content protection gone too far

less than an hour after i posted this, then this came up: Sony got sued for their rootkit-DRM.
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i've always been of the opinion that if i buy a CD, i would at least have total freedom on what i can do with the CD. of course, that does not involve actually pirating the stuff on it and distributing it. what i really expect to do, is to actually be able to make a copy so that i wouldn't have to damage the original while in use, maybe rip the music to my mp3 player, or just simply use my own CHOICE of audio player to play the CD on my PC.

seems like we're not allowed to do all that if you buy a copy protected CD from Sony:
Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far
Mark's Sysinternals Blog

i've my own experience with audio CDs like this. you insert your perfectly legal, original CD into you PC CDROM drive, and it autorun and launches it's own proprietary player that's basically inadequate, poorly programmed and hogs your system resources, to play the songs from the CD. what you get is some cheesy-colored interface, tons of system resources occupied, and inferior sound quality.
if you tried to launch your favourite player (winamp, for instance), it won't play. if you had more than one of such CDs, opening them up one by one will actually create more CDROM drives for you. at least, that's what Windows Explorer shows.

i'm pretty OK with ppl protecting their intellectual property, but when they install things into my PC without letting me know about it, and by the things they installed, governs how i SHOULD enjoy what i BOUGHT with MY money, they're going a little too far. and now, Sony is actually creating security risks by using a rootkit to do what should be done by much better written code, that's just plain stupid.

Sony still keeps arguing that the rootkit-DRM doesn't introduce any security risks here. well, less than a day after the issue was brought up by sysinternals, WoW players already found a way to use it to cheat. it wouldn't belong before someone actually think of some malicious way to use Sony's rootkit-DRM.

More from Sony:
"6. I have heard that the protection software is really malware/spyware. Could this be true?

Of course not. The protection software simply acts to prevent unlimited copying and ripping from discs featuring this protection solution. It is otherwise inactive. The software does not collect any personal information nor is it designed to be intrusive to your computer system. Also, the protection components are never installed without the consumer first accepting the End User License Agreement.

If at some point you wish to remove the software from your machine simply contact customer service through this link. You will, though, be unable to use the disc on your computer once you uninstall the components.

Our technology vendors are constantly looking to improve the product as well as respond to any critical software issues found. Please check here for upgrades to address any known issues."

contacting Sony to remove the rootkit requires the user to fill out a form, using IE and install an ActiveX program. after that form, they'll send you an email telling you there's an upgrade for the DRM software, but if you still wanna proceed to uninstall it, then you'll have to follow another link and fill in another form.

they're still more or less unwilling to provide help for users to uninstall the rootkit, and somehow, by some incomprehensible logic, they actually think that we will still trust them enough after the whole rootkit fiasco to actually run IE and install ActiveX from their site. :)

i think the worse thing here is that if you DO remove the rootkit, you won't be able to listen to the CD on your PC again. basically, you're screwed.

good news is, the CD protection is so badly written, all you need to do is press the shift key while inserting the CD to stop it from autorunning, don't double-click on the CD, or maybe use a Mac or Linux box.

Sony just pissed people off without managing to properly protect their CDs.

good deals

spent some time at the pc fair in PISA in the evening. got myself a pretty good deal with the sony T33 digital camera. it's an old model n all, but RM1400 for the camera plus a 512MB memory stick pro duo is still a pretty good deal.

already tested out some of the features of the camera. i'm still pretty impressed with it. i'm kinda thinking now that i probably should've bought an extra 512MB memory stick as 7 minute video in high quality already used up about 140MB. if i were to bring this when i travel, it's definitely not gonna be enough since i don't have anything to temporarily transfer the file.

there are still some other stuff to check out on the camera. granted, it's one of those point n shoot dummies, but there's still quite a lot of stuff to play with. maybe if i took photography a lil more seriously, i'd fork out more to buy a proper digital slr.

also bought myself a cheap external hdd case n a usb2.0 wireless G adaptor. everything tested out just fine. i was hoping to get myself a printer, but instead of prices dropping on the last day, printer prices actually shot up.

the other 2 things that were going pretty cheap were the taiwanese/chinese made mp3 players n thumbdrives of every kind. well, i didn't get any of the mp3 players. let's hope my bro comes thru by getting my that i-pod shuffle he promised.

i was also hoping to get a good monitor, but every one of those in the fair were about market price. didn't really think it's worth it to get them at that price. might as well wait a bit more for the company's employee sales. :)

everything else were disappointingly around market price.

geeky shit

my new mousepads are great. bought 2 since i couldn't decide on which one to buy. one's made with glass, quite heavy but very good surface, the other is the one with the pic a few posts back. the lights are not as bright as i thought, but it's still cool when it's dark. now, i've got more blue leds glowing in my room when i sleep. gee.

god of war is a very very good game and it deserves all the good reviews that it got.
it's been a long time since there was any action/adventure game with such a good blend of gameplay and storyline. actually, the story is fucking awesome. very good adaptation of greek mythology in a game, plus the level of realism in the fmvs are stunning, not to mention that the game actually manage to blend gaming with cutscenes perfectly, without much noticeable load time in between.

the background music, ambient sounds and voice-acting are all top-of-the-line too. especially the background music, really adds a really good feel to the overall enjoyment of the game.0

the moves and magic are cool. especially the normal fighting moves, really makes it feel like a toned down version of some street fighting game, with lots of combos where the limit is the player's creativity.

i actually, finished the game twice in 4 days, back to back, cos i got so addicted to it. one thing i really regret is that i bought the normal *ahem* version of the dvd. it seems like all the goodies and hidden movies that can be unlocked are not available to this version. i'd love to get all that, but the non-*ahem* version costs over RM200 plus it's out of stock here in malaysia.

seriously tho, i bought the ps2 with RM800. i don't see the justification of buying a game for over a quarter of that price. games are extremely over-priced. i would've bought it if it were like, hhmmm, RM50 or less.

random rants

working out a list of what software, tools, drivers etc that i'd need, so i can make a backup of everything on a dvd, instead of having them lying all around in 2 different hard disks. n then i realized that i really install a lot of stuff into my pc. which is probably why i seem to be always running out of disk space.

i kinda need to clean up my pc a bit. reinstall n stuff, since it's been in the same state for over a yr now, n the performance is dropping like mad. first up, get all the stuff i need collected n documented, then start the ugly part.
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i think i'm gonna get myself one of these:


someone's selling it pretty cheap online. looks like a pretty good mouse surface. 4x USB1.1 ports, USB2.0 uplink to pc. n it's got lights. :) just in time, since my old fellowes mousepad for 6 yrs is pretty much worn out already.
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god of war has been getting rave reviews from quite a few different sources, n ranks much higher than GT4. maybe it's time i consider buying the game. not getting anywhere with initial d. keeps losing on uphill battles. tekken 5 is still doing good. would really love a full fledge rpg for a change tho. it's been some time since NWN.
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last friday was a pretty good karaoke event. all of us screamed our hearts out, especially when the oldies n classics came up. we're not all that old, but somehow most of us knows more old songs than new ones.

tried to sneak some fries in cos i didn't finish my snack in McD before going in n got caught. the girl actually went real nice n said "we'll keep it for u. pls come get it back when u leave." i never went for the fries.
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went n got myself pissed drunk last sunday after a corp dinner. a bunch of us just wouldn't hear of going home so early, even tho we had to work the next morning. well, they had to. i'm on noon shift. :P so, a mug of beer actually turned into 2 bottles of brandy, which was gone in less than 2 hrs.

at least i still managed to get back, go up the elevator to my place n undress before i crashed n fell asleep. fell asleep, not passed out.

brain in bytes

i was pondering how convenient it would be to have a MMC card slot somewhere behind my ear, which connects directly to my brain, so that i can store/retrieve/share data or memories with people. u know, a la johnny mnemonic, or maybe a live jack like neo's. :)

n then it occured to me that if this was to work, then it'll mean that we have already devised a way to categorize each cell in the brain, and calculate how much storage they have. like, how many bytes each cell can store. or maybe, it's synapse's (the electrical pulse in ur brain) storage size, instead of each cell.

n then, there's the question of how fast the data can be transmitted, like ur average hard drive having 7200rpm or 10krpm with 8MB buffer. then there's the bus width of the interface n FSB... hhhmmm...

a search in google gave some pretty disheartening results:
link1
link2

well, they're obviously right. a human brain is not organized as computer storage is. we don't really operate by binary bits n bytes, but more in a fuzzy approach, without clear cut 1's n 0's.

recall ur first kiss, then recall ur 10th kiss. i bet u ur memory on the 10th one is probably not as clear as the first one. this is what the fuzzy part means - the quality of the data stored. if it's just simple binary, then both should be as easily remember an as clear as each other, if either can be remember at all. 1's n 0's. :)

i guess we're still a long way from johnny mnemonic. we'll all have to stick with the old, slow way of learning things for a while more.

hell yeah

Finally found the root of the problem I was having with the proxy server, and Firefox running on client machines. All the while, I thought it was a problem with Wingate. Seems like it's just that the DNS server ip I was using from my ISP is outdated. Tried a new one and now everything works fine.

I can finally use my favourite browser now. All hail Firefox!!