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Sticky Tape Defeats Sony DRM Copy Protection
cybrpnk2 writes "As reported by InformationWeek, Sony BMG Music's controversial copy-protection scheme can be defeated with a small piece of tape. According to thinktank Gartner analysts Martin Reynolds and Mike McGuire, Sony's XCP technology is stymied by sticking a fingernail-size piece of opaque tape on the outer edge of the CD. 'After more than five years of trying, the recording industry has not yet demonstrated a workable DRM scheme for music CDs. Gartner believes that it will never achieve this goal as long as CDs must be playable by stand-alone CD players.'"
Here's what you can do to defeat it without risking your optical drive: Hold shift when inserting the disc or, even better, disable CD autostart. But that wouldn't make such a nice headline, would it?
Last time I had to defeat the usual sort of multi-session CD DRM I just used a whiteboard pen. It's helpful because if you go to far in (and start losing the last track), you can just rub little bits off until you get it just right.
Gotta love it. Almost as cool as the captain crunch whistle.... well, not quite.
... what did you expect, something profound?
Sure, it's karma whoring, but I get tired of the "shift key" advice when so many of us have moved on. Never worry about evil code on a CD again! If you're particularly paranoid, feel free to deselect the other checkbox as well.
* if you're using the older version, you'll have to do some searching. I have no reference for it.
You don't need to download TweakUI to do that.
Go to My Computer, right click on the CD-ROM drive, go to the AutoPlay tab and set your preferences accordingly.
How to permanantly turn off CD Autorun on Windows.
First attempt: Pioneer Slot-in DVD drive. That one just didn't like the disk: I wasn't even able to read the CD, as the drive made funny noises faintly reminding to 1541 (that's the C64 floppy drive for you youngsters) read errors.
Second attempt: Plextor. No problems with accessing the disk, but when ripping it I got some bogus track 0 with strange data in it.
Never had that again with any of the "copy controlled" CDs.
IIRC Sony tried to use a system similar to this some time ago. As well as the normal audio session there was a second data session right at the very outer edge of the disc that was effectively blank. To a multi-session CD or DVD drive, which picked up the outer session first, the disc looked completely blank, as the outer session included no information about the first session (normal multi-session CDs include a TOC for all previous sessions on each session TOC, so that the CD drive knows to look for them). A standard (single-session) audio CD player only picked up the first session, so the disc played correctly. It sounds pretty similar to this new method, and like this one, could be defeated simply by masking the outer session (with tape or a marker pen). The advantage Sony saw with this method was that it was OS independent, as it was entirely hardware based.
We used to use notch cutters to circumvent a single sided disk, making it double sided. We also used to always buy ss/dd disks for that purpose, because they were cheaper and just as good as the ds/dd disks that were around. The disk manufacturer had no idea which side of the ss/dd disk would be used (and claim compatibility with various drives), so they dd both sides anyways.
Also, an audio cassette can be copied over by putting tape over the notches on top.
Yes, there is. There are a few different versions of this, but the general idea is to intentionally put bad data in the tracks (or the TOC) that would be error-corrected out by an audio CD player, but cause a CD-ROM to fail while attempting to read it. Some modern CD-ROM drives still have trouble with this type of copy control. Since the error correction layers have been subverted, the tiniest scratch will usually render the CD unplayable.
More info here: http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq02.html#S2-4-3
DRM in any form drives a certain percentage of consumers away from the product. Assuming demand is a constant, the more onerous the burden the fewer legitimate customers will put up with the restrictions, driving otherwise legitimate consumers to piracy just to obtain ease-of-use. It's common sense, and has been known since the Apple ][ days.
Cryptography ultimately cannot help the DRM makers, either. The decoding equipment must be by nature installed in a hostile environment (the end-users equipment.) And there is nothing that can be distributed that can't be reverse engineered. It may take specialized scientific lab equipment, but once it's broken, it's forever broken. It's BORE writ large.
In today's adversarial DRM / anti-DRM world, any DRM immediately inspires a certain segment of the population to defeat it. Some of them do so for profit: illicit reselling of satellite TV decoder cards, for example. Others do so for convenience: many choose to download media files for playing on their iPods instead of going through the hassle of ripping their own CDs or DVDs. The problem is that if you drive a legitimate paying consumer away even once and they discover the "free" world of media sharing, they're not likely to come back and spend money for another piece of legitimate media.
John
You got it backward: Lotus would not run *unless* it failed to write that spot.
.... 1-2-3 runs
Copy on ordinary floppy --> write works --> 1-2-3 won't run
Original disk --> write fails --> 1-2-3 runs
write-protect disk --> write fails -->
3M makes DUCT tape not DUCK tape. DUCK tape is made by http://www.duckproducts.com/ in response to so many people mispronouncing the name of a product. The tape was to close gaps in DUCTS not DUCKS.
Actually the tape in question was originally invente4d by the military during World War II and called duck tape as water 'rolled off' of it like a ducks back. It was later rechristened as duct tape after the war when it proved valuable for duct repairs as well, so both names are right.
I am Spartacus
Try a Sharpie!
Sony/BMG sued 3M Corporation today for their new technology called "tape" to circumvent their copy protection and encryption schemes. They will be tried under the DMCA, news at at 11!
In other news, Sony/BMG sues Microsoft for allowing the "autorun" feature to be turned off. When the autorun feature is turned off, Sony's DRM doesn't install properly and this can be used to circumvent it, the music giant said in a statement.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Audio CD Protections, in brief:
- Zeroth Generation (the Click Generation):
* Weak Sectors in ATIP: TTR Technologies MusicGuard (never deployed)
Flat out doesn't work at all, you probably wouldn't even notice they'd done anything. Any Lite-On, BenQ or Plextor wouldn't even skip a beat. Only CD-ROM tested which even gave a damn was a Sony (heh), the drive in the PlayStation 1 to be precise. Didn't get a contract, so TTR partnered with Macrovision, and tried harder. Much harder. Much too hard, in fact.
* Weak Sectors causing C2 Errors in Audio: TTR Technology/Macrovision SAFEAUDIO (limited deployment), Settec Alpha-Audio D-Type (data type, never deployed)
Extremely rare, no longer used; the market overwhelmingly rejected it, which is to say, it broke a music exec's speakers. High channel return rate because of obscenely low compatibility, duplicators returning whole batches as bad pressings because they couldn't perform any useful QA on discs deliberately damaged to this extent. Useless. (TTR apparently liquidated.)
Archiving: Alternate CDFS.VXD tools for Win9x may work, as they interpolate in exactly where SAFEAUDIO puts corruption. Other than that, deliberate damage = not perfectly playable, or rippable. Effectively an analogue medium with huge deliberate noise spikes. Use a mint disc, do the best you can, and high-order-interpolate over the scratches (Adobe Audition or something), just like archiving vinyl.
- First Generation (The Anti-CD Generation):
Archiving all first-generation formats merely needs a Good Drive and Good Software with Good Settings. Can be divided into roughly three groups:
* High Jitter Spike: Cactus Data Shield (classic): CDS-100/CDS-200, First4Internet XCP-Aurora XCP "Red"
(0'09", insert bad CIRC sector, 1200 weak sector/desync, 2 *blank* sectors with no sync, then start again with normal data.) Intent: Cause a "hiccup" during a burstmode rip which would be absorbed by a CD player's (tiny) buffer. Reality: Any quality drive firmware, buffer, or jitter correction, means you won't even skip a beat. Might slow down a little, but that's all. Now only marketed for internal releases/promos.
* Malformed TOC/Evil Session with no player: Early Sony key2audio (1.0), Settec Alpha-Audio S-Type (session type), First4Internet XCP-Aurora XCP1
Bread and butter, it's simple; include a normal or malformed TOC, and sprinkle liberally with a seriously malformed second session, relying on CD-ROMs being multisession and CD players being single session only.
* Malformed TOC/Evil Session with autorun player: Sony key2audio, SunnComm MediaClòQ
Differs from the above only in the second session being malformed, but having a valid data track containing a DRMv2 WMA player (or downloader). Players have evil EULAs, and may interfere with ripping while the player is running (although the first version of the key2audio player that appeared actually shifts the session enough to allow flawless ripping while the player is running...!) but as far as known, they don't leave behind malicious software.
- Second Generation (The Autorun Generation):
Rate of returns was still high, so Macrovision tried a weaker system with a much higher false negative, but a much lower false positive. Actually caught on; almost no returns. They could actually put the CD logo on these if they wanted.
* Valid CD-Extra with autorun player: Macrovision CDS-300, Macrovision TotalPlay CD, Alpha-Audio M-Type (main type)
Player (MS-DRMv2, as usual) interferes with ripping (while it's running) but doesn't seem to leave any malicious software behind. If the autorun isn't run (disable it, or hold SHIFT while inserting CD and be careful in Explorer) or supported, it's a normal CD-Extra. First session is valid Red Book.
- Third Generat
regrettably a recent study has shown that the one thing that 'duct' tape is really not good for, is repairing ducts... (heating ducts anyway, the glue melts)
It's apparently good for warts though
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
Actually it was invented by Johnson & Johnson (http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/duct tape.htm). The military doesn't invent anything, they contract the private sector to develop things for them.
all they need to do is put a stop to this sort of nonsense.
But for HD-DVD/Blu-ray and SACD, all players will support DRM. It won't be nonsense then.
(At least until DVD Jon gets his hands on their so-called "encryption"... ^_^ )
I was also thinking some one should explain to them what the V stand for in DVD.
Well, originally the "V" stood for "Video". That presumably made some marketing guy from some DVD Consortium company that made non-video devices unhappy, so it was renamed to "Versitile". After many more dollars spent debating this crucial issue, nobody could agree, so officially the "V" stands for nothing.
You probably think I'm joking; I assure you, I'm not, sad as it is.
I once had a boss that kept marketing people off of his back by generating busywork to occupy their time. Every time they had a meeting in which they wanted to influence anything technical, he'd bring up the fact that something lacked a name and emphasized how crucial it was to the product's success that the name be appealing. They'd vanish for a month. It was amazing to see this guy in action.
Of course, we had to put up with silly names as a result, but we didn't have to deal with technically broken things, so it was worthwhile.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
The tape was created to seal ammunition containers watertight. It was originally called Duck Tape.
You really should have checked Wikipedia before making such an empathic statement.
It does work on cold ducts and you get a product called Real Duct Tape, that works on hot air ducts.
Oh well, what the hell...
Why on Earth would anyone spend over $100 on one short cable is beyond me.
I've worked with stage sound for a while now, and I can tell you that we use no cables like these. Most of them are years old and still "primitive", but they still provide professional sound.
These "special" cables sound like a rip-off to me.