I’m tempted to say “long live the cd…”, but… EMI’s CEO has declared that the CD is dead. He does point out that you’re not likely to give your Aunt an iTunes download, so “dead” just means “in decline” in this parlance. However, I can’t help but laugh to myself of the notion that I release a cd through lulu of hymns and within the week the CD is declared dead. No, seriously… I haven’t bought a cd in quite a while myself. Mainly because I don’t want to put up with all the DRM restrictions these days. I want to be able to have a simple cd that I can extract to another player IF I WANT. But I want the original CD as a “high quality archived original” in comparison to the mp3 that might be lost when a flash drive or hard drive dies and isn’t quite as high quality.
Tag: DRM
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Microsoft releases official VML patch!!
The big news this afternoon is that Microsoft HAS gone out of the routine patch cycle to release a security fix for the VML vulnerability that’s been actively exploited in recent days for everything from sneak keylogger installs to massive spyware installs. Sans has a few links, if you de-registered the affected DLL you should consider re-registering the same so that you’ll be able to view/access vml content in the future. Here’s Microsoft’s technet Security Bulletin on the matter. (Visit update.microsoft.com if it’s not automatically downloaded for you.) It should be noted that the RC of IE 7 was not affected by this vulnerability.
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How Microsoft could patch VML vulnerability before October’s patch day
SO, there’s the second big vulnerability exploit for Internet Explorer making the rounds in about a week and Microsoft’s advisory says that the most recent flaw will likely be patched on October’s patch day (“unless the need arises…”) So, what would trigger that need? Lot’s of browsers being subjected to unwanted drive-by downloads? I suppose that doesn’t trigger need for an out of cycle patch. True, “lot’s” is hard to quantify – how many people are really affected by this, home users? office users? etc. After all there IS a way to mitigate this (unregistering the vml dll….) not for the faint of heart but, it’s your computer and you’re responsible for it, right? Last month, a program offered people the capability of removing DRM from Microsoft DRM protected windows media files… it took about 3 days for Microsoft to release a fix…..
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ANOTHER Microsoft patch problem
This is getting to be like clockwork, but it sounds like this may be one of the nastiest problems so far. It appears that there is a problem with one of the recent patches from Microsoft MS06-49. It looks as though the problem is data corruption for small files (under 4096 bytes.) There’s a google groups thread here. The key factor seems to be that IF the folder is compressed, the data within is subject to this possible corruption.
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Microsoft’s priorities…
I didn’t really think of this in context, but George Ou points out that Microsoft issued an “out of cycle” patch for their DRM software in response to the FairUse4WM software that stripped DRM protections from Windows Media Files. It took a mere 3 days from being made aware of the issue to releasing a patch. In context, we have seen numerous instances in the last year of “zero-day” vulnerabilities becoming known just after a monthly patch day, and Microsoft waiting until the next patch day to release a fix. So why the different response?
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Fairuse4wm back on top
In the struggle between fairuse4wm and Microsoft DRM, it appears that fairuse4wm is out on top again. Just to sum up – the last few weeks saw a release of fairuse4wm that stripped DRM from Microsoft DRM protected media files, then MS fixed their DRM to break fairuse4wm and now fairuse4wm has released a NEW version that breaks Microsoft’s fix and strips DRM from Microsoft DRM protected media files…. DRM software arms race, kind of fun to watch.
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Free (and legal) music downloads coming by Christmas 2006 and DRM
I’ve seen several news reports picking up this story from yesterday. SpiralFrog will provide an advertising supported, free music download service and is expected to launch in time for Christmas 2006. There is an agreement with the Universal Music Group and SpiralFrog and the concept is that users must agree to watch advertising before downloading the free music. Testing will begin in the US and Canada before the end of the year. It sounds as though they will use DRM from Microsoft on the free downloads…
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Some Sony news
You had to know we couldn’t make it to the end of the year without another story about the Sony DRM rootkit…. I noticed last night that the sunbelt blog had mention of a proposed settlement in their legal troubles in the wake of the XCP copy protection DRM rootkit MESS. *(Mediamax is not quite forgotten either.)
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Artists revolting against DRM
This is under the security tab because DRM software protection has proven to be a computer security issue… Spyware Confidential is reporting on artists revolting against the Sony DRM. According to the story…
My Morning Jacket, the artists who recorded the copy protected CD “Z” I mentioned here, are doing more than protesting Sony BMG’s use of DRM spyware. They are revolting. Yesterday I read that My Morning Jacket was doing their own recall of the affected CDs. Now I see they are burning unrestricted copies of their CD and mailing them to users. Hmm… I wonder if they are breaking the law under the DMCA.
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Another sony lawsuit? (The DRM that stole Christmas for Sony?)
Now it appears that the Illionois Attorney General is also investigating Sony in relation to the recent DRM software debacle related to their XCP Digital Rights Management software.
her office has requested information from the company regarding anti-piracy software it included on music CDs that experts have shown exposes Microsoft Windows users to security holes and computer viruses.