Bouncing Zabaglione Bros. said:Download TweakUI from Microsoft Powertools. Lets you fiddle safely with all kind of basic tweak settings.
Thanks but why download a util when you can hack the registry?
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros. said:Download TweakUI from Microsoft Powertools. Lets you fiddle safely with all kind of basic tweak settings.
ZoinKs! said:Even the Dept. of Homeland Security is chiding companies for excessive DRM.
1. If your house gets burgled, you have to delete all your music from your laptop when you get home. That's because the EULA says that your rights to any copies terminate as soon as you no longer possess the original CD.
2. You can't keep your music on any computers at work. The EULA only gives you the right to put copies on a "personal home computer system owned by you."
3. If you move out of the country, you have to delete all your music. The EULA specifically forbids "export" outside the country where you reside.
4. You must install any and all updates, or else lose the music on your computer. The EULA immediately terminates if you fail to install any update. No more holding out on those hobble-ware downgrades masquerading as updates.
5. Sony-BMG can install and use backdoors in the copy protection software or media player to "enforce their rights" against you, at any time, without notice. And Sony-BMG disclaims any liability if this "self help" crashes your computer, exposes you to security risks, or any other harm.
6. The EULA says Sony-BMG will never be liable to you for more than $5.00. That's right, no matter what happens, you can't even get back what you paid for the CD.
7. If you file for bankruptcy, you have to delete all the music on your computer. Seriously.
8. You have no right to transfer the music on your computer, even along with the original CD.
9. Forget about using the music as a soundtrack for your latest family photo slideshow, or mash-ups, or sampling. The EULA forbids changing, altering, or make derivative works from the music on your computer.
That's pretty shocking.Silanda said:This is interesting if true, so much for Sony's respect for copyrights: http://dewinter.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=215
Could this mean this nasty software will become open source for all the virus/spyware coders to take advantage of? Well, I guess they're doing that already, I suppose.Previously, judges in Germany already forced various companies to release source code to the public and to deliver the goods necessary for compiling. It is also possible to demand financial compensation for damages.
Microsoft to remove Sony CD code
Sony's controversial anti-piracy CD software has been labelled as spyware by Microsoft.
The more disturbing part is that it appears the control is signed. I wonder who at MS approved this, and how this blatant security hole got through the barest minimum of QC? Moral, if you bought Sony products, you are screwed. If it causes you problems, you are screwed more. If you uninstall, you are screwed yet harder. If you uninstall it yourself, you are a criminal under the DMCA. If you use an antivirus program to uninstall it, you spent money to fix Sony's problems, and you are still a criminal. That's what you get for buying music
Xenus said:They really have something against Sony recently don't they. I'm not saying the rootkit thing isn't bad because it is but theinquirer seemed to have issues with Sony before this came to light.
That's because Sony deserve it. It's such a comedy of errors and incompetence, it's no wonder TheInq can't leave them alone. Sony have made mistake after mistake:Xenus said:They really have something against Sony recently don't they. I'm not saying the rootkit thing isn't bad because it is but theinquirer seemed to have issues with Sony before this came to light.
Kaminsky, who is known for his novel security research on core Internet components like the TCP/IP communications protocol, identified systems running the copy protection software from First 4 Internet using a technique called "DNS cache sniffing." Kaminsky searched through the saved (or "cached") DNS requests submitted to a large number of the world's publicly accessible DNS servers and looked for requests for domains associated with the XCP software, such as update.xcp-aurora.com and connected.sonymusic.com.
The search turned up almost one million references to the XCP and Sony domains. Kaminsky weeded out duplicate or forwarded requests from that number and narrowed the list down to 568,000 requests from unique IP addresses on the Internet.
Also on this topic, Matt Nikki in the comments section discovered that the DRM can be bypassed simply by renaming your favourite ripping program with "$sys$" at the start of the filename and ripping the CD using this file, which is now undetectable even by the Sony DRM. You can use the Sony rootkit itself to bypass their own DRM!"
The root of the problem is a serious design flaw in Sony’s web-based uninstaller. When you first fill out Sony’s form to request a copy of the uninstaller, the request form downloads and installs a program – an ActiveX control created by the DRM vendor, First4Internet – called CodeSupport. CodeSupport remains on your system after you leave Sony’s site, and it is marked as safe for scripting, so any web page can ask CodeSupport to do things. One thing CodeSupport can be told to do is download and install code from an Internet site. Unfortunately, CodeSupport doesn’t verify that the downloaded code actually came from Sony or First4Internet. This means any web page can make CodeSupport download and install code from any URL without asking the user’s permission.
A malicious web site author can write an evil program, package up that program appropriately, put the packaged code at some URL, and then write a web page that causes CodeSupport to download and run code from that URL. If you visit that web page with Internet Explorer, and you have previously requested Sony’s uninstaller, then the evil program will be downloaded, installed, and run on your computer, immediately and automatically. Your goose will be cooked.
Anyone who has purchased one of the CDs, which include southern rockers Van Zant, Neil Diamond's latest album, and more than 18 others, can exchange the purchase, Sony said. The company added that it would release details of its CD exchange program "shortly."
Sony reported that over the past eight months it shipped more than 4.7 million CDs with the so-called XCP copy protection. More than 2.1 million of those discs have been sold.