Some Sony news

Thursday, December 29th, 2005

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 […]

Microsoft December 2005 Security updates

Tuesday, December 13th, 2005

Sans has the tip that information on the critical Windows updates expected tomorrow from Microsoft has started to be released. MS 05-54: Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer This will hopefully patch the javascript issues… MS 05-55: Vulnerability in Windows Kernel Could Allow Elevation of Privilege.    Send article as PDF   

Sony releases XCP remover

Wednesday, December 7th, 2005

Sony has had a busy day… they’ve released software to remove the XCP DRM program that was the start of all the recent SONY DRM rootkit controversy. Of course, the original DRM software had multiple problems in it’s concept AND implementation, the uninstallers and patches since have also had problems. Today I’ve seen reports that […]

Sunncomm/MediaMax software fix released

Wednesday, December 7th, 2005

What a long journey it’s been and there is progress in the Sony DRM story. The main issue in the Sony controversy was the XCP DRM software (Digital Rights Management) which was made by first4internet. However, as the first rootkit was discovered, questions began about the MediaMax software (made by SunnComm) which was the OTHER […]

More on the Sony XCP DRM (Rootkit)

Monday, December 5th, 2005

Freedom-to-tinker.com has some good detailed analysis on Sony’s (mis) use of GPL software in their XCP DRM (Digital Rights Management) software that’s been at the center of somewhat of a firestorm the last couple months. DRMS was the source of the code that was allegedly misappropriated, but the puzzle was why a Digital Rights Management […]

The DMCA exemption process…

Friday, December 2nd, 2005

Another entry from the “how do the good guys keep from getting their pants sued off…” files. Freedom-to-tinker has an entry on their application for a DMCA waiver. (The DMCA (among other things) makes it against the law to circumvent copy protection (or to communicate ways of circumvention)) It sounds like the exemption process is […]

Sony class-action suit picks up researcher Mark Russinovich as an expert witness

Wednesday, November 30th, 2005

News continues on the Sony mess…. (Expect to hear about this for some time…) The researcher that informed the world about the Sony DRM rootkit, Mark Russinovich, has joined the class-action suit against Sony and First4Internet as an expert witness on the matter. Russinovich said he opted to join the suit because he “wanted to […]

More on the MediaMax DRM software

Monday, November 28th, 2005

The OTHER Sony-BMG DRM (Digital Rights Management) software is in the news again today. freedom-to-tinker which did great research into the security flaws that the UNINSTALL process for both XCP and MediaMax had is back to give more disturbing news. What’s interesting here is that even declining the EULA for the software is no protection […]

How effective is the MediaMax copy protection?

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2005

One of the sub-stories in all the Sony DRM mess of the last month with the XCP copy protection was that it was really an ineffective way of preventing copying of music anyway. In other words, you could press shift while inserting the cd to avoid the installer, then other programs could access the cd/allow […]

Today’s Sony DRM rootkit stories….

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2005

Amazingly I haven’t seen any big Sony news today, but there are a couple stories out that are worth noting… First up is freedom-to-tinker with their take on the lawsuits announced yesterday and the one thing that isn’t getting much press coverage, the MediaMax DRM software. XCP is the name of the rootkit that Sony […]

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