Posted by NDT on 11/11/05 20:09

In a move to protect its profits, while currying favor with Micro$oft,
Sony Music used flawed antipiracy technology to ruin music CDs.

The tech, which works only on Windows computers, stops paying customers
from making more than a couple copies of a CD and prevents paying
customers from loading the CD's songs into iPod portable music players.
Some MP3 players -- which recognize Micro$oft's proprietary music
format -- will apparently work with the crippled CDs.

Worse, the antipiracy tech is so flawed, that vandals and thieves were
instantly able to take advantage of the poorly written code,
effectively rendering their malware invisible by using names for
computer files similar to ones cloaked by the Sony technology.

Sony has promised to temporarily suspend making music CDs with this
greivously flawed technology -- but that remains to be seen to be
believed.

Some security folks see Sony's flawed technology as spyware, and
antivirus companies updated their protective software this week to
detect and disable Sony's antipiracy program. Paying customers who
remove the software are unable to listen to the music CD on their
computer.

And I said, fine! Boycott Sony!

No Dead Trees
http://nodeadtrees.com/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi

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