Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: OpenDocument, Intelligent Design, More DRM
Sony still not "getting it". c writes "Mark Russinovich continues his investigation of Sony's DRM as he tries out the official uninstaller. His verdict? 'I've analyzed virulent forms of spyware/adware that provide more straightforward means of uninstall.'" Relatedly Cronos1388 writes "According to the Inquirer an Italian group is also suing Sony over the rootkit." Also, an unexpected side effect of this technology is that script kiddies have been able to leverage Sony's tool to hide unauthorized cheat programs from the watchful eye of MMO creators.
Intelligent design supporters ousted. PMuse writes "The Register and others are reporting that all eight of the members of the Dover, PA school board that had required Intelligent Design to be taught alongside Evolution have been canned by voters in yesterday's election."
What does avian flu look like? DevL writes "Swedish photographer Lennart Nilsson has managed to capture images of a H5N1 (bird flu) virus entering and taking control of a cell. While the text is in Swedish, the images speak for themselves."
Torrent user goes up the river. stinerman writes to tell us that the Hong Kong man who was recently arrested for making several movies available via BitTorrent has had his sentence handed down. Chan aka "Big Crook" uploaded Daredevil, Red Planet, and Miss Congeniality which landed him 3 months in jail.
Golden weighs in on OpenDocument debate. OSS_ilation writes "With so much FUD and anti-FUD flying in the face of Massachusetts' decision to go with OpenDocument, it's no surprise that open source advocate Bernard Golden weighs in with his take on current events."
User says new downloadable television just plain "sucks." Thomas Hawk writes "In the past few weeks the three major studios have all announced deals to begin offering downloadable television for consumers -- Apple/ABC, DirecTV/NBC, and Comcast/CBS. The problem with each of these respective offerings is that they largely suck. Apple sells expensive low res limited television from ABC. NBC's new service will only work on DirecTV DVRs (uh hello McFly, why pay money for this service when I can just record it for free). And CBS' downloadable programming could contain commercials."
Sony may have a black eye over this, but in the end they are gonna win. In fact all the big media conflagrations are going to win.. Its not because their music is better, its because the minute they hear something open and interesting they just copy it, change it around and feed it to the million of idiots paying for their antiquated system of development (read theft). They have been stealing IP (intellectual property) for so long,that they feel they can do anything. Well not only *can* but *will*... Thats the reason you don't hear anything new out there, and the reason the song mills of Nashville, LA, and New York are busier than ever. Busy churning out shit.. Why should they reward creativity that does not fit in with their designs on control? They don't have to because they can clone any sound and any look. They not only can they do.. Thats why most of the great music is dead. They don't really need DRM, they already have a version of it far superior.. that being total A&R control.. They want minions of slave musicians.. and they have it. If i sound embittered it because I am, but not for the most obvious reasons. although they all are valid/
On related news about the Sony DRM,
Antivirus companies are going to start detecting it as harmful software:
http://news.com.com/Antivirus+firms+target+Sony+co py+protection/2100-1029_3-5942265.html
The article also has claims from CA that the DRM damages the computer's ability to make rips of ANY CDs including non-copyrighted CDs.
According to Computer Associates, the Sony software makes itself a default media player on a computer after it is installed. The software then reports back the user's Internet address and identifies which CDs are played on that computer. Intentionally or not, the software also seems to damage a computer's ability to "rip" clean copies of MP3s from non-copy protected CDs, the security company said. "It will effectively insert pseudo-random noise into a file so that it becomes less listenable," said Sam Curry, a Computer Associates vice president. "What's disturbing about this is the lack of notice, the lack of consent, and the lack of an easy removal tool."
And the original patch has been replaced by one one third of the size. Mark Russinovich posted new info on the (smaller) patch on his blog showing it causes BSODs in Windows.
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.j html?articleID=173601122
Those obscene damage awards, while doing little for the consumers but lots for attorneys, do accomplish one important thing: deterrence. So it's a win-win. The lawyers get paid, and the people who bought the DRM-infected CDs don't have to come up with the money to hire a lawyer to sue.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
I'm putting together a letter to Microsoft right now, regarding this Sony rootkit disaster. Basically, it asks MS to publically come out opposed to this sort of behavior. This is exactly the kind of programming that MS (claims, at least) gives Windows a bad name. MS consistently says that it is bad applications and bad drivers that cause stability problems, and that spyware and viruses are mostly Windows centric because Windows is the most dominanat desktop platform.
Yet when Sony installs a DRM rootkit, with now exposed security and stability issues, MS says nothing. Sony's DRM only works on Windows, thus giving a reason to move to Mac OS and Linux, and by not censuring this kind of behavior, MS effectively says "it's okay for vendors to cripple our OS and drive business to our competitors, it's okay for Sony to implicitly install a bad driver, it's okay for Sony to make a mockery of our OS, and to make public one of it's weaknesses".
It's embarassing for those folks who administer Windows machines to have to go into work, and be asked why they still run Window's boxen when the one big advantage of MS - support from a large company - is nowhere to be found when blackhat tactics like rootkits are used by a major vendor. Even a well written rootkit (which this is not) still will introduce bugs in other applications that must go through the same subsystem the kit is bound to - having this kind of tactic tacitly approved of by the software vendor only leads to a world where it's more dangerous to upgrade applications, for fear of conflict - the traditional Linux distro problem, now twice as bad in the Windows world.
I urge everyone to point these facts out to MS. Even if MS approves of this kind of user bait and switch, and over invasive DRM on principle, I believe these arguments will force MS into the position of having to publically disapprove. Which has the nice side effect of giving this invasion of consumer rights the attention in the media that it deserves.