Blogger DMCA takedown notification

Blogger has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that certain content in your blog infringes upon the copyrights of others. The URL(s) of the allegedly infringing post(s) may be found at the end of this message.

The notice that we received from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and the record companies it represents, with any personally identifying information removed, will be posted online by a service called Chilling Effects at http://www.chillingeffects.org. We do this in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Please note that it may take Chilling Effects up to several weeks to post the notice online at the link provided.

The IFPI is a trade association that represents over 1,400 major and independent record companies in the US and internationally who create, manufacture and distribute sound recordings (the "IFPI Represented Companies").

The DMCA is a United States copyright law that provides guidelines for online service provider liability in case of copyright infringement. We are in the process of removing from our servers the links that allegedly infringe upon the copyrights of others. If we did not do so, we would be subject to a claim of copyright infringement, regardless of its merits. See http://www.educause.edu/Browse/645?PARENT_ID=254 for more information about the DMCA, and see http://www.google.com/dmca.html for the process that Blogger requires in order to make a DMCA complaint.

Blogger can reinstate these posts upon receipt of a counter notification pursuant to sections 512(g)(2) and 3) of the DMCA. For more information about the requirements of a counter notification and a link to a sample counter notification, see http://www.google.com/dmca.html#counter.

Please note that repeated violations to our Terms of Service may result in further remedial action taken against your Blogger account. If you have legal questions about this notification, you should retain your own legal counsel. If you have any other questions about this notification, please let us know.

Sincerely,

The Blogger Team

Affected URLs:

http://tlundmark.blogspot.com/2009/06/nasa-volta.html

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"A VOLTA" from NASA Project: Narco-Cholo Game Ultraviolence
Good thing that the video is only like 5 years old
Oh no, they figured out I'm a pirate!

Sony Rootkits part deux

Not only are their software ineptly programmed, but some of it isn't even programmed by them. Recent discoveries shows parts from the Lame MP3 Encoder in their code, a open source software that is licensed under the LGPL (Gnu Public License). This means that for Sony to be able to use their code, they must explicitly state the use of it, and they must also distribute their source code along with the product (the DRM software on their copy protected cds).

As you may know, Sony haven't complied to any of this and they may now be in even deeper shit about this whole DRM affair. This is the string from the library version.c of Lame that was found on Sonys rootkit CDs;
"http://www.mp3dev.org/", "0.90", "LAME3.95", "3.95", "3.95 ".

Sony have already stopped the shipping of the controversial CDs, but they stated that they wouldn't pull any of their CDs that was already shipped, now they changed themself and are pulling every CD from the shelves. Their rootkits have already spread across the globe, infecting over half a million of networks.

The Washington Post has posted the news about serious security flaws in Sonys rootkits, allowing any web page that the user subsequently visits, to download, install and run any code it likes. Microsoft has also officialy stated that the rootkit CDs are a security risk and added a detect and removal signature to their Windows AntiSpyware.

Spyware Sony seems to breach copyright
Sony to pull controversial CDs
Welcome to planet Sony
Anti-malware engineers at Microsoft, Sony DRM

Sony Rootkits

Since april this year, Sony have been selling "Content Protected" CDs. If you would wish to listen to any of them on your PC, you must install the Sony Media Player software that's included on the CD. Hidden with the media player is a rootkit and a DRM service. The rootkit is used to conceal a running process (the DRM service) from first 4 internet, a company that mainly focuses on products developed for digital asset management and copy protection.

First 4 Internet rootkit is programmed to hide any software with the prefix "$sys$" from your task list and process list, making it invisible for Windows. The software isn't mentioned clearly in the EULA that comes with the installer for the media player, and there is no easy way to uninstall it from your system. Not only is it lacking a Add/Remove Programs shortcut, but it's even programmed run in Windows Safe Mode. The uninstall process is as complex as when you try to remove a virus, and even if you do it right, it could crash your system and/or remove your cd/dvd-drives from your system.

Because of the inept design of the rootkit, it conceals everything that use the prefix "$sys$", that includes spyware, malware, viruses and hacks. It's already being exploited by World of Warcraft cheaters out there, preventing the Blizzard process checker from noticing the hacks that they use.

The media player is programmed using Macromedia Director, which in my humble opinion only should be used to produce concept designs of programs to show for your executives. Why not program it in far more optimzed C++ code instead?

Each time you run the player, it sends information about which album you have along with your IP address and looks up if there are any new banners for the album. So they can actually record each time a album is played and the IP adress of the computer playing it.

Even though you've closed the media player, the rootkit service is still consuming 1-2% of CPU usage. What it does is to every two seconds, querying basic information about the files, including their size, eight times every scan! Another proof of the programmers ineptness.

The "copy-protection" is now being considered as spyware by most anti virus programs. Sony is facing lawsuits in California and Italy, and another one is coming up from New York for the usage of rootkits.

If you want to listen to these CDs on your computer anyway, I recommend that you download Exact Audio Copy (download link below) and rip the music.

Exact Audio Copy v0.95 beta 3 (zip)

Sony EULA agreement
Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far
BBC - Sony sued over copy-protected CD
eTrust Spyware Encyclopedia - Sony Rootkit
World of Warcraft hackers using Sony BGM rootkit
Wikipedia, the free encyklopedia - Rootkit

Update: Aftonbladet - Vanliga cd-skivor kan förstöra din dator
Update 2: Sony-BMG's EULA, nine points of interest

World of Warcraft is watching you

Since a couple of patches ago, Blizzard implemented a anti-cheat check to their World of Warcraft client, and it works by checking if you are running any third party programs that are considered as cheats or hacks that gives you a advantage in the game over the other players. The way it checks if your using such a program is by every 15 seconds taking a snapshot of every titlebar that's running in the background, this includes the titles of what you currently are browsing, which movie you currently are watching, which text documents you are reading and so on. This is breaking the privacy rules for many countries in the world if the user hasn't agreed upon to let the client to check every 15 seconds. Considering World of Warcraft is the most popular mmorpg out there right now, with well over a couple of million of users world wide that is affected by this, and if this is in fact considered illegal, they could be in very severe trouble.

4.5 million copies of EULA-compliant spyware