Text 8435, 92 rader
Skriven 2005-11-26 18:57:42 av Glenn Meadows (1:379/45)
   Kommentar till text 8430 av Mike '/m' (1:379/45)
Ärende: Re: Sony's DRM Profile
==============================
From: "Glenn Meadows" <gmeadow@comcast.net>

Cute.

--

Glenn M.
"Mike '/m'" <mike@barkto.com> wrote in message
news:86lho19jsu8gal5bdtc041g7kvfj2v93ph@4ax.com...
>
> http://weblog.infoworld.com/foster/2005/11/22.html
>
> ===
> You're probably getting tired of hearing about Sony BMG's rootkit DRM,
> but one central mystery about it remains to be solved. What was Sony's
> real motive for what many consider behavior that is awfully close to a
> criminal act? To answer that question I think we're going to need to
> borrow a page from the criminal profilers by tracking the company's
> behavior. Fortunately, we have more than one crime scene to help us with
> our profile, because it so happens that Sony has been employing more
> than one form of spywarish DRM in recent months.
>
> Even after finally confessing, under considerable duress, that the
> rootkit was probably a mistake, Sony officials have stuck to the story
> that their use of First4Internet's XCP DRM was intended only to protect
> their CDs from music pirates. But that alibi doesn't really wash, since
> the XCP copy protection only punishes legitimate customers while doing
> nothing to stop file sharers. What's more, this is a pattern of behavior
> we saw before with Sony when readers were complaining back in July about
> another form of DRM it was using on music CDs from SunnComm, Inc.
>
> What clues can we pick up by comparing the different DRM approaches Sony
> has employed on its CDs in recent months? Fortunately, on the subject of
> SunnComm's MediaMax DRM, we have the equivalent of a forensic
> anthropologist who can serve as an expert witness here. Princeton
> University computer scientist J. Alex Halderman is the researcher who
> SunnComm threatened with charges of violating the DMCA's
> anti-circumvention provisions a few years ago when he revealed how their
> technology could be thwarted by holding down the shift key. The rootkit
> brouhaha prompted Halderman to take a look at how the MediaMax DRM is
> implemented on recent Sony CDs (all apparently on different titles than
> the CDs that have the XCP rootkit), and his published findings are quite
> intriguing.
>
> While Halderman found no evidence of SunnComm's MediaMax using a
> rootkit, some of the things he did discover provide considerable grist
> for our behavioral profile of Sony. For one thing, 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.
>
> Most interesting of all though is what Halderman discovered concerning
> the spyware attributes of the Sony CDs equipped with MediaMax. As with
> the XCP rootkit, MediaMax also "phones home" every time you play a
> protected CD with a code identifying what music you're listening to. And
> in the SunnComm server's response to these transmissions Halderman also
> uncovered a very important clue to what Sony's really up to: a URL
> including the term "perfectplacement." A MediaMax developer's webpage
> describes Perfect Placement to potential clients like Sony as 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."
>
> 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.
>
> But we shouldn't miss the fact that Sony's behavior with both its XCP
> and MediaMax implementations matches another pattern we've seen many
> times before. It's the serial DRM offender profile that Microsoft,
> Symantec, Intuit, and lesser lights in the software industry have
> exhibited. Their product activation and other forms of copy protection
> also aren't really about stopping piracy - they admit their DRM won't
> stop the software counterfeiters. It's about giving the vendors control
> over your usage of the products you buy, so they can decide if you're
> using it in ways they don't like, or that they ought to force you to
> upgrade, or that it's time to start selling the information they've
> collected about you to the highest bidder....
> ===
>
> /m

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