DRM -- ruining your computer and compromising national security

Did you know that Sony's latest CDs -- the kind you pay big bucks for in stores -- have been sold with preinstalled Trojan-style malware which installs itself into your computer? The idea is to stop you from copying the CDs, but already, hackers have written viruses which "piggyback" onto the malware. I didn't know about this until tonight, but it's a big scandal, which has caused Sony to withdraw this form of DRM from the market:

When the affected CDs are played on a Windows personal computer, the software secretly installs itself and limits how many times the CDs can be copied. The code was discovered by Windows experts Mark Russinovich on Oct. 31.

Sony is already facing at least six lawsuits over the program. The discovery of three Trojan horse viruses that use the secret program to enter computers undetected instantly increased the backlash against the company. "The development we feared most from Sony's inclusion of technology to conceal its DRM (digital rights management) software was its use to conceal malicious code," said David Emm of security firm Kaspersky Labs. "Unfortunately, it seems our fears were well- grounded."

According to the Washington Post's blog, Sony's so-called DRM (digital rights management) copyright protection software also drew sharp criticism from Stewart Baker, recently appointed as the Department of Homeland Security's assistant secretary for policy:
"I wanted to raise one point of caution as we go forward, because we are also responsible for maintaining the security of the information infrastructure of the United States and making sure peoples' [and] businesses' computers are secure. ... There's been a lot of publicity recently about tactics used in pursuing protection for music and DVD CDs in which questions have been raised about whether the protection measures install hidden files on peoples' computers that even the system administrators can’t find."

"It's very important to remember that it's your intellectual property -- it's not your computer.

These words were reported as sending a shiver up the spine of the RIAA rep:
The Recording Industry Association of America's CEO Mitch Bainwol was in attendance and you knew that these words had to run a shiver down his spine. He is spending quite a bit of time on the beltway these days pushing several new bills to give Hollywood control of how consumers use future electronic products. But, it is hard to call certain activities illegal when one of your members spreads what security pundits called malicious code to millions of home computers. It just undermines his argument, especially when a senior Bush official looks him straight in the eye and says he agrees with the pundits.

Bainwol has another big worry. The controversy from the Sony scandal has the potential to go beyond Sony by tainting the CD format itself in the eyes of consumers. This could kill the format, though it is not clear yet what effect, if any, this will have on record sales. The word-of-mouth building on the Net looks ominous right now. The industry is now looking to lay low and hope this passes.

But cheer up, folks!

It appears that Microsoft is coming to the rescue, with the newest versions of Microsoft's anti-spyware being set to zap Sony's offending software:

The software giant's Windows AntiSpyware application will be updated to add a detection and removal signature for the rootkit features used in the XCP digital rights management technology.

According to Jason Garms, group product manager in Microsoft's Anti-Malware Technology Team, the rootkit removal signature will be pushed out at Windows users through the anti-spyware application's weekly signature update process.

Detection and removal of the XCP rootkit will also appear in Windows Defender, the next version of Windows AntiSpyware when that makeover ships.

DRM. A solution which promises to be much worse than the problem.

Here here!

posted by Eric on 11.12.05 at 08:44 PM





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Copy protection has been a bane for computer users since before I ever started using a computer, back in 1989.



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