IDs For MO Drives To Counter Copyright Violations 124
CaptMondo writes: "It seems like HD manufacturers may be feeling the heat about MP3s and MPEGs. Fujitsu has just put out a press release about putting what they are calling 'Media ID' for their hard drives, which will identify each individual hard drive. Applications utilizing this feature can 'prevent reading of copied information.' Ugh!" From the description that link offers, it sounds like media, drives and applications would have to cooperate for this to work as intended, and that it only applies to 3.5" MO storage. Can you say technological tangle? It sure sounds like a good way to sell media though ... hmmm.
The Right to Read (Score:2)
--
Violence is necessary, it is as American as cherry pie.
H. Rap Brown
There goes the Chinese nuclear weapons program... (Score:2)
Re:History Repeats... (Score:1)
I remember various copy-protected floppy schemes. People stopped buying copy protected programs because they failed in various ways.
That brings back memories. One of my least favorite copy protections was that utilised by a PC game called "D/Generation". Not only did it have the usual weird sector arrangements, it also had code to read Ids on the computer hardware, and after only 2 changes of any hardware ID, the game would no longer install [it would save information on it's own diskette]. Talk about planned obselescence. ;-(
Back on topic, the nice thing is that are so many storage options these days that an overall copy protection strategy would be extremely hard to enforce. We have hard drives, zip disks, CD-Rs, MOs, DVD-RAM, etc.
Re:Won't work always (Score:1)
Why not? (Score:1)
so that
these IP posts, why should you bitch? I note that
his post genuinely provides useful information,
while your post, on the other hand, simply
derides him for offering help. Who's post is
the more insightful?
Re:To register Win 2002, may I have your HD ID sir (Score:1)
Simple "solution" to that. Just keep pestering them ever few weeks giving them a new id, until M$ realizes "its more trouble then its worth"
Good idea (Score:1)
Seriously, though. timothy [monkey.org] mentions that "media, drives and applications" must cooperate in order for the plan to work. That's done easily enough with enough man hours working on proprietary software. But why does fujitsu think that they'll actually be able to sell any of these drives? Yours in sarcasm, Matt
To register Win 2002, may I have your HD ID sir? (Score:2)
Actually more often... (Score:1)
So strange a concept (renting new CDs) but it is very popular here. Just like renting videos.
The minidiscs are usually right by the counter, too, but you can always find them cheaper somewhere else...
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
Re:The applications have to cooperate (Score:2)
Re:Hard Drive "tatoos" (Score:1)
And, the tatooing movement has now moved to the corporate desktop as well. I have my own consulting company, but until recently I advised people to buy brand-name computers. The profit margin is not high enough for me to focus my resources on system builds.
However, the latest Microsoft crap has made me rethink that, and I am now actively building (or subcontracting out, depending on the order size) systems again, because I cannot in good faith recommend purchase of the latest crippled machines.
I generally find that those who are the most arrogant are the least experienced.
How does this thing work? (Score:3)
Is it supposed to prevent you from copying information to it? Because that would make one darn useful removable drive, not being able to write to it. How would a program using the Media ID tell if what it's writing is "copyrighted material"?
Is it supposed to prevent you from copying information from it? Because that would make one darn useful removable drive, not being able to read from it. How would a program using Media ID tell if what's being read from the disk is "copyrighted material"?
I can imagine a scheme where a "specially certified application" could write data to the disk with information about how many times the data had been read, but that really doesn't have anything to do with an ID. How the heck does the ID help?
The only answer that I can think of is that all this ID and Copyright Protection BS is going to get in the way, and nothing else. And you know what? It will kill the format. These things will never become popular if people have to jump through hoops to use them.
Besides, how many Evil Pirates do you know swapping Copyrighted Material on Big Floppies? Give me a break. CD-Rs and the Internet, that's the tools of their trade.
CD Rental (Score:2)
I remember reading in the paper that the US Trade Representative (Carla Hills) wanted CD rental to be shut down as it was contra-copyright. No such luck, apparently.
sulli
fujitsu drives are crap anyhow (Score:1)
Does anybody even use MOs anymore? (Score:1)
_/_
/ v \
(IIGS( Scott Alfter (remove Voyager's hull # to send mail)
\_^_/
Re:Time for my monthly troll (Score:1)
Now maybe if I hadn't been able to then, I wouldn't be so obsessed now, and the MPAA/RIAA wouldn't have me now as the enormous revenue stream that I am, now that I actually have money.
Even though I know that any copy protection system can be cracked, I hope they succeed, just so they completely alienate their market, and drive themselves into the sea.
Re:A defense of (Score:1)
Mattel shurely (hic)... really shouldn't post under the influence, but they make it so damn hard to get hold of weed these days that in order to get out of it, I have to drink, and drinking makes me type loudly and incessantly... damn, there goes all that hard won karma, guess I won't be moderating again for a while... still, at least that means IE wont be falling over under the weight of all those pop-list thingies... arse... where's my vodka...?
This is a trend... (Score:1)
Right now it is still possible to circumvent those technologies (like it has been in the past) but i expect that this will change as technology gets more powerful, and copy protection tech is backed by law.
We are heading towards a situation where the pubishers of information have very strong control over who may read it. Since most people do not see what is wrong with that (or expect someone else to take care of it), i do not think it can be stopped.
With the DMCA it is just about to happen in the US, and since the EU tends to copy US laws we will have it over here soon. I am worried for the people who will not be rich enough to participate in the 'information age'...
Re:Won't work always (Score:1)
Re:When will they learn? (Score:1)
Re:an appropriate corollary. (Score:1)
BTW, anyone know how to get around that Macrovision thing? My GeForce 2 apparently has it, but I'm running it with reference drivers. Any suggestions?
Where are the scissors? (Score:1)
Re:A defense of (Score:1)
And the final problem with this. You cannot update the fsck-ing hard disk. If you do, since most of the major OEMs are now not permitted to actually give you a Windows install disk, you have to go buy another operating system (or download one). The other option would be buying another disk from the OEM, and we can all predict how quickly the prices on those will rise, can't we? Locked-in demand, only one source of supply... Either Microsoft gets more money or the OEM does. Either way, you have to pay at least twice for something you should already own.
-RickHunter
the fabled CD-WOM. (Score:4)
sounds like the CD-WOM drive I saw once. It was two pieces of wood with no real physical connection to a computer. You placed the CD-WOM media between the two pieces of wood, waited as long as you wanted (or as briefly -- the transfer rate was astounding) and lifted the top board. There was no disputing the data had been written to the disk. Of course, being CD-WOM, there was no way to prove it had been written. But there was no need to. Looks like Hitachi has just updated the mechanical side of things.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Re:And there comes special drivers... (Score:1)
-- LoonXTall
Re:Time for my monthly troll (Score:1)
Maybe it's because I'm an old guy, but why are slashdotters so obsessed about their "right" to be able to steal copyrighted content?
Answer 1: see my sig.
Answer 2: they've never created any art themselves, so they don't credit the blood-sweat-tears argument for IP ownership.
Answer 3: they ignore the fact that the creator should be able to control to a limited extent something that would not exist without them. DeCSS is OK, because deciding where the DVD is (not) viewable is wrong. It should be viewable wherever the hardware exists. MP3 is OK for similar reasons. Emailing MP3s to friends is OK, as the rough equivalent of tape swapping. Napster's users are wrong because they don't care whether the artist wants to be on it or not. Napster itself is just a sword: whether it does good or bad is dependent on those who wield it.
Answer 4: they don't remember the controversy [slashdot.org] over Voices of the Hellmouth. It's your post? Too bad, it wants to be free.
___ CmdrTHAC0 ___
Honestly... (Score:1)
Addendum (Score:1)
BIOS types (Score:1)
--
Build a man a fire, and he's warm for a day.
Forged disks (Score:3)
In the past there would have been no way to keep a manufacturer from making such disks. HOWEVER: The copy protection part of the DMCA does make it possible to stop the manufacturing of such disks.
All anyone has to do is come up with some sort of utterly lame copy protection scheme involving the serial number on the disk and the DMCA springs into effect with its draconian penalties against a non serial number manufacturer - since they would be circumventing a digital protection means.
This means that one manufacturer of any type of digital media who puts a serial number on their media could force EVERYONE to put serial numbers on their media of the same type. This includes floppies - and it would be a felony to erase a floppy serial number!
Isn't the DMCA just swell?
Re:Hard Drive "tatoos" (Score:2)
With the recovery disks, you can reimage your system. A non-destructive reinstall of Windows is much more difficult.
Obviously, you have the luxury of playing with your own toys. I, on the other hand, have to help consumers who are finding out that their copies of Windows are now useless without some form of hacking if they dare to upgrade their hard drives.
Who cares if he knows about GNUtella? (Score:2)
Intel influence? (Score:1)
Kris
botboy60@hotmail.com
Nerdnetwork.net [nerdnetwork.net]
Re:Forged disks (Score:2)
By driving this underground they'll just keep it from ever being profitable for them. They can't stop piracy, they'll just end up keeping it from being easy, by trodding on everyone's freedoms. By doing this they'll alienate the casual pirates, the ones who would pay a small user fee for media.
As it is, they remove all potential good will from every potential customer.
It used to be that I'd buy a movie, not caring about the MPAA. Now, I'll take any means I can to hurt the MPAA as much as I can.
They want to promote their own greedy ends at the expense of everyone else in the world who wants to use digital media. Fuck them.
Only the truly stupid piss off everyone who might potentially pay them any money.
Of course, they're all liars and thieves, they'll simply bribe politicians to enact a media tax, payable by everyone, to compensate them for the piracy they claim is robbing them of their profits.
The rich always win, until the poor have had enough and shoot them. Pushing too far is *never* smart.
Breakthrough Media ID To Save Copyrights On-Line (Score:1)
The media ID will apply to new discs with the unique media ID factory programmed, announced company officials, which combined with media access software requiring the IDs will create new market opportunities for the media. Officials also commented while the MO discs with a media ID will read with legacy MO drives, new Media ID-compatible MO disk drives will be required to enable content playback with Media-ID aware client agent software, creating additional market opportunities for the new Media-ID aware drives that will be required for content playback.
The companies participating in the Media ID initiative plan to make the function compatible with the copyright protection function that Microsoft Corporation will add to its forthcoming Windows Millennium Edition. By bundling media access control with protected industry leading proprietary software from Microsoft, the participating companies, copyright protection will be enhanced by control of the platform and software that access the Media-ID.
Saving information to a removable MO disk with the Media ID function not only protects copyrighted content distributed over the Internet but also makes it possible to save an unlimited amount of information by simply adding more MO disks. Because Media-ID discs will be required, MO discs which have enjoyed an average annual growth rate of 140% on the number of units sold, are expected to become be in even greater demand, thereby promoting the further acceptance of MO technology.
Saving information to a removable MO disk with the Media ID function not only protects copyrighted content distributed over the Internet but also makes it possible to save an unlimited amount of information by simply adding more MO disks, as well as easily carry information and store it safely and conveniently, even when replacing computers. Indeed, because protected copyrighted digital content will be protected by the unique Media-ID, the MO manufacturers forcast an additional demand for the MO Media-ID enabled discs, as consumers carry and safely store their copyrighted digital content rather than copy it digitally over the internet. They further believe that the realization of an environment which protects intellectual property and the popularization of a new removable memory media used with it will lay the groundwork for various types of new content businesses.
Re:Hard Drive "tatoos" (Score:2)
(I am no longer affiliated with HP, thank God. Great high-end stuff, but their low end stuff is crap, and now with the M$ licensing garbage I can no longer recommend ANY HP desktop). I once had the misfortune of supporting the Pavilion
Tell you what. Don't believe? I assume you have a stock Pavilion. Use another HDD, and image your drive to the blank HDD. Then, take a third HDD, from a non-HP computer, and atttempt to boot from the recovery CD in the CD-ROM, selecting the "Full system restore" option. Odds are, it will say something like "This only works on an HP computer." (I say "odds are" because there are a few systems that did not have this "feature".)
Re:News Release! (Score:1)
Re:Hard Drive "tatoos" (Score:1)
Indeed...a customer of mine got a Compaq Presario notebook (one of the really skinny models; I don't remember the model # offhand) last Christmas. After sending it back to Compaq to replace the built-in modem (because the bastards @ CompUSA wouldn't take it back), he complained that it ran fairly slow for what was in it (a mid-speed PII). I said it was all the preloaded crap that Compaq put on it. I nuked the hard drive and did a clean install of Win98 with the necessary drivers (modem and display drivers were available from Lucent and ATI, but I had to go to Toshiba's website to get a driver for the ESS sound controller). It ran much faster after that.
Since then, he's also bought a couple of new machines...650-MHz Durons with 7200-rpm hard drives and no WinHardware (one with 128 megs of RAM, the other with 256). OEM Win98 SE CDs were provided with each machine. (I also burned restore CDs for each machine...Ghost is great for that. Pop the CD in and it's restored in less than five minutes.) The new machines have run like champs, and there's no proprietary crap in them like you'd get with a Compaq, Dell, etc.
_/_
/ v \
(IIGS( Scott Alfter (remove Voyager's hull # to send mail)
\_^_/
When will they learn? (Score:2)
I'm sorry that Fujitsu had to do this. Now I either have to stop supporting them (probably what I'll do), or deal with having to work around their silly artificial limitations on my usage of a device (like I did with the region coding). Hopefully they'll learn their lesson and end this madness. Either that, or I buy more Seagate drives
--
A defense of (Score:5)
I think you are missing the point that most people are upset about. The issue here isn't that it would prevent you from doing illegal/immoral things. The troubling fact is that someone else, some faceless, nameless division of some company somewhere is the one who would get to decide for YOU what would be moral usages of their device. And that kind of large corperation hasn't been especially renouned recenetly for acting in the best interest of the consumer. (or anyone else but themselves, really...) So you can see how it would make people edgy letting such an organization dictate what is ethical.
The other issue is that this is yet one more step in a fairly disturbing trend that has been going on recently in corperate thinking. As you has doubtlessly often heard quoted in DMCA discussions, originally when you bought a product, it was yours, you could do whatever you wanted to it, since as soon as you purchased it, it was entirely your proprety. However, corperations seem to want to change that, and retain quite a bit more control over their products, even after purchase, and dictate what you can and cannot do with them. For example region codes on DVDs. Region codes allow companies to make arbitrary decisions about what you can do with DVDs you legally purchased, and enforce them. (For example, you can't play them in a country different from the one you bought it in. There is no law to this effect, but Sony effectivly enforces one anyway with their region coding. And there is no apeal to this kind of law.
And lets not forget the ever popular problem of pattern matching errors. Such as the problems that have plagued nearly all "net nanny" software packages since the dawn of time. (or at least "net nannies") While deciding what is "moral and legal use" of a product is ticklish enough, programming the product to recognize the difference and act on this information is even trickier. And judging from the actions of Hasbro & Co, most companies don't seem to even care much if they make mistakes that inconvienence users, as long as they keep the majority of people happy and/or oblivious to the problem. (*cough*hasbro*cough*)
This is what makes people edgy about this kind of thing: This product would give someone else (who's trustworthyness is questionable) the ability to create "laws" governing the useage of their product, with no real apeal. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but that's a little more trust than I'm willing to give them. And judging from the general tone of most of the responses to this artical, I think I'm not the only one.
Sorry if I'm ranting, it's been a weird week.
Re:the fabled CD-WOM. (Score:2)
Re:Won't work always (Score:1)
Re:Hard Drive "tatoos" - Even MORE off-topic! (Score:1)
I have heard horror stories of Pavilions coming out of the box, brand spanking new, with 63% resources free because so much crap is loading at startup.
Simply put, the marketing weenies do their research, and ask people, "Do you want free this, this and that on your PC, would it make it more likely that you will buy it?"
Joe consumer says, "duh! yes!"
HP goes to Big Software Company and says, "Please give us a "lite" version of your latest bloat to put on your system to get your name out there & encourage people to upgrade!"
Big Software Company says (most but not all of the time), "Sure, but only if you make it load at start up so people see it!"
HP, of course, pauses about 1 millisecond and says, "OK! Where do we sign?"
The same goes for Dell, Gateway, etc. Lately, some of them seem to be better. Dell, Gateway & HP I *THINK* allow you to have some input. BTW, an HP tech just told me that now the tatoo is ONLY on the motherboard, the HDD tatoo is no longer used on the currently shipping systems.
Re:This is good (Score:1)
And who says it's me using the computer or the attached hardware? Ever heard of multiple user accounts or People Using Your Machine Temporarily? =)
Besides, why bother using something as hopelessly arcane and hardware-architecture-dependent for identification when we already have prefectly good and widely supported authentication schemes that do not depend on something as bogus as those two methods mentioned? =)
Re:Forged disks (Score:1)
Re:Won't work always (Score:1)
Right, but a large proportion of the 'Doze world barely knows how to start Microsoft Word w/out clicking on a Word document directly, let alone fire up a debugger. Cheats and cracks help out the tech-saavy users, but the bulk of the $$ come from people who know just enough to be dangerous.
I've cracked a few copy-protection schemes myself. But still, I'm usually the one in my family which sets up the computers and stuff for everyone else, while most everyone else in the family knows a a handful of cookbook operations, such as how to click on "Connect to the Internet".
--Joe--
Fujitsu says "Irony" (Score:1)
Imagine the disappointment when they buy that bigger, faster hard drive and then find out that none of their files will play because they weren't created on that drive. Which brings up an interesting scenario: What happens if you create all your content on one drive but then move it to another?
Re:To register Win 2002, may I have your HD ID sir (Score:1)
Yes they could do that, but if they "inconvenience" the customer too much, I would imagine there would be a huge outcry.
While M$ would certainly love to go to that model, other software (for the most apart except high-end stuff like 3D Studio Max) DOESN'T require a person phone in to be able to install software they bought* off the shelf. If Microsoft started doing that, people would just start "flocking" to the competition.
[* Yes I know you don't buy software. You just purchase the license to it. ]
This will never catch on (I hope) (Score:2)
As I see it, Fujitsu is the only manufacturer currently going this route. Just boycott Fujitsu. Problem: solved.
In Japan, the Media is the Market (Score:3)
In Japan, we've heard it said here before, the media is the prime mover in the market. If you buy a music CD, some clerks ask, "Would you like a Sony MiniDisc or two with that?"
Re:And there comes special drivers... (Score:1)
Oh what fun we had changing the codes to things like 'EFFF-0FFF'.
thenerd.
And there comes special drivers... (Score:3)
I think this move is more meant to look like they're doing something to prevent copyright violations. And if the MPAA believed there CSS was secure, they'll probably believe the hard disk ID will be too!
erm (Score:2)
This is NOT about identifying you.
This is NOT about mp3's or anything you are going to put on the equivilant of a floppy.
This is NOT about hard drives at ALL!
I wonder how many people actually read the article that was linked, and how many people just read the summary? Apparently not many...
Hard Drive "tatoos" (Score:5)
An HP Pavilion HDD has a "tatoo" in a section of the hard drive that can only be reached by debug scripts and the like. FDISK can't touch it. "Recovery" disks look for the HDD tatoo & and the BIOS tatoo and if they don't find it, they will not install. This means if you have one of these types of systems, you need to take your system to an OEM-approved "service center" and they will run the script to make your new hard drive able to function with the recovery disk should you buy a new hard drive.
Some OEM's (notably HP) used to foist this travesty on consumers in return for cheaper licensing for their protection payments to Microsoft for Windows. Now, this is REQUIRED by M$ on all new system.
The solution, of course, is refusing to by OEM systems that have "recovery disks". Use Linux, BSD, ANYTHING, or if you MUST use Windows, by from a smaller OEM which will still give you a genuine Windows OEM CD - the big boys are now PROHIBITED by M$ from distributing Windows CD's, they can only distribute "image" CD's.
I'm sure there's disgruntled techs out there somewhere who have the debug routines to duplicate the tatoos, or a good assembly language hacker can do it. Of course, who wants all the crap the major OEM's load up anyways?
Yawn. (Score:2)
If anything the use of large media is in decline, with the advent of online drive websites, faster internet access and even home LANs becoming more common. I burn CDs to share photos. For backing up data I slot in another hard drive, or copy it over the net to somewhere else.
This probably doesn't pose a big threat to our freedom to copy anything at all, just a threat to the appeal of these MO drives.
Re:BIOS types (Score:1)
Re:To register Win 2002, may I have your HD ID sir (Score:1)
There is one falacy to this. There is a dos program that will allow you to change the Volume ID on your HD (Works great for stupid companies that have their serial # based on your HD Vol ID! can you say Aldon!). So if this situation came up, just have a pre-created boot disk with this dos program on it and change the Volume ID on your HD to the One you previously had (make sure you make note of it when you install the first time!) and Whola! you don't have to call M$ ever again! The program is called VolumeID [sysinternals.com] You can get it by clicking on the "VolumeID" Link Provided!
There is ALWAYS a way around companies blatenly being stupid!
Remember: "There is no such thing as a stupid question, Just a stupid person!"
Re:Forged disks (Score:1)
Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity or negligence.
I wonder how many of our good congress-people actually read all of the DMCA?and what happened to Intel when they tried it? (Score:1)
The potential for abuse is too overwhelming. I dont care if you are the RIAA, the MPAA, or the freaking president of the USA. It isn't going to happen.
Re:The Right to Read (Score:2)
isn't part of the new MS distribution scheme? (Score:2)
This way, you send in your bad hard drive to get an exchange or repair.
Obviously, for this to work, HDs have to have some type of individual id, to prevent DD 'duping.
Re:Forged disks (Score:2)
I think you're making too much of this.
Re:Won't work always (Score:1)
I don't think you get it. The ID isn't to prevent copying software from working. Rather, it's to prevent "aware" applications from running on media other than its original.
Here's an example. Suppose, for instance, I install SuperApp on my drive, and it records the fact that I installed it to a drive with ID# 123456 in some super-secret way. Now, you come along, copy it to your drive, with ID# 654321. SuperApp, because it's aware of the drive ID#, looks at the drive ID when you try to start up your copy. It sees 654321 != 123456 and refuses to start.
All that matters is that SuperApp (the application in this example) is aware of the ID. The copying software and other software doesn't need to know about it for the ID to be effective.
At any rate, I think this will fly as far as Pentium III ID#'s, or maybe even less far. "What do you mean I have to repurchase all my software because I upgraded to a larger drive?"
--Joe--
Re:Forged disks (Score:2)
ZipDrive and CD-R (Score:1)
The "Disappearing Information Paradox" (Score:4)
You can't give someone access to information without giving her the ability to manipulate that information in some way. (Aside from terminating the recepient, which would definitely affect your customer loyalty factor, not to mention squelching any repeat business.)
DVDs failed at this with CSS
Sony failed at this with the Minidisk "Do not copy" bit.
DIVX... well, 'nough said.
VHS Macrovision
The list goes on and on, from movies and music, to email and "read once and destroy" messages. If you present information to someone, they can recreate it. Period. Preventing that is not within the realm of current technology, no matter what type of encryption/timestamping/client-side security you put on it. It will be reverse engineered and automated within hours.
As we say in the south- "You can't un-ring a bell!"
Re:And there comes special drivers... (Score:2)
Re:And there comes special drivers... (Score:1)
Re:When will they learn? (Score:2)
It's a Kobayashi Maru situation. You can't win. But this way, I know my money is not going to the bigger, less obvious criminals. If I don't support them, then I'm at least doing more than 99% of the people.
--
Re:History Repeats... (Score:1)
Re:When will they learn? (Score:1)
Re:Forged disks (Score:4)
To see if the DMCA is simply an act of stupidity we need to think about the people who created the DMCA in the first place. If these are generally stupid people we are safe in assuming that the act was the result of stupidity and we may safely discount it as not being malicious. If however, the people who created the act are not generally stupid we need to show how otherwise intelligent people were confused into creating something out of momentary stupidity in orger to judge the DMCA as non malicious.
By far the majority of people in the House of Representatives and the Senate in the US are lawyers. The vast majority of lawyers follow the conventional path of graduating from college with superior scholastic records, then going into a post graduate law program which awards them with a 'Doctor of Laws' (Juris Doctor) degree; which is the equivalent of a Ph.D. in a technical subject. After obtaining this degree the average lawmaker then passed a difficult bar exam to become an attorney. After successfully becoming a lawyer these people engaged in significant networking to build up their political prospects.
Most people who enter the political profession emerge as significantly wealthier when they leave the profession than when they enter into it.
The argument that the DMCA was created by people who are generally stupid appears to lack plausibility. Now let us examine the idea that the act was created by normally intelligent people who were acting in an aberrant stupid fashion.
Reading the DMCA fails to give evidence of misspelling, poor grammatical structure, ill thought out sentence constructs, or other evidence of stupidity which might be brought on by the heavy use of intoxicating drugs or spirits or wide spread occurrences of stroke or other neurological damage. When tested against the standards of writing in other laws passed by these same legislators there does not appear to be any obvious fall off in the quality of expression in the DMCA.
In short, the evidence that the DMCA is the result of temporary stupidity on the part of otherwise intelligent people is very poor. Perhaps the claim could be made that the authors of the DMCA did not understand the consequences of their actions in writing this law and were thus being stupid. However, that argument fails upon further thought. The consequences of the DMCA appear to be carefully designed - the law appears to accomplish exactly what the authors meant it to achieve.
Here is an example of a stupidly constructed law for comparison. "Anyone who picks his nose in public shall be guilty of an offense. Persons who violate this law will be punished by being forced to have sex with an attractive person of the offenders' choosing."
The conclusion is that the DMCA is not the result of stupidity, and that Hanlon's razor is not applicable to it. We therefore MAY conclude that the DMCA is the result of malice; it is deliberate, it is intentional, and it is no accident that it is written the way that it is.
Re:And there comes special drivers... (Score:1)
I think Zipdisks have serial numbers, but I'm not sure about this and I'm not sure if there are any SCSI utilities which would let you get low-level enough to erase/change it.
Re:Breakthrough Media ID To Save Copyrights On-Lin (Score:1)
This is good (Score:1)
Re:This is good (Score:1)
I'm not saying that personally tailored content would be bad, but don't you think if I wanted such a beast, I would be willing to be assigned an ID by eCommerce organization X and willingly use it in my software to let them track me?
Why is freedom of choice such a bad thing?
Re:And there comes special drivers... (Score:1)
The volume serial # that you see with "dir" is part of the file system (set by the format command), not from the drive.
Don't believe me? Format c: and the number will change.
---
Re:Forged disks (Score:2)
It would be a 'circumvention of digital copy protection methods' to disable or circumvent such an API.
Under the DMCA an act as innocent as formatting a floppy - which results in a change in its serial number could be a serious felony. One of the side effects of this is that older copies of all operating systems which fail to have a copy protection API - or which allow the reformatting of floppies could become illegal. Of course - we all know that Microsoft would simply hate the idea that everyone had to scrap any operating system older than Windows 2001.
Re:Won't work always (Score:1)
It may be a play to gain more of the acceptance that the MO disks have found so hard to receive. "Please the RIAA and the consumer will follow", or some such.
nothing new? (Score:1)
cat
Hdd's already have an serial number since, uh, foreaver?
Re:To register Win 2002, may I have your HD ID sir (Score:1)
I believe, that is you have a mirror of the drive, that you would have *many* of the installed images. Mirroring does not just imply one copy, as triple mirroring is common as a means of providing backups of 7 x 24 sites.
So generate these, then store the drivs away for upgrade time - or not. I can't think of a bigger waste of resouces than this.
mod this down.
Re:The applications have to cooperate (Score:1)
eudas
Copyright protection function (Score:2)
Unless Fujitsu magneto-optical disks get a lot cheaper, nobody is going to use them as a distribution medium for content. CD-ROMs cost about $0.50 in volume. So what's the point? We're missing something here.
Simple technology always wins over encumbered (Score:1)
Which would be more frightening: We live in a society where a few pirates steal some media for entertainment purposes, while most people still purchase it; or a society where large corporations control how everybody gets their media, how they play it, and what hardware they play it on?
I'm all about fair. You give me crap, I'll do whatever I want with it without giving you anything but the middle finger. You give me quality, and I'll reward you. I AM IN CONTROL.
--
Re:Forged disks (Score:1)
I really can't believe that people aren't raising a bigger stink about these IP law "enhancements". Where will this end? We already have far too much IP laws that apply to computers, including both patent and copyright protection, something no other industry has available to it, and yet these companies are still crying out, "more! more!". It's gotten to the point where I'd be hesitant to try and implement almost anything similar to a commercial vendor. MS has already claimed they have the .ASF format patented (how??), and even something as simple as XOR animation is patented, and possibly subject to high "licensing fees".
I firmly believe the copyright and patent systems worldwide need reform, not strengthening. Both copyright and patent protection terms should be subject to various factors, such as time-to-market, the level of invention in that field at the time. A field that innovation is happening naturally and quickly obviously needs less protection and government granted monopolies than a slow moving stagnant market. 21 year long patents and 90 year long copyrights are absolutely absurd in the software industry, where if you're 2 years late to market, your target market may have completely changed.
Why is it that in an era that big business is booming that they need more "intelectual property" protection?
simple... (Score:1)
simple.
-ravage
Re:To register Win 2002, may I have your HD ID sir (Score:1)
Re:And there comes special drivers... (Score:2)
I'm not sure if I can get them in Linux...
A good way to sell? no. (Score:2)
Re:A defense of (Score:2)
And a way to hamstring me, as a consumer, in regard to backups, recovery, or whether I install this on a server. I wonder what it has to say about Raid... Thanks, Fujitsu, but no thanks
he troubling fact is that someone else, some faceless, nameless division of some company somewhere is the one who would get to decide for YOU what would be moral usages of their device. And that kind of large corperation[sic] hasn't been especially renouned[sic] recenetly[sic] for acting in the best interest of the consumer. (or anyone else but themselves, really...) So you can see how it would make people edgy letting such an organization dictate what is ethical
What? You mean corporate america isn't writing legislation? Say... you type a lot like Dubya speaks, who are you?
I'm all for people being able to protect what's theirs. If they want to make a profit selling their work, fine. I don't work for charity so my code (at work) belongs to my employer. When the seller gets to the point of making a consumber good difficult to use (beyond an incomprehensible interface or stupidly written manual) I simply steer clear, and much to their chagrin, tell everyone how much it sucks. Bad PR spreads fast, especially on the internet, ask Intel
Vote [dragonswest.com] Naked 2000
Re:If it makes them happy... (Score:2)
Much as I'd love to have the MPAA and RIAA Go Away, it would be nice if they could be convinced this was secure.
The problem is, if you see that your MO disk is about ti fail, and wisely copy it's contents to another disk knowing that the stupid serial# thing won't affect you (because of your hacked dirver), you commit a felony in the U.S. every time you access the songs you PAID FOR!
Personally, I'd rather NEVER listen to a disc from an RIAA label again (even if it means nothing but off key gar(b)age bands) than deal with media that is ACTIVELY hostile to me.
At this point, I'll buy a DVD IFF I can flash new firmware that does not refuse to do what I tell it to when I want to read a 'secured' sector on the disk. One of the reasons I dumped Pascal for C and Windows for Linux was that the former would refuse to perform simple tasks I told them to (for my own good) and the latter never do that.
History Repeats... (Score:2)
The difference here is that hard drives do tend to last longer than floppy disks. On the other hand, they're also awfully inexpensive now -- can't someone who wants to copy just sell stuff on preinstalled hard drives?
Oh, and as for the other comments about Microsoft requiring this...I did say that programs failed in various ways... :-)
News Release! (Score:3)
[Merrimack, New Hampshire] 14 Sept 2000 -- Linux user friartux, never impressed by Fujitsu storage products, has announced a personal resolution to avoid buying any Fujitsu media.
"This shouldn't be difficult," he said. "Compared to Maxtor and IBM hard drives, in my opinion, Fujitsu sucks anyway. Their capacities are low, and their buffers small in comparison. And who uses MO drives these days, anyway?"
Backup media such as CD-R have become more popular than MO in recent times, and DVD-style storage promises more than either.
Friartux looks forward to the first DVD-writable solution certified compatible with Linux -- without any corrupt tracking schemes, and with large buffers and good speeds.
Re:Won't work always (Score:3)
Now, if they required online registration as part of install (before activation) and if this linked your CD-key to your hard drive identifier... then we'd be in buissiness.
Actually though, the hard drive is a pretty lousy place for this. Would be comparativly easy to patch the OS to change it (see the standard work-around for software region checking of DVDs).
CPU would be harder to patch universally.
Fortunatly though, Intel got burnt trying to add unique chip ids for privacy reasons. No software vendor will require ID'd processors untill they are ubiquitious (can't risk loosing market share). No hardware vendor wants the privacy loss uproar.
Be interesting to see how long this 'hard drive id' idea lasts.
The applications have to cooperate (Score:2)
The applications have to make use of this technology. If they don't, the Media ID doesn't mean a damn thing.
(Tangent mode for a moment here...)
It seems that there are enough incredibly talented people out there, and they're willing and able to write software capable of doing things like this. As long as the media is designed to be used in conjunction with computers, people are going to find ways to use it that the authors did not intend... and probably aren't going to like. LaserDiscs have phenomenal data volume, but when was the last time you saw a LaserDisc drive for your computer?
Remember how long Macrovision lasted when it first came out on Back to the Future? (At least, that was the first movie I saw it used on...) It was just a matter of months before Macrovision filter boxes showed up -- end of problem! We had control of our movies back!
This Media ID thing really isn't going to cause any problems, I think. People are going to attack the "don't copy me" bit instead of the Media ID. People are going to use different software that ignores the ID #. I think this will be about as effective as region codes. Heck, I can even think of interesting uses for it, like as a holder for encryption keys. Imagine this:
On the down side, you could lose it just like your keys.
Re:And there comes special drivers... (Score:2)
But I dont know if they can be changed.
They could be. The serial number of a floppy is stored (if memory serves) in the boot sector (#1). So, not only could it be changed, but a simple diskette copy would also duplicate the original disk's serial number.
I'm not so sure about serial numbers on CD's, but I suspect the same to be true. After all, game companies have had to turn to defective copy protection schemes like Safedisc to protect games, which relies on trying to place ID information outside the area a standard CD can be read.
Reminds me of something I saw years ago. (Score:3)
The drives were normal full-height SCSI drives, but had some form of 'signature' written somewhere. Using normal drives of the same model just wouldn't work, as filesystems could not be made on the partitions. Of course the charge for these drives was around 3 times the normal cost.
I eventually discovered how to sign any drive, using the in-built diagnostics program and an undocumented password. I never had the chance to dump the contents of the disk via dd to determine what the signature was, or where it was written.
Re:Hard Drive "tatoos" (Score:2)
A lot of OEMs will include a bunch of random software they developed to "help" the operating system. Things like a resolution changer in the system tray, or awnsering machine software that starts on bootup.
If it makes them happy... (Score:2)
If it's not widespread, I won't buy the media.
If it is widespread, someone will write the drivers.
No circumventing here (Score:2)