum of the watermarks

You can do it digitally:

man cmp

Very Insightful

[Pan T. Hose]

It's been said before... and I'll say it again: If I can hear it, I can copy it.

This is very insightful. Very insightful indeed. Do I have to remind the 1769 history of 13 years old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) and the Miserere by Gregorio Allegri in Sistine Chapel? I don't think so. I believe everyone here remembers how this one of the unquestionably most significant and influential composers in history, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, was the first person who has literally circumvented the copy-protection of Sistine Chapel with nothing more but bare ears and his pure genius. Please let me quote Wikipedia:

Among the musical compositions of Allegri were two volumes of concerti, published in 1618 and 1619; two volumes of motets, published in 1620 and 1621; besides a number of works still in manuscript. He was one of the earliest composers for stringed instruments, and Athanasius Kircher has given one specimen of this class of his works in the Musurgia. But the most celebrated composition of Allegri is the Miserere, still annually performed in the Sistine Chapel at Rome. It is written for two choirs, the one of five and the other of four voices, and has obtained a celebrity which, if not entirely factitious, is certainly not due to its intrinsic merits alone.

The mystery in which the composition was long shrouded, no single copy being allowed to reach the public, the place and circumstances of the performance, and the added embellishments of the singers, account to a great degree for much of the impressive effect of which all who have heard the music speak. This view is confirmed by the fact that, when the music was performed at Venice by permission of the pope, it produced so little effect that the emperor Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor., at whose request the manuscript had been sent, thought that something else had been substituted. In spite of the precautions of the popes, the Miserere has long been public property.

In 1769 Mozart heard it and wrote it down, and in 1771 a copy was procured and published in England by Dr Burney. The entire music performed at Rome in Holy Week, Allegri's Miserere included, has been issued at Leipzig by Breitkopf and Härtel. Interesting accounts of the impression produced by the performance at Rome may be found in the first volume of Felix Mendelssohn's letters and in Miss Taylor's Letters from Italy.

It is worth repeating: If I can hear it, I can copy it. Amen. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart himself has proved it in the age of 13. Could we really need any better proof? Could there even be any better proof? Please keep in mind that there is more complexity and beauty in every minute of Allegri's Miserere than in the whole content produced by RIAA in any year. Let us not forget this very important fact.