ISP Information:
Pronounced "dudes." Immature scofflaws. See wareZ
ISP Glossary:
dOoDz - The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) may make illegal (forAmericans) some discussion of methods of circumventing copyprotection. I believe that Dr. Halderman (or maybe one of hiscolleagues at Princeton) ran into a legal buzz saw a few years agowhen the movie industry (I think it was) tried to suppress one of hismathematical papers. (The following paper is NOT mathematical.)* Original: FROM..... Mr. LizardFor those wondering about the title of this message ... if you were aMac programmer in days gone by, you were probably familiar with a flagvisible to the resource editor (Resedit) called "Bozo". This was thebuilt-in "copy protection" mechanism shipped with the originalMacintosh. If that bit was set, the file could not be copied. The bitwas so-named because, apparently, it was noted during systemsdevelopment that "Any bozo could get around that!"And today, we have record companies spending millions on "copyprotection" technologies that are, as the following article shows,equally as trivial to defeat.Technology isn't the answer to piracy. The answer is two-edged. First,media companies need to realize the old model has failed and find waysto make money using, rather than opposing, technology. Secondly, theculture of entitlement which allows people to feel they have a 'right'to something merely because they want it needs to be eliminated onevery level.(Caveat: I have not verified the procedure described in this article.)==========================================================http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~jhalderm/cd3/Analysis of the MediaMax CD3 Copy-Prevention SystemJohn A. HaldermanDepartment of Computer SciencePrinceton UniversityOctober 6, 2003Abstract. MediaMax CD3 is a new copy-prevention technique fromSunnComm Technologies that is designed to prevent unauthorized copyingof audio CDs using personal computers. SunnComm claims its productfacilitates "a verifiable and commendable level of security," but intests on a newly-released album, I find that the protections have noeffect on a large fraction of deployed PCs, and that most affectedusers can bypass the system entirely by holding the shift key whileinserting the CD. I explain that MediaMax interferes with audiocopying by installing a device driver when software from the CD isexecuted, but I show that this provides only minimal protectionbecause the driver can easily be disabled. I also examine the digitalrights management system used to control access to a set of encrypted,compressed audio files distributed on the CD. Although restrictions onthese files are more relaxed than in prior copy protected discs, theystill prohibit many uses permitted by the law. I conclude thatMediaMax and similar copy-prevention systems are irreparably flawedbut predict that record companies will find success with morecustomer-friendly alternatives for reducing infringement. Thisdocument can be referenced as Princeton University Computer ScienceTechnical Report TR-679-03. The most recent version is availableonline at http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~jhalderm/cd3/.1. INTRODUCTIONSeveral recent news reports (AFP , Washington Post , USA Today, AP , Arizona Republic , LA Times , CNet News ) describea new copy-prevention method that has been applied to an album byAnthony Hamilton released by BMG on September 23. This system, calledMediaMax CD3, was created by SunnComm Technologies, the producers of thefirst-generation copy-prevention system MediaCloQ. Discs manufacturedwith SunnComm's new technique include two versions of the music, eachprotected in a different way. One set of songs are CD audio tracks thatplay in standard CD players but are supposed to be difficult forcomputers to copy. The second set are compressed, encrypted WindowsMedia files that employ digital rights management (DRM) to restrict howthey are used. Music producers hope that the combination of thesetechnologies will help reduce illegal copying while still allowinglegitimate customers to play songs on their PCs, but this can only beachieved if both components are se
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