Blackhacker

Hacker breaks link between iTunes and the iPod - Times Online
A notorious Norwegian hacker known as DVD Jon is preparing for another run-in with the music industry after he released software that lets iPod owners copy music and videos bought from iTunes and play it on other devices.

The program allows people to drag and drop songs from iTunes into a folder on their desktop, which in turn copies the files to other devices such as mobile phones and games consoles via the web.

This guy is one of my heroes. Usually I frown when someone breaks the law, but the law being broken is in my view immoral, because it allows someone else to dictate how I use something that I have legally purchased. Shutting down networks that distribute illegally stolen merchandise is one thing, but if I bought the song, and I want to play it on my Zune, or my Stone or what ever then I should be able to do that. So what ever network I set up to facilitate that is legal, and moral.

Dap to LB for pointing me to this article, but she apparently has NO idea what a “hacker” really is. To that end I pointer to Paul Graham.

Sony Joins Other Labels on Amazon MP3 Store - New York Times
SAN FRANCISCO — Sony BMG, the music company, announced Thursday that it would become the fourth and final major label to begin selling digital music on Amazon.com, offering its entire catalog in the MP3 format by the end of the month.

We are apparently hearing the death nell of the scourge of fair use, DRM.

Apples got some worries, because this make Amazon the largest legitimate music down load site, in terms of catalog.

Dap: /.

BackupBluray rip utility released » WesleyTech.com -> HD DVD, Blu-ray, CD info and more
The person (muslix64) behind the infamous BackupHDDVD utility and the subsequent appearance of HD DVD torrents is at it again, this time with his sights set on the Blu-ray Disc format.

Dap: /.

This piece from Engadget is reporting how a hacker broke AACS, the encryption that is used by both Blue Ray and HD-DVD.

AACS DRM cracked by BackupHDDVD tool? - Engadget
Can it be? Is Hollywood’s new DRM posterchild AACS (Advanced Access Content System, see more here) actually quite breakable? According to a post on our favoritest of forums (Doom9) by DRM hacker du jour muslix64, his new BackupHDDVD tool decrypts and dismantles AACS on a Windows PC. Just feed the small utility a crypto key.

I am hardly a rocket scientist, especially when it comes to cryptography, but how can any REAL copy protection be achieved, Assuming that every Blue-Ray or HD-DVD player has to decrypt every disc that it plays, The key(s) for the media has to be found somewhere on the disc or every possible key has to hardcoded somewhere in the player. Either way its like writing your PIN on the back of your ATM card. Like any cryptographic system, the vulnerability is not the cryptography but how to deliver keys in a secure way.

Dap: /.

A New telecom bill lacks any Net neutrality provisions also throws a bone to the MPAA & RIAA outlawing digital receivers that allow you to record with out any DRM.

Net neutrality missing from sweeping telecom bill | Tech News on ZDNet
Included in the massive proposal is, however, one requirement sure to please the recording industry: authorization for the FCC to start the process of outlawing digital over-the-air radio and digital satellite receivers sold today that permit users to record broadcasts. Those would be supplanted with receivers that will treat as copy-protected anything with an “audio broadcast flag” in the future.

EFF Urges Consumers to Claim Clean CDs and Extra Downloads

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is urging music fans who purchased Sony BMG music CDs containing flawed digital rights management (DRM) to submit their claims now for clean CDs and extra downloads as part of a class action lawsuit settlement.

“This settlement gives consumers what they thought they were buying in the first place — clean, safe music that will play on their computers and their iPods as well as their stereo systems,” said EFF Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl.

Anyone who purchased Sony BMG CDs that included First4Internet XCP and SunnComm MediaMax software can receive the same music without DRM. Some will also get downloads of other Sony BMG music from several different services, including iTunes. Music fans have through the end of the year to participate in the settlement, and they should receive their compensation within six to eight weeks of submitting their claim forms. Customers can find out more about the settlement and how to submit their claims at http://www.eff.org/sony.
(link)

This story from Boing Boing highlights the rules for the new Coldplay CD. It won’t play on your Mac, or your car, or burn to a CD, can’t be ripped. Might as well as bought it on vinyl. It might be easier to list the devices you CAN play the CD on. Even as Sony is FINALLY starting to get the hint we see that the industry as a whole still hopes to try to survive with the current business models intact and hope to get a a PPV model on top of that for downloadable content with HR-4569-DTCSA-Analog-Hole. This makes NO business since to me. Consumers have gotten used to media shifting music. iPods and other players make this even MORE desirable giving us the ability to take our whole collection in our pocket. Tech, products and companies that allows this freedom will be liked and those that don’t will be hated. You can not make money if you are at odds with your consumer.

BetaNews | Oops — New Sony DRM Patch Insecure
Oops — New Sony DRM Patch Insecure
By Nate Mook, BetaNews
December 8, 2005, 11:40 AM

Just one day after jointly announcing a patch to correct a security flaw in the SunnComm MediaMax copy protection included on 27 CDs, Sony BMG and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are urging users not to install it. The update includes a vulnerability similar to the one it attempted to fix.

SunnComm’s MediaMax version 5 software does not properly protect a directory it installs, opening the door for a privilege escalation attack. Thus, a restricted user account could replace the executables within the MediaMax directory with malicious code, which would then be executed by an administrator upon inserting a CD.

Sony introduced a DRM technology that automatically installs on you PC, called XCP. The idea was that it would interject an keep you from ripping the CDs. It is installed when you try to play a CD with the software on it. Another word for this type of software is a rootkit. The story was broke by blogger and hacker Mark Russinovich No small uproar went through the Internet.

The outcry was so great that on Nov. 11, Sony announced it was temporarily halting production of that copy-protection scheme. That still wasn’t enough — on Nov. 14 the company announced it was pulling copy-protected CDs from store shelves and offered to replace customers’ infected CDs for free.

But that’s not the real story here.

It’s a tale of extreme hubris. Sony rolled out this incredibly invasive copy-protection scheme without ever publicly discussing its details, confident that its profits were worth modifying its customers’ computers. When its actions were first discovered, Sony offered a “fix” that didn’t remove the rootkit, just the cloaking. (from wired)

Not only that but it left a security vulnerability. As you may realize people play CDs EVERY FREAKING WHERE there is PC. That’s why the rootkit was found on DOD and Dept. of Homeland Security PCs. It is estimated that 1,500,000 computers world wide are infected.

What do you think of your antivirus company, the one that didn’t notice Sony’s rootkit as it infected half a million computers? And this isn’t one of those lightning-fast Internet worms; this one has been spreading since mid-2004. Because it spread through infected CDs, not through Internet connections, they didn’t notice? This is exactly the kind of thing we’re paying those companies to detect — especially because the rootkit was phoning home.

Phoning home means that the rootkit was contacting Sony though the Internet.

Lastly, it turns out that Sony’s rootkit was based on software developed by DVD Jon who’s broke Sony’s encryption and release a program on the Internet that allowed someone to rip DVDs. (link)

So to answer the the question in the title :

YOU BLACK AS &@$$ !!!

list of CDs said to have XCP:1 2 3

RootKit Revealer