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Is Microsoft Using RIAA Legal Tactics?
Nom du Keyboard writes, "CNET reports, 'Microsoft has filed a federal lawsuit against an alleged hacker who broke through its copy protection technology, charging that the mystery developer somehow gained access to its copyrighted source code.' Looks to me like since they can't figure out how else he's doing it, they'll sue on this pretense and go fishing for the actual method through the legal system. They clearly have no proof yet that any theft of source code actually happened. This smacks of the RIAA tactics of sue first, then force you to hand over your hard drive to incriminate yourself. Isn't this something the courts should be putting a stop to at the first motion for dismissal?" Viodentia has denied using any proprietary source code, according to CNET.
Microsoft has released two successive patches aimed at disabling the tool. The first worked--but the hacker, known only by the pseudonym "Viodentia," quickly found a way around the update, the company alleges. Now the company says this was because the hacker had apparently gained access to copyrighted source code unavailable to previous generations of would-be crackers.
Tenuous grounds -- Microsoft is in effect claiming nobody could have reverse engineered their code, or cracked it, so fast, therefore they must have cheated by having access to Microsoft's original sources. Sounds like a logical assumption, but it's a bit like claiming a driver went from Point A to Point B, 100 miles apart, in one hour must have been speeding, though there was no witness to the driver actually speeding.
I expect what Microsoft really wants is to find if they have an inside man leaking code. Have to get Viodentia to reveal that by poring over his/her drive, which may yield absolutely nothing and be fairly claimed as harrassment.
"FairUse4WM has been my own creation, and has never involved Microsoft source code," the developer wrote. "I link with Microsoft's static libraries provided with the compiler and various platform SDK (software development kit) files."
Sounds almost as if those at Microsoft pursuing this case do not even know what their own library routines may be capapble of.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
What I take from this is the following:
Even WITH the source code microsoft cannot figure out how their code works and issue patches...so how would they be able to tell if some 'hacker' is really hacking their ultra secure corporate network? What do they do when third parties issue unofficial patches for IE? Are they going to start filing lawsuits against the white hats too as they might have figured something out on their own?
I am neither for or against hacking DRM and such, but honestly, assuming somebody hacked their way in and stole source code is a little bit harder to believe than simply figuring out a way around what I'm sure is an elementary DRM code. Poking and testing is easy to do, hacking, finding, downloading, and analysing source code is probably adding a bit more effort to the process than most guys trying to beat DRM are willing to go through.
The simplest explanation is usually the correct one. If he just plain figured it out by trying several different things, I'm inclined to believe him.
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
"This smacks of the RIAA tactics of sue first, then force you to hand over your hard drive to incriminate yourself."
This smacks of SCO tactics to me. Accuse first, offer no proof, sue so you can fish for evidence...
Say, didn't Microsoft indirectly fund the SCO fishing expedition? Nuff said...
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
A disassembler.
I mean come on! Really! Read this from TFA:
Microsoft has released two successive patches aimed at disabling the tool. The first worked--but the hacker, known only by the pseudonym "Viodentia," quickly found a way around the update, the company alleges. Now the company says this was because the hacker had apparently gained access to copyrighted source code unavailable to previous generations of would-be crackers.
Um, hello? People have been disassembling code to disable copy protection since the first days of the warez scene. You don't need the source. All the source does is speed things up a bit.
Not that I'd know anything about that. *ahem*
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
"I don't know how GuyIDontLike did something, therefore he must have cheated."
Some developpers are extremely slow to realize that things which seem nigh impossible to them are in fact, run-of-the-mill easy for talented hackers, crackers, upper-teir skr1pt k1dd13s, and others. Code obfuscation is not by any means adequate protection.
Neither is sticking anti-debugger crap in your code, for that matter.
From an article I just started reading: ...when Mozart was a boy he traveled to the Vatican with his father. Since they happened to be there at Easter, they were able to take in a performance of Allegri's Miserere. The Miserere is considered by many to be one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever composed. It is so beautiful, in fact, that at the time the Pope allowed no copies of the score to be made, and it was only performed at Easter, and only at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Only the choir was permitted to see the score, which was otherwise kept under lock and key.
Mozart, being the prodigy he was, heard the piece once and memorized it in its entirety. When he got home he wrote down the score without a single missed note. When Church authorities heard that Mozart had an unauthorized copy of the Miserere they took him to court, accusing him of stealing a copy of the score. The young boy was able to prove that he had not stolen the work only by writing down the piece again, perfectly, from memory in the presence of the court.
Obviously this probably isn't the case here, but isn't this a good example that you should not be allowed to sue somebody for copyright infringement unless you have some proof they obtained what they got thru illegal activity?
Which makes this more like Apple then the RIAA. Apple sued various rumor sites to try to fish out a leak in their own organization. MS wants to sue to figure out how their information was broken.
Although it's not like MS and Apple aren't, the RIAA is simply interested in money and control, not information. This isn't RIAA style extortion so much as Apple style ass-backwards investigatory tactics.
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
Microsoft wants to convince its music partners that its DRM is unbeatable. Now that it's been cracked, they're trying to argue that the only way their "unbeatable" DRM could have been cracked would be due to access to the source code.In other words, along with being a fishing expedition, this lawsuit is a PR play to Microsoft's music partners to try to save face over their no-longer-unsinkable DRM scheme.
"Sufferin' succotash."
For those who might think the parent is a troll, MS developers really do have trouble understanding Windows.
"Sufferin' succotash."
DRM can be easier or harder to crack, but it will always be crackable.
You give them the lock, you give them the key, and you hope that they can never figure out how to use them together.
Why the content industries keep believing that this is a good idea is a true mystery.
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Shouldn't DRM be uncrackable even with access to source code? Just like open source encryption methods?
"Most software just has one version, and that runs on basically any remotely modern version of Windows. "
.NET 1.1 to 2.0 took over a month for one project alone.
Nonsense. At best software requires win98 or better. Most software I have seen requires XPSP2 or better. Like I said even MS software has different versions for different windows.
"Based on history, I would expect the vast majority of common-use software to work transparently out of the box,"
In that case we are living in a different universe. Where I work every version of windows disrupts our software some way or another. SP2 was especially painful. Migration from
evil is as evil does