Posted on 11/11/2005 11:48:53 AM PST by ShadowAce
Sony BMG's controversial DRM code controversy may have now spread to Macs.
According to long-running Mac user website MacInTouch, at least one CD distributed by the major label includes a Mac OS X application that purportedly installs a pair of extensions to the operating system's microkernel.
MacInTouch correspondent Darren Dittrich claims a recently purchased copy of Imogen Heap's Speak for Yourself CD contains an extra disc partition for "enhanced content". Within it sits Start.app, a Mac application that sits alongside the usual Windows files. The CD ships on the RCA label, part of of Sony BMG.
Darren reports that running Start.app presents the user with a licence agreement. Pressing the Continue button pops up a dialogue asking for an administrator's username and password - a warning that something is about to be installed somewhere - to allow the program to copy over two kernel extensions: PhoenixNub1.kext and PhoenixNub12.kext.
The licence agreement states that proceeding will install software on the host machine.
It is not believed that the two extensions incorporate the rootkit that is causing such controversy becuase of its effect on Windows machines. It's a Mac version of SunnComm's DRM software, MediaMax, which Sony BMG uses to copy-protect a range of CDs. ®
Yeah - trying to protect their "double-dipping" revenue stream.
Precident has established that consumers have the right to personal copies (as in changing format to .mp3 for playback on computer/iPod/etc.). In fact, it is perfectly legal for me to rip tunes from several CDs I have legally purchased, and burn them to a compilation CD for playback in my automobile (assuming that the original CDs are not in use at the same time). For that matter - technically, I could burn a complete copy of a legal CD for use in my auto.
Sony and most others in the music industry would like to charge us a fee for every time we listen to the music we purchase. I'm suprised they haven't taken the path of the failed DIVX scam that made self-destructing DVD disks that could play for a set period of time before becoming unplayable.
Imogen Heap?
Your examples don't relate because they affect only the products they are used for. Sony can put a file-protect feature on its CDs; that's their own right... but their program puts itself onto your computer, where it makes the computer vulnerable to viruses.
And it's not like the black boxes you mention aren't without controversy! Because GM does something Orwellian, that means that we have to approve of every Orwellian thing everyone does?
>>A California law that went into effect in July 2004 requires manufacturers to provide customers with information on black boxes in cars and states that the data cannot be obtained without a court order or the owner's permission. <<
--CNET news.com
As far as LEOs... they're a part of how such cell phone works. That comparison is just plain stupid. Complaining about how they affect your privacy is like the Texas Chain Saw Massacre guy complaining that his chain saw makes noise.
>Ain't it a bitch when someone fights against thieves?
From what I've seen, this looks a lot more like someone (Sony/BMG) is fighting Apple, at least as much as thieves, perhaps more so. The point of the software Sony has added to their CDs over the past couple of years has been to prevent people from transferring MP3s to iPods, which makes sense since Sony wants people to purchase Sony's MP3 players instead. Oh, yeah, to prevent copying too. But there's something a bit odd about the list of titles the XCP spyware comes on. Reissues by Gerry Mulligan, Horace Silver, Dexter Gordon...
As a generalization, it's my experience that people who purchase items like these are not the army of rippers & copiers who upload to file-sharing services...but that's me. And it's enough to suggest, strongly, that what Sony is doing has a great deal to do with trying to force Apple to adjust their price points on ITunes, which Apple has resisted. The merger with BMG has created interdepartmental difficulties of all kinds, I've read, and it looks like they gave too much leeway to a company that went too far on Sony's behalf...in the effort to 'fight thieves.'
I for one don't buy the premise that Sony or anyone else is entitled to go to such lengths to protect their intellectual property. It just doesn't make sense to treat paying customers who are actually purchasing your products this way.
that software violates the DMCA - its illegal to write software that removes DRM protections. the RIAA and SONY will sue them. total insanity, I am glad I no longer buy CDs.
not if you type your admin password into the program when prompted.
The wife bought a legitimate copy and it fouled her pc for over an hour and a half. I checked out the files on the cd, disassembled the exe and some of the other dat files as well as the XML files. The crap is little different from the malware files and signatures that I've looked at.
This is little different from the disk headbangers that they put into software back in the 80s/early 90s. Buy a piece of software and then have it screw up your drive. They need to be prosecuted the same as any other hacker or malware producer.
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That says it all, right there.
If we took the bones out it wouldn't be crunchy!
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