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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.'"
Indeed, these scenarios show just how artificial restrictions on knowledge and information are. It is impossible to try to make such an inherently abundant resource scarce, in order to derive profit.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
That it will be impossible as long as CDs are playable!
What is next will Sony try and outlaw mics and wires?
Dear Sony. I will not steal your music. In fact I will not listen to or buy your music anymore. I am sure that eventualy artists will move to a label that treats it's customers with a bit more respect.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
"Alright, buster, how did you get around it?" "Look, Sarge! Tape! He's got a roll of tape!"
"You rebel scum!"
I bet I can overcome their DRM by not wanting anything from that list of albums, too.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Has there been any Audio CD drm put out that doesn't rely on the auto-run feature of Windows? I remember reading something about one method that would put defects in the disc that would be filtered out by an audio CD player, but I haven't seen any reports if that would affect cd-paranoia.
In other words, since I do all my music work using Linux, do I need to worry about any of the protection methods currently out there?
I'd like to see a list of all the drm methods that are "in the wild" along with their prevalence and effectiveness agains various OS's & tools.
or buy puts.
You're right that the tape is a bad idea. If someone does try it though, at least put a balancing slice on the opposite side of the disc. You don't know strange and loud until a CD EXPLODES in your CDROM drive. I've seen the remaining disc after an explosion, and sand almost has bigger pieces than some of what's left.
Also in describing the Sony Rootkit problem it's good to mention that the disks are "infected with DRM". The person won't know what DRM is, but it helps to associate it with a bad word like "infection". And in the case of the Sony CDs, it's not overhyping the facts either, so your conscience can remain clear.
Bottom line is, "these discs are designed to infect a computer with DRM, which breaks Windows, and lets Sony and viruses take over your computer."
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
So you could reformat aol disks instead of buying disks.
Douglas P. Price
Every time you skip on buying a CD because of DRM, write a letter to the artist explaining why. Yes this is work, and in some cases these letters go nowhere (or are just read by label staff). But many groups have their own people reading their fanmail, and in some cases the trend will be noticed by the bands. They will not be happy, and they can add pressure from other angles.
You forgot:
* Non-Windows (or OSX) OSes
* Non-x86 (or PPC for OSX) CPUs
* User accounts that do not have software and driver install privileges
* Disabling autorun (gpedit.msc -> Admin Templates -> Turn Off Autoplay = Enabled for all)
for DRMs. The big issue is that the DRM must be transparent enough to not effect the consumers, but strong enough that it discourages (not prevents) infringement. The best possible solution is at the hardware level. But at this point, with millions of CDs in circulation, you can't alter the hardware and break compatibility with existing disks. The key for the DRM industry is the next medium. CD will always be a weekness though. A high quality unsecured media. In order for DRMs to succed the RIAA/MPAA needs 3 things. A universal secure hardware based DRM (that in itself is a pipe dream), a new medium that offers something better then the current options (ie: Digital downloads and HD/Blue DVDs), and a marketing department that can convince main stream America to move up to the latest greatest.
The universal hardware DRM is a key. Because if a person doesn't HAVE to break your DRM to move their music from the PC to iPod to home sterio to car sterio to work, they wont. But you need a system that can be run in all of those places, and you need it to be cheap.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Ed Foster provides more information that allows us to make a "behavioral profile of Sony":
... before users can even say yes or no to accepting the Sony EULA,
MediaMax has already installed a dozen files on their hard drive and started
running the copy protection code. The files remain even if the user rejects
the EULA, and the Sony CDs provide no option for uninstalling the files at a
later date.
... an e-commerce revenue generation "feature of dynamic on-line
and off-line banner ads. Generate revenue or added value through the placement
of 3rd party dynamic, interactive ads that can be changed at any time by the
content owner."
Sony has other DRM software. Here are quotes:
MediaMax also "phones home" every time you play a protected CD with a code identifying what music you're listening to.
Ed Foster says Sony management has a "scum" profile. Quote: OK, so let's see what we've got here. A company that seems bent on sneaking files onto unsuspecting users' computers, pretending they've gotten permission to do so from a vaguely-worded EULA, transmitting a constant stream of usage information back to their servers, and using that information for who-knows-what revenue generating opportunities. Does this sound like a familiar profile to you? Of course, it's the profile of all the spyware/adware scum that have come very close to destroying the Internet just to make a few bucks peddling their trash.
Issues that remain concerning Sony's rootkit software and other DRM software:
As is shown by Ed Foster's analysis linked above, attacking customer computers seems to be the kind of thing that is part of the Sony corporate culture. There has been no apology, and Sony management makes statements giving the impression they intend to continue infecting customer computers.
A music retail store spokesman said that Sony's rootkit attack has become public just before Christmas. Customers can easily choose some other gift now that they are scared about computer attacks. Sony's attack has hurt the entire music industry, not just Sony. Also, the damage will continue after Christmas.
Few people are technically knowledgeable. The Sony rootkit CDs will be causing problems for many, many years, as they are traded or borrowed or sold to thrift stores.
The number of computers already corrupted by the Sony rootkit is probably far larger than the 500,000 quoted in articles about the Sony attack. That number is just the number of Domain Name Servers that show evidence that a computer has tried to contact the Sony phone home address. The average server would almost certainly service more than one corrupted computer.
Following Microsoft's lead years ago, some businesses treat all their customers as crooks so that they can stop a few.
DRM schemes such as XCP aren't about preventing piracy anyway, which is why it's okay that it's so easily defeated. Instead, today's DRM schemes are about indoctrinating the public, getting them so used to putting up with DRM that we won't complain loudly enough when the ultimate home invasion occurs - that is, when we all switch to digital TV, and their DRM finally puts a nail in the coffin of VCRs, DVRs, and that pesky Betamax decision.
In the gartner report, the authors suggested two very disturbing ideas, no stand alone players and DRM installed, in all hardware pc. Failing this, or additionally, it is suggested that the RIAA go the legislative route to solving this problem. Given the that it is pretty clear, that they can not prevent technology from moving forward, I am sure that they redouble their efforts on a DMCAII.
It has been mentioned here before but the purpose of the government is not to save dying business models but to incourage innovation and jobs. The history of the 20th century is littered with businesses that have gone by the way side, telegraph, gas lighting, teletype machines are just a few. I am not one to argue that information is free but a new model is being forced upon the music/movie industry and hiring lawyers/lobbiest is not going to make the problem go away.
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four industries that hate their customers: the airlines, the telephone companies, the music and movie.
I really fail to understand what anyone hopes to achieve by any form of copy protection...
As far as I can tell, the only form of copy protection that can hope to work against any low-level data extraction tool is one that involves partially invalid data or unreadable regions. And even then, you can do a straight 1:1 copy, and whenever it starts having read errors, put a 0 or something in those bytes and skip them. That is easily achieved using a utility like dd. In many cases, you can also read the disc in a virtual PC (e.g. VMware), and save the audio output to a disk file - and then delete the virtual PC in case of malware installed by the CD.
Unless the disc is in a proprietary format which can only be read by a specific player, which has no standard output connections, you can copy anything that you can play, simply by plugging the output of whatever you use to play it into the line-in on your PC. If they somehow prevent that, you can still record anything using a microphone, as long as you can somehow get sound waves out of it.
Also, is it really right to try and stop all copying? I absolutely cannot stand any kind of data being held within a single physical object, especially such a fragile one as a CD. I keep most of my CDs backed up onto two locations, but I steadfastly refuse to play the music on more than one location at a time, or share it with a friend. There can't be very many people in the world who would want to rip the musicians off, and not posess the necessary technical skills to bypass copy protection. The slightest hint of copy protection on a CD in my posession prompts me to try and create a "pure" copy, just because I can't stand my data being defiled by such things.
Certainly, it is stupid to incorporate Windows trojans into the CDs. People trust the music companies; at least, they did. Things like this must really lower people's trust - especially since they try to disuade people from piracy by saying that pirate copies may contain trojans. I will certainly be very reluctant to insert a CD into a Windows computer without the shift key held down in the future.
How do you know the Sony rootkit is not PRE-INSTALLED on your Vaio when you receive it? How do you know that the Sony rootkit is not embedded in hardware on every Sony USB stick, every Sony memory card, every Sony digital camera...?
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PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
I'll reservedly agree with that statement.
But that is absolute nonsense. Give me a break. You try to distance yourself from the "audiophile snake oil" yet here you are repeating one of the audiophile myths; that they can hear things that can't be measured.
The problem here is that you're using a strawman experiment. Nobody seriously attempts to measure THD by looking at the signal on an 8-bit scope and squinting until they see clipping. You measure THD with a tone generator and a 24-bit ADC which can easily measure THD down to -122dB. I could personally build such a system for a few hundred dollars or you could buy one of the dozens of professional systems on the market.
Test equipment is 100s of times better than your ears. The random noise and non-linearities in an ear are just incredible; fluid moving across the hair cells due to movement of the head, the sound of blood flowing near the ear, pressure buildup in your sinus, damaged hair cells due to exposure to high frequency or loud volumes, tinnitus (ringing) which is normally automatically masked by your brain, etc. The human ability to hear is incredibly imperfect. Anybody who thinks that electronic equipment's ability to reproduce audio hasn't already surpassed our ability to hear that audio has more in common with audiophiles than they might like to admit.