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Now if this isn't the most retarded fukking thing I've seen this week ...
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View this Thread in Original format
| occrider |
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/biztec...reut/index.html
Student sued after revealing CD copying secret
Friday, October 10, 2003 Posted: 9:12 AM EDT (1312 GMT)
LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Three days after a Princeton graduate student posted a paper on his Web site detailing how to defeat the copy-protection software on a new music CD by pressing a single computer key, the maker of the
software said Thursday it would sue him.
In a statement, SunnComm Technologies Inc. said it would sue Alex Halderman over the paper, which said SunnComm's MediaMax CD-3 software could be blocked by holding down the "Shift" key on a computer keyboard as a CD using the software was inserted into a disc drive.
"SunnComm believes that by making erroneous assumptions in putting together his critical review of the MediaMax CD-3 technology, Halderman came to false conclusions concerning the robustness and efficacy of SunnComm's MediaMax technology," it said.
SunnComm, which trades on the Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board, said it has lost more than $10 million of its market value since Halderman published his report.
The software was used on a CD, Anthony Hamilton's "Comin' From Where I'm From," released last month. Halderman, who has done research in the past on other CD protection technologies, said the software could also be disabled by stopping a driver the software loads on the computer when the CD is played.
SunnComm alleged Halderman violated criminal provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in disclosing the existence of those driver files.
Halderman -- who received an undergraduate degree from Princeton earlier this year and is now pursuing a doctorate in computer science with an emphasis on computer security -- said he had not yet heard directly from SunnComm in regards to litigation but was unconcerned.
"I'm still not very worried about litigation under the DMCA, I don't think there's any case," he told Reuters. "I don't think telling people to press the 'Shift' key is a violation of the DMCA."
A spokesman for BMG, the unit of Bertelsmann AG that licensed SunnComm's software and released the Hamilton CD, declined to comment on the planned suit.
The music industry, claiming a sharp decline in CD sales is the result of digital piracy through online file-sharing services, has worked to develop methods to secure music on discs and restrict its copying.
Halderman's graduate advisor at Princeton is Ed Felten, a computer science professor who once sued the Recording Industry Association of America in a challenge to the constitutionality of the DMCA.
The RIAA had threatened action under the DMCA against Felten and colleagues after they said they would publish a paper disclosing flaws in an industry security initiative. That suit was eventually dismissed |
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| whiskers |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
"SunnComm believes that by making erroneous assumptions in putting together his critical review of the MediaMax CD-3 technology, Halderman came to false conclusions concerning the robustness and efficacy of SunnComm's MediaMax technology," it said.
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what a bunch or retarded cockmonkeys. they probably thought their protection was top-of-the-line and now what??
i bet they lost money in stock than in cd sales. penis wrinkles. |
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| tennessee_raver |
| ing stupid :whip: |
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| butterfly |
| i think it is actually pretty interesting. just goes to show that whatever security they lay on, someone will find a way to break through it. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by butterfly
i think it is actually pretty interesting. just goes to show that whatever security they lay on, someone will find a way to break through it. |
Yea but this is ludicrously insane ... the way to break through their security measure is to just hold down the shift key! They're trying to sue this guy over their own stupid ing incompetance. I'm glad they lost $10 million over this. |
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| whiskers |
| wtf are you talking about, this is NOT 'security', if they call that security, then man, i don't know what this world is coming to. |
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| cviper |
Next time you'll buy a CD, it'll say that you aren't allowed to press "shift" while inserting the CD into your computer...
Anyway, one gotta love copy protection software that only supports Windows (and suprisingly enough MacOs in this case). One more reason to switch to linux I guess. |
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| Swamper |
| In many cases you don't need the shift key since that's just a feature affecting you if you have 'Auto-Run/AutoPlay' enabled (which is default) and preventing it from executing the software copyright 'protection' on the CD |
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| whiskers |
| oh those idiots at sunncomm.... |
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