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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.
Why is it so hard to believe that he read the assembly and figured out how to crack the DRM from that?
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Wouldn't this fall under the category of reverse engineering for interoperability? As long as he isn't re-publishing copyrighted code, I don't see what their problem is.
IIRC, The program doesn't even circumvent the DRM, it just waits for WMP to do it, and then reads some of its memory.
...because "hacker" sounds way sexier than "code drone."
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Best quote: ... Any DRM out there is going to be cracked'
'Analysts say that "Viodentia" hasn't proved that Microsoft's DRM tools are fundamentally flawed
Sounds like it's not Microsoft's DRM tools that are flawed, but DRM itself.
Well, duh, guys.
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Anyone want to explain the logic behind that statement?
MS gives out the SDK
The SDK contains source code that is "not easily accessible"
Someone accesses the source code.
MS cries foul!
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
DRM is an arms race that the defender is going to eventually lose. Microsoft realizes this and is using the legal system to try to intimidate their NEXT adversary in the DRM battle. If they can successfully make an example of the person who bypassed their DRM this time, the next person may think twice. And yeah - it stinks.
[Insert pithy quote here]
You are correct as far as the current crop of security through obscurity DRM is concerned. The next crop coming with Vista and the next MS Office will tie DRM to a crypto module on the motherboard (available in 90% of the PCs coming down the production line today) or to a personal certificate (or both). These will not have these flaws. More importantly with Vista + Fresh MS Office it will be possible to use DRM on MS office documents so RIAA will no longer need to push DRM down our throats. 90%+ of the businesses out there will do that for them as this provides a measure to prevent information leaks and costly disclosures. The DRMless computer will become a rarity in the hands of enthusiasts and the market forces will wipe it out from free circulation. This is not far off - 2-3 years at most.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
despite their DRM being yet another monopolistic trap.
It's about DRM being like gun control (don't get me wrong, I HATE guns and private gun ownership):
DRM punishes the honest, and does nothing about people who are going to steal.
Make 'legal' online music consumption easy for the consumer, and they will be happy, and you will make money.
Treat them like criminals, and... well, you'll just be cultivating this behaviour.
Hacker just needs to countersue, saying Microsoft could not have issued a patch that undid his DRM-removal without access to his source code. The arguement is the same, and with the time for Vista to ship as evidence that Microsoft cannot turn around updates quickly, source-code or no.
The 5th Amendment would not generally apply, since it's a copyright infringement claim and thus not a criminal offense. The 5th Amendment pertains to crimes, not torts. Further, the 5th Amendment is understood to refer to the government compelling you to implicate yourself through testimony, not a third party or through evidence.
That said, the as-of-yet-unchallenged Digital Millennium Copyright Act clearly makes "access" to copyrighted works without a license illegal if they are "digital". Under that law, "access" to "digital" copyrighted works is indeed a crime. In that case, if the government got involved in the prosecution the 5th Amendment may very well apply with regard to whatever testimony you give.
This is actually a pretty common tactic. I was sued half a year ago by a former employer who believed i had stolen their code. They had the most horrible evidence that anyone who knew anything about computers would have known to be bullshit, but the judge didn't know a mouse from a monitor so he granted a search and ceasure, lucky me, they got to confiscate my computers for 2 months AND got to poke around throught all my files. Of course the judge didn't give two shits that i work from home and need my computers to earn a living as a contractor..
MABASPLOOM!
I found one claim in there particularly interesting:
I wonder...why is that, exactly? Why is Vista such a massive project?
It's a serious question. I mean, it's not like they're building HAL-9000 here. It's an OS. A microcomputer OS. Which really, as far as I can tell, doesn't do a whole lot more than a bunch of other OSes that are on the market already. What does it do that's so much more complex, fundamentally, than what OS X does? Or Linux? Or any number of other OSes? Why, exactly, is it such a freaking huge project?
If the size estimates I'm reading are accurate, at 50 MLOC, Vista is still smaller than OS X at 80 MLOC (comparisons to Linux are tougher because when someone says "Debian has 160 MLOC," it's not clear if that's just the base system or including all the applications or what). Admittedly, OS X borrowed a lot of code from NeXT, but Microsoft has a lot of code they could steal from previous Windows versions and other projects. If they chose not to, then that was a conscious management decision on their part.
If this guy's characterization of Vista development is true, they have more problems than a slipped schedule; they need to be asking why the damn thing has turned into that much of an epic project in the first place. This is not like IBM building the S/360 here; they're not wandering that far off into uncharted, never-before-attempted territory, based on every description of Vista I've ever seen or heard of. Yet they're making it that much of an effort, either by choice or mismanagement.
Vista, Linux, OS X: it does the same thing. Ultimately, they're both ways of managing the filesystem and the computer's hardware resources, and presenting those resources to programs in a standard manner on one end, and presenting a GUI to the user on the other. Sure, they're different ways of doing things, but they're all solutions to the same basic problem. It's even the same hardware resources and architecture that they're supposed to manage -- it's not as though the premise of each is that different.
Frankly if what that article says is true, Vista might have a second, more dubious distinction: the most wasted effort ever spent on a project since the Russians built that expensive lawn ornament.
If this guy did see the source code and was able to reverse engineer it, Microsoft ought to offer him a job. Apparently, they need the help.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Heh. Slashdot is a handy thing, isn't it? :)
I first heard of the program several weeks back, when there was another article about it. Or maybe someone mentioned it in a comment on a different article. Regardless, I heard about it on slashdot a few weeks back. Thanks to this program, and my finding out about it here, DirectSong http://www.directsong.com/ made four sales they wouldn't otherwise have made.
I play Guild Wars. I have a friend who plays Guild Wars. The music in this game is -amazing-, and we both love it. He found the soundtracks availble for sale from DirectSong. He didn't buy them, though. They came as Windows Media Audio, with DRM attached. But he told me about finding it.
A few days later, I remembered reading about FairUse4WM, so I googled for it and downloaded it. Then I went to DirectSong to see what they offer, ended up buying both the Guild Wars and Guild Wars:Factions soundtrack, and promptly stripped the drm off them. I told my friend about FairUse4WM, and that it worked for music from DirectSong, because I'd just used it. I sent it to him over msn, and he ended up buying both soundtracks too.
Boom. Four sales that wouldn't have been made if not for FairUse4WM.
No, no.. it's like a guy going from point A to point B, 100 miles apart, and then saying that since the air freshener is no longer potent.. no, wait. It's like you saw some guy arrive at point B from point A, and assumed that your curvy road was the shortest distance between those two points, but he actually took a helicopter. Wait, even better: It's nothing like cars and/or transportation at all.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere