Friday, November 11, 2005

Extra Special Surprise ... of Doom Little did I know when I bought My Morning Jacket's latest CD that I was bringing a loaded weapon into the house. You probably know by now that Sony has a nasty little surprise on thousands of CDs, including many released by imprint label ATO (MMJ's label.)  The surprise was "extended copy protection" that loaded itself innocuously onto your computer, making itself nearly invisible by the same cloaking techniques that hackers and virus makers like to use.  First of all, I don't like programs that sit like silent spies on my computer, reporting how many times I burn a CD or who knows what else.  From here, it's not a far stretch to imagine Sony scanning ALL music files on your computer to verify legitimate ownership, and suing you RIAA-style if they find pirated versions of their music.  But the real kicker is what happens if you try to delete the program.  Your CD burner stops working.  That's right - people like me paid good money to bring home a CD that just might permanently disable their computer.  Thank you very f@#%ing much.   Mark Russinovich (much respect is due) first blew the whistle on this malware on his blog, dissecting its behavior and cloaking in devastatingly minute detail.  From there came the outrage, the mockery, and the inevitable reversal.  Or was it?  Sony has made it possible to reveal where this little piece of malware was hidden, but as of this post, it's still not safe to actually disable or remove it.   One other unfortunate, but totally predictable, side effect of running silent and invisible programs on a computer is that it opens your computer up to virus attacks.  Today the first word broke of a virus that uses Sony's mysterious program to launch itself.  And today the first of many many lawsuits was filed.   Apparently Sony has decided to stop putting XCP on their discs, but the damage has been done.   I was undamaged (as far as I know) by this nasty thing, because I burned the CD with my Mac so I could play it on my iPod.   This has only strengthened my resolve to never, ever, ever let go of my Mac - so far, it's been the only successful way to avoid almost all of the dumbass DRM software out there.   This also made me think very seriously about downloading every new album directly from iTunes.  I don't like their DRM very much, but at least I know what I'm getting.   (Irony here is that ATO is the home to many pro-taping artists such as Gov't Mule, Mike Doughty, and co-founder Dave Matthews.  So, the same bands who happily allow fans to tape and share their concerts are cursed with CDs that might destroy their fans' computers.  For the record, ATO has disavowed any involvement with the DRM scheme, or any DRM scheme.)   8:37:26 PM     Speak up!  []