Sony Proudly Rolls Out Spyware/Restrictions System

jhonny writes "Sony announced a new DRM technology called OpenMG X. Basically it keeps track on how many times you played/viewed (or tried to copy) your product and sends these statistics to the copyright holder."

So...

[Hittite Creosote]

Do I need to be connected to the internet to use it? And does it honestly think I'm going to let it past my firewall to report its findings?

OpenMG X?

[Hornsby]

It seems like the latest trend is to prefix Open on anything that's proprietary and evil to try and trick "Open Source" hackers into thinking it's not so bad.

So what happens if...

[Anonymous Coward]

I try to copy it 1,000,000 times?

Firewall = DMCA violation?

[Mexican]

And how long will it be before blocking their DRM management server in your personal firewall is considered circumventing the DMCA?

Re:HERE is a good use for a firewall.

[guacamolefoo]

My thoughts exactly. The only problem is, what if Sony

• requires

the product to be able to communicate with the "server module" at some point in the future? Basically, I fear a movement towards disabling hardware if reporting does not take place. This may be a first step in that direction.

How do they know?

[gralem]

Let's say the copyrighted product is a CD or DVD. Well, I can rip either one of those into another format. Let's say I convert it to MP3/DIVX. Then I could convert those formats to OGG/DV formats. By now, there is no way to track where it came from and what content is in the files, right? I mean, in the end all of these systems can be avoided. And if we know they're out there, we just don't buy any more sony computers EVER (or microsoft software or REAL software, etc, etc).

I do not think there is any software that could scan an Ogg Vorbis file and determine at all what song it is. Even if it did that, it could not determine what album it came from (original/CD single/live/greatest hits/various artists version). The whole idea of DRM just drives me crazy!

---gralem

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Hitler and IP

[wytcld]

You might think that Hitler, who got elected with the financial support of big business (while in the US, Henry Ford was a major fan too), wouldn't have resorted to intellectual property [nytimes.com] to meet his need to acquire vast wealth. Not only did he earn millions in royalties from Mein Kampf [amazon.com], but he got a share in the proceeds from sales of photos of him by his official photographer, on whose behalf he extended the copyright law, showing that there's more than one mousey little guy with an appreciation of the value of his image!

Perhaps if Sony technology had been in place, he would have gained enough through IP control to have been satiated, and not forced take extreme measures to try to make the world a better place through his policy of regime change in neighboring lands.
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Magic Gate by Sony

[dfenstrate]

Does anyone how successful Sony's MagicGate [202.79.223.206] technology has been?

Is anyone actually buying it? Has it been defeated yet? Though that might require substantial modification to the hardware involved....

Re:Hack it counter-intuitively...

[Sylver Dragon]

No, the real question is, how do I hack this thing so that is sends 50,000 packets with the same information. Or, better yet, send 5 million random pieces of information. Really, the only thing you do when you send them such obvious junk data is get it filtered out. The better thing to do is create a nice distributed type program (ala SETI@Home) that sends a continuious stream of junk data that looks genuine. It would be better to just increse the amount of data sent to them, rather than decrese it. If you decrese it, it helps keep the data they are getting pure, but if you artificially increse it, you can generate such a low signal to noise ratio that the data is useless.

Re:Heaven forbid you actually PAY for something!

[datarat]

Good Grief. Why does everyone always assume that it's all about getting something for free?

It's about control of your information. Suppose I rip a CD that I've purchased so that I can listen to it on my mp3 player.

2 years later I'm interviewing for a job and I'm told that because I have a history of duplicating intellectual property I can't be hired.

Sure, it sounds unlikely, but it only takes a little digging to find some dirt, and the more dirt exists the easier it is to find.

If I wanted everyone to know what I was doing all the time I'd be blogging.

Re:And they'll call it:

[splanky]

>awaiting a widespread adoption of a higher resolution audio format such as SACD or 2channel DVD Audio

So am I :o) I've played with both, and I like SACD better the DVD-Audio... But Sony, here again has made the process way harder. By refusing to cooperate with the DVD Audio group they splintered the market. The DVD Audio group was a consortium of companies trying to come up with a plan where Sony decided to go their own route. Hence we're stuck with two competing formats with neither getting a foothold.

PS I forgot one on my list of pig-headed sony formats - the infamous Mini-Disc!

Sure you can. You have both keys.

[nyet]

Cryptography is not designed for this sort of thing.

It is designed to let two trusted parties communicate w/o a third either snarfing data or pretending to be one of the trusted parties.

The problem is, both ends are not trusted in ANY DRM scheme, which is what makes DRM a pipe dream.