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badcomputer.org

Saturday, November 19, 2005

Hi folks. First off, I just wanted to mention that I have caved in and put some advertisments on the site. Yes, they are from google. In my defense, they are right down at the bottom of the page and I don't think they interfere with the actual content of my site. So why did I do it? Well, I could use some help with the old bandwidth bill, plus I think it will help with my search rankings. Google says that displaying their ads has no effect on rankings, but c'mon...

So, if you feel like helping me out go ahead and click on one (or two or three) of the ads. It will cost you nothing, and maybe help me out a bit. After one week of the ads, I have earned a grand total of $0.14 (for 1 click-through). w00t!!!

The other thing I wanted to talk about today is...

Sony's boneheaded move

So: if you're a cracker, and write a virus, or gain entry to an unauthorized system you can go to jail for life. But what happens when you are a large multinational corporation? Who's to blame?

This story keeps getting stranger and stranger. Let me give you the brief sketch, if you don't already know. First, Sony/BMG music released 52 audio CDs containing "XCP Content Protection Technology", a DRM solution they bought from British firm First4Internet. What this thing does is install a rootkit on the victim's (yes, I think victim is the correct term) computer, which hides itself from the operating system by prepending '$sys$' to the files. Now other clever crackers have realised that they can hide their illicit materials using the same function of Sony's rootkit. So in a nutshell, Sony has installed hidden files on the victims computers (yes, that is a crime), thus creating huge security implications for the infected machines.

In an interesting twist, evidence has been uncovered that First4Internet have placed GPL code into the rootkit, stolen from Faac, VideoLAN, and mpglib. Yes, this is also illegal, and is also very huge in the irony department, since the whole point of Sony using the DRM was to prevent copyright theft.

So what has Sony done to atone for this? Well, they recalled the disks, which is good, but today they have made an offer to "replace at no cost" the infected CDs for those who bought them. Great, thanks Sony, and what about the clean up costs of all the computers you infected? Some of which are likely undetected.? What is your explaination for illegally accessing peoples computers?

So far there has been two class-action lawsuits filed against Sony/BMG, and hopefully there will be more. Sony will only learn if this event ends up affecting their pocketbook, and if you ask me, no fine could possibly be too large. In any event, I heartily urge you to boycott Sony's products. If not everything, at least music titles released by Sony/BMG.

Perhaps if Sony (and the rest of the piece of shit RIAA labels...) stopped treating their paying customers like criminals (whilst being criminals themselves) then people would respect their IP rights. As any cracker will tell you, and has already been proven, DRM is trivial to crack, so the piraters will still pirate. The only losers here are the people that buy the music...

This quote from bash.org sums it up:

<DmncAtrny> I will write on a huge cement block "BY ACCEPTING THIS BRICK THROUGH YOUR WINDOW, YOU ACCEPT IT AS IS AND AGREE TO MY DISCLAIMER OF ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AS WELL AS DISCLAIMERS OF ALL LIABILITY, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL, THAT MAY ARISE FROM THE INSTALLATION OF THIS BRICK INTO YOUR BUILDING." <DmncAtrny> And then hurl it through the window of a Sony officer

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