*HOT* Tech News And Downloads, I Would Read This Thread And Post Any Good Info

Responses to RIAA sophistry,

p2pnet.net news:- The Big 4 music cartel's RIAA is going all out in a bid to spin American students into a flat-out panic purpose-designed to force them to pay $3,000 to avoid being taken to court.

And remarkably, schools administrators and legal staff are not only letting Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG get away with it, they're actively helping them.

The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is spamming universities with so-called 'settlement' letters, yesterday firing off another batch of 'pay us or else' missiles at American students, with Ohio University again the worst hit.

Students, "should pool their resources and hire an attorney instead of settling," said Pat McGee, Ohio University's Center for Student Legal Services the first time around. "If everybody fought it tooth and nail it'd probably tie up the federal court system for ten years."

But instead of helping their students to defend themselves, or collaborating with each other to present a solid front against the cartel enforcer, all too many school legal departments are simply caving in.

Recently, Inside Higher Education carried a series of bald-faced threats on behalf of senior RIAA executives Mitch Bainwol and Cary Sherman.

It was disguised as an 'editorial'.

In a comment post to the Inside Higher Ed post mentioned above, "'I'm curious as to why your website is giving such editorial preference to this kind of inexcusable legal/moral nonsense, and, indeed, the blind greed the RIAA embodies?" - wondered Candradasa, going on:

In the interests of fair and balanced reporting of a situation that is criminalising a whole generation, surely it's now incumbent upon the editors to offer an equally prominent soapbox to someone who can do more than peddle half-truths and outright fantasies unchallenged. Allowing comments like this is not enough... Might I respectfully suggest inviting someone from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or the ever articulate Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing?

Said Warren Kristensen:

Ya know, I remember a day in the misty past when one could buy an LP, make a cassette tape of it, and give it to one's friends or relatives, all free from fear of prosecution from the RIAA, as long as I did not charge anyone for the tape. My friends and I traded mix tapes all the time, which is how we discovered new songs and new bands, even new styles of music. When we found something we liked, we would search out the LP or casette and purchase it. Wonderful system. But if I want to trade songs with someone via the Web, that is illegal piracy. Sorry, I do not see any difference at all. The courts ruled many years ago that once a person purchases a record, it is theirs, and if they want to trade tapes with friends, that is their business, so long as neither party is profiting financially from the trade (wish I could remember the exact case and ruling). Why does that case ruling not apply now? I have no knowledge of it being overturned or modified. Anyone know?

Personally, I do not think the RIAA has a legal leg to stand on. I have noticed they have not had a jury decide on any of this (to my knowledge).

And, "I'd like to see the RIAA go after some of the colleges with faculty who are outspoken on copyright issues to see how far they get," said Bradley Bleck.

I too am unaware of any cases, and none are cited in the editorial, to substantiate a claim that all of the downloading, the sharing of files among strangers, is demonstrably illegal. I too would like to see a case cited.

That's why the whole notion of being able to settle at a discount is sophistry at its worst. This isn't altruistic in any sense. It's going after people who likely have limited means and savvy. They are intimidated. It's a protection racket: pay me or I'm going to haul you into court. I have tons of lawyers and money and you don't have squat. If that's not extortion, I don't know what is.

I don't know whether the RIAA has a legal leg to stand on. We'll have to wait until someone with fairly deep pockets tells them to bugger off so we can see what the courts have to say. It's a long and expensive proposition, one the RIAA, I'm sure, have little interest in seeing unresolved, and their discounting of 'claims' is merely a way to justify their ham- and heavy-handed tactics. Of course, a claim is just a claim until proven otherwise.

"Right on target Warren and others," posted Dr F. Gump, continuing:

Most of today's content seems inherently disposable, from all the free mp3 music on new (un-discovered musicians) to free CDs given out at clubs and other venues, to text-messaging.

I don't know of anyone who believes a successful crackdown on individual citizens' music file-sharing will result in millions (let alone billions) of dollars to the record companies (and a small percentage of THAT to the artists). It is just not going to happen; today's students are working to help their families pay rent, food, and transportation.

Declared Rick Forno:

These folks act surprised to find out that by treating your customers as (potential) criminals, you're seeing fewer of the former and more of the latter.

Memo to Mitch and Cary: I have copyrighted all my articles to claim ownership of them. Yet I freely give permission to distribute them anywhere as long as they're kept intact - so the 'online sharing of copyrighted materials' is most certainly NOT illegal in such a clear-cut fashion that you claim.

Record stores have been replaced by the Internet, iTunes, and such. Folks want ala carte stuff and if they can get it from their dorm room, they'll do that instead of traipse to the record store. It's sad for the record store owners, but it's just the evolution of your industry.

You aging idiots forget that college kids have embraced the Internet as a source for music, and if YOU had embraced this new medium instead of trying to legislate against it, you'd be riding pretty in the profits right now. Yet by forcing onerous, counterproductive restrictions - both technical and legal - on music and customers, you've pretty much turned off this new generation to your product and industry, proving repeatedly that you care not for customer satisfaction, only customer lock-in and profiteering.

You have demonstrated your desire NOT to change with the times, so it's only fitting to see you stumble all over yourselves trying to survive. You reap what you sow.

"It is too funny for words that the RIAA is trying to take a moral high ground," thought Harry L.

It's nice to know that they are concerned about the moral fiber of the younger generation.But if a student is lacking in moral fiber, maybe they would be suited to a job in the Record Industry?The RIAA is starting to sound like temperance advocates during Prohibition. They are just so out of touch it is mind boggling.

"I'll make it brief," states Adrian Cachinero.

Technology and the internet have allowed for momentous growth and innovation. Clearly, there are limitless possibilities with the internet. P2P is one of these examples. P2P technology reduces bandwidth costs for data servers, to name but one benefit.

If this technology is used to share copyrighted material, then quite frankly it's up to the RIAA to do something about rethinking their business model. The government and the legal framework are not in place to satisfy the cravings of decadent record labels.

I can only remind the readers that Hollywood was borne out of 'copyright theft'. In order to avoid Edison’s ridiculous tariffs on camera technology, the movie industry moved to California. I cannot start to imagine how much money they owe the Edison estate if they were truly keen on preserving copyright 'law'.

Its also noteworthily hypocritical of the RIAA to talk of copyright theft, when the contracts they cajole their artists into signing appropriate all the intellectual property that should belong to the artist.

The Old Media industry is dying and this will not change unless they stop trying to stifle innovation and attempt to make a profit with the new tech. The consumer is certainly not responsible if Old Media is incapable of doing this. The consumer is certainly not a criminal.

So share all you like. Old Media is on it's way out. I just wish it would hurry up already.

And there are loads more, every one of them in the same vein.

Inside the Recording Industry's New Antipiracy Campaign

Chronicle for Higher Education has also given skilled sophist Cary Sherman free space to spin RIAA mis- and disinformation.

Below is the full transcript, including the fulsome intro:

Inside the Recording Industry's New Antipiracy Campaign

Thursday, April 12, at 12 noon, U.S. Eastern Time

Last fall the Recording Industry Association of America sent letters to about 700 colleges, announcing that it would soon let students accused of music piracy settle their claims out of court before it officially filed suit. In February the trade group made good on its promise: It sent batches of "pre-litigation notices" to 13 universities and asked those institutions to pass the messages along to students identified only by their Internet-protocol numbers. The notices direct recipients to a Web site and a telephone hotline to which they can pay lump sums to record companies. Now that the trade group is making a monthly practice of sending the pre-litigation letters, many college administrators are wondering if they should forward the messages to their students, as recording-industry officials have asked. Cary H. Sherman, the association's president, will answer your questions about the recording industry's new antipiracy endeavor and about its continuing fight to curtail illegal downloading over campus networks.

The Guest

Cary H. Sherman is president of the Recording Industry Association of America, by far the largest trade group representing American record companies. Before he joined the RIAA, Mr. Sherman was a specialist in intellectual-property law for Arnold & Porter, a law firm in Washington, D.C. Under his leadership, the trade group has designed an aggressive campaign to curtail music piracy on campus networks, and has appealed to lawmakers for help in recruiting colleges to fight illegal music downloading.

A transcript of the chat follows.

Dan Carnevale (Moderator):

Welcome to today's Brown Bag. The file-sharing issue has been a hot topic for years, and I'd like to thank Cary Sherman for taking the time today to answer your questions and respond to your concerns.

Without further delay, let's get started.

Cary H. Sherman:

Before turning to the first question, let me take the opportunity to thank you for allowing me to talk with you about an issue that is critical to us, and to answer the questions you may have.

We understand how difficult this issue is for college administrators. And we truly respect the values that universities bring to this debate, and their desire to balance their role as educators with the freedom of their students to learn for themselves. Our companies HAVE transformed how they do business, making available everything they possibly can on as many platforms as possible. But we are still suffering from a pervasive mindset that "if it's online and available, it's free for the taking." That mindset is damaging not just to us, but to countless others who want to build legitimate businesses online. And it devalues not just music, but intellectual property generally -- and it is intellectual property that is the basis for our economic future as a nation. I truly believe that teaching cyber-ethics is a critical role for universities to play in the 21st century, and the prevalence of illegal downloading on college campuses is an ideal "teachable moment." The only question is how it's going to be taught.

Question from Lewis Hyde, Berkman Center, Harvard Law School:

The recording industry regularly asks colleges to police their students in regard to infringement. Why is it the task of colleges to do this police work, rather than the police?

Sharing files over the internet is not illegal per se; that depends on what's in the file and on what it is being used for. An accusation of music piracy is not a proof of music piracy: questions of evidence, and of fair use, and of educational exceptions to infringement come into play.

If colleges "pass along messages" that direct students to "pay lump sums to record companies," colleges become an arm of the recording industry, bypassing their educational role (teaching about fair use, for example) and bypassing legal due process, if in fact there is a criminal charge to be made.

For these reasons I believe that colleges should decline this RIAA request. How would Mr. Sherman respond to the background assumption here, that the industry, the colleges, and law enforcement are distinct institutions, and that there is good reason to keep their separate roles clear?

Cary H. Sherman:

Lots of questions in here, but let me try to respond generally. First, we do not ask colleges to police their students. But we do expect colleges to be proactive in educating their students about illegal downloading, about their network "acceptable use" policies, in enforcing their policies and the law when violations are brought to their attention, and in offering legitimate alternatives so students can get music legally rather than illegally. We also believe that colleges should consider technical measures to impede illegal use of campus networks, by filtering out infringing transmissions. This would benefit colleges by preserving their bandwidth for legitimate academic purposes (especially important when estimates of illegal use go as high as 90% of available bandwidth), and it would send the right message to students that illegal behavior is not acceptable. There are many schools that use technical measures to ferret out plagiarism -- why should they use technical measures to at least inhibit illegal downloading?

You say that sharing files over the Internet is not illegal per se, and this is of course true. But a "filter" (such as that marketed by Audible Magic" would only prevent illegal transmissions and nothing else.

As for asking colleges to pass along messages, we are not asking them to tell their students what to do -- just to give us an opportunity to convey our message to their students directly, leaving it up to the student how to proceed. A university can encourage students to retain counsel, or even provide counsel, to advise on whether the student's behavior might qualify as fair use. But let's be honest -- every court that has looked at the fair use question in the context of illegal downloading has concluded that the doctrine doesn't apply, and it's going to be a very exceptional case where it does. It's a little misleading to suggest to students that downloading entire copies of songs may be a fair use.

Final point: Sure, the industry and colleges are distinct institutions (law enforcement isn't really relevant here because there haven't been criminal proceedings for p2p on college campuses at this point). But that doesn't mean they don't share a common interest in teaching that music, movies, academic writings and all other forms of intellectual property have value and that it's both illegal and immoral to take it without paying for it.

Question from Dan Carnevale:

Are most colleges choosing to pass the pre-litigation notices on to students?

Cary H. Sherman:

To date, virtually all colleges have chosen to pass along the pre-litigation letters. One school has publicly declined to do so. Frankly, it seems to me that a school is not doing its students a favor when it deliberately withholds information that that student may want, and denies its students the opportunity to decide for themselves how to handle an impending lawsuit.

Question from Dan Carnevale:

And are students who get the notices actually choosing to settle out-of-court?

Cary H. Sherman:

So far, 198 students have settled from the first round of pre-lawsuit letters. Obviously, many students are choosing to settle rather than face a lawsuit. We think that speaks to the clarity of the law and students' understanding that they've been caught in a clear case of infringement. Hopefully, other students will get the message that illegal downloading carries real risks.

Question from Middle Tennessee State University:

P2P file sharing has "substantial non-infringing uses" that today's music business students must be free to explore. The RIAA's campaign of lawsuits and pressure on higher education is overbroad. Where does Mr. Sherman expect the next generation of industry leaders to come from if they do not have unfettered access to the technologies impacting the industry today?

Cary H. Sherman:

Unfettered access to technology is valuable, but that doesn't equate with unfettered right to steal. Of all people, music business students should understand the need for creators of music to be compensated, or else there is no business for them to join.

There has never been a worse time to get into the music business than right now. Songwriters in Nashville are at half the level they used to be, and their royalties are too. The "For sale" and "For rent" signs on Music Row tell the story. Music business students need to set an example of what is appropriate behavior online.

Dan Carnevale (Moderator):

We're about half way through the chat. Keep those questions coming.

Question from Casey Green, The Campus Computing Project:

The RIAA has engaged in an aggressive media and Congressional campaign targeting colleges and college students when ample evidence confirms that consumer ISPs (for example AT&T, Comcast, TimeWarner and Verizon, among others) play a much larger role as conduits for illegal P2P traffic. For example, fully 94 percent of RIAA's 8400 "John Doe" legal filings in 2004-05 were NOT college students.

Why has the RIAA avoided pursuing consumer ISP for their role P2P traffic? Why does the RIAA believe that colleges and universities should be held to a higher standard when ample evidence confirms that colleges are far more responsible about intellectual property and P2P issues than consumer ISPs?

Cary H. Sherman:

We have asked consumer ISPs to pass along infringement notices to their customers, and those requests are still being considered. And a number of large commercial ISPs have sent educational messages to their subscribers. But let's face it -- an ISP has a fundamentally different relationship with its customer than a university with its students. Universities aren't mere providers of network services -- they are educators who provide network access as part of an educational mission.

Moreover, we're finding that the problem of illegal downloading is more prevalent on college campuses than the rest of the population. More than half of college students surveyed said that they download movies and music illegally. and 2/3 of the music acquired by college students was obtained illegally. College students have always been an incredibly important demographic -- they were the biggest music fans, and the biggest music buyers. They're probably still the biggest fans, but their among the smallest buyers of music. Music acquisition is up, but payment is down.

Question from Dan Carnevale:

The University of Nebraska at Lincoln made headlines when it tried sending the RIAA a bill, citing processing costs for all of the copyright-infringement notices the trade group had sent to the institution. I'm assuming you won't be paying that, but it does raise an important question: Should colleges be responsible for the cost of tracking down file-sharing students?

Cary H. Sherman:

Universities sought, and obtained, the protection of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act when it was enacted in 1998. Universities are treated as "ISPs" under that legislation. That gives them numerous safe harbors from possible copyright liability, but it also gives them certain legal obligations. One of those obligations is to take action to eliminate infringement when they become aware of it.

We go to a great deal of trouble and expense to identify infringement taking place, and it doesn't seem unreasonable to ask universities to do their part -- the part contemplated in legislation they supported -- to eliminate the infringement. And that's separate and apart from the obligations as educators to instill values in their students that will prepare them for the real world once they graduate.

Question from Jonathan Curtiss:

Are RIAA pre-litigation letters to be considered DMCA cease and desist notices?

Cary H. Sherman:

This is an interesting question, and it has been raised with us by counsel at a couple of universities. We believe that the pre-litigation letters can be considered DMCA notices, but to avoid any doubt, we are going to revise the letters going forward so that this is more clear. Obviously, we want the infringement to stop when we send the pre-litigation letter. But we also want the evidence of the infringement to be preserved, so that it is available as evidence in the lawsuit. So our letters will be both DMCA notices and "preservation of evidence" notices, which ask students to discontinue the infringing activity but to preserve the evidence of prior actions.

Question from University of Free Speech:

The RIAA is targeting college students, who are very unlikely to have the wherewithal to mount a legal defense. Aren't you cherry-picking easy settlements to bolster the image of these suits, given the recent legal defeats you've suffered trying to sue grown-ups?

In the end, these suits are a simple money grab -- to the tune of $100 million so far?

And please explain the rationale behind pursuing people sharing music deliberately leaked by the band Nine Inch Nails at their concerts to promote an upcoming album.

Cary H. Sherman:

First, there is hardly a money grab. This program COSTS us money; it's not a profit center. But we do it because we need to create risk for stealing music. I don't know where your $100 million figure came from, but it is totally imaginary.

We're targeting college students because they account for an undue percentage of the problem. Also, the habits they form in college will be with them for a lifetime. They have as much wherewithal to mount a legal defense as anyone else, maybe more. There are lots of attorneys who defend these cases pro bono, and that's just fine.

I don't know why you think we've suffered legal defeats recently. There have been some cases involving dismissals of the original defendants as we amend the complaint to name the responsible party in the household (generally one of the kids or a friend), but those are not defeats, those are the judicial system at work.

Question from Robyn, Washington, D.C.:

Why in general is targeting universities so important that all of these initiatives are being taken? Also, how is the RIAA able to find all of these individual students to send notices to? Thanks!

Cary H. Sherman:

We find these students the same way any other member of the public would find them -- by going on the internet in search of illegal downloads. And we're focusing on universities for all the reasons previously explained in answers to earlier questions.

Question from Jeff, liberal arts college:

We find our students arrive with habits already well-developed regarding use of email, file sharing, web access, et al. Doesn't the educational (culture shift) need to be targeted in new or different ways that caters to the teenage culture, as much as to college students? How are RIAA and other agencies getting the message out to that younger age group?

Cary H. Sherman:

A very good point. Universities have inherited this problem, they haven't caused it. And that's why we've initiated a number of educational programs for grades 3-6, 6-8 and high schools (in addition to universities). For example, the Close-Up Foundation has added the issue of illegal file-sharing to its annual publication of educational issues, and that's a great opportunity for students to think critically about the impact of what they're doing. And Close-Up does a wonderful job in presenting all facets of the issue (fair use, etc.). Another program is iSafe, which is a nationally recognized Internet safety program in schools across the country. They've added intellectual property to their curriculum, because it goes to the rights and wrongs of Internet use.

Question from Dan Coates, SurveyU.com (survey researcher):

When students are asked, they feel that current laws are not in step with culture and technology. Does the recording industry see any downside to prosecuting an activity that practically every college student (98%) has done at some point?

Long term, is this good for business?

Cary H. Sherman:

The attitudes you describe are among the most difficult challenges we face, and we understand that. Hopefully, as students become more aware of the value of intellectual property -- maybe when they create their own and begin to understand what it feels like when somebody takes it without permission or compensation -- they will begin to feel otherwise. (One clever grade school program has students in a class create a musical recording, and then another student takes it and hands it in for credit. What an interesting way to teach kids the value of intellectual property.)

No question, this is a long-term issue that will take years of effort. And new business models are emerging every day that may make this issue less relevant (we hope!). But no matter how the business models may evolve, they will still require a fundamental respect for the property rights of others to work. And at bottom, the program we're pursuing is teaching that property rights have value and need to be respected.

Question from Jeff, liberal arts college:

You write "So our letters will be both DMCA notices and 'preservation of evidence' notices, which ask students to discontinue the infringing activity but to preserve the evidence of prior actions. " We have different obligations under 512(a) and 512(c), particularly since most of the p2p content doesn't reside on our servers but on individual computers. Can you clarify what you expect our action to be in relation to each of these sections of the law?

Cary H. Sherman:

I'd be happy to have our General Counsel get in touch with you to respond to your legal questions. Please feel free to give us a call.

Question from University of Free Speech:

Your recent emphasis on file sharing internal to campuses leads one to ask why not allow this type of sharing to be freed in return for a compulsory licensing fee? That would be a legitimate exchange which would benefit both sides in this situation. Students could share among themselves, which would provide a wider audience for your product while still compensating you somewhat.

Cary H. Sherman:

This requires a longer answer than I can reasonably type. But very quickly:

Almost all copyright owners dislike compulsory licensing schemes, because government regulation has never outperformed the marketplace in terms of economic efficiency. This is especially true for a medium like the internet, which changes every few months and assumptions and decisions made before will have to be changed on the fly. Government regulatory decisions are usually years out of date by the time they are made.

Furthermore, a compulsory license for music would invite a compulsory license for all cultural works that can be digitized -- movies, software, videogames, books. After all, if you can't control piracy of music, isn't that also true of movies and other content that can be digitized? Would you really want the government to regulate the price that is paid for the entire cultural output of the United States? And would you want the government to decide how the money should be allocated? (Hint: I predict Eminem wouldn't get as much as the marketplace pays him now.)

And what about the international implications? Everyone in the rest of the world would take our music for free while taxpayers in the US pay a compulsory license fee? And how much would it be? I assure you it wouldn't be as much as the marketplace pays.

Cary H. Sherman:

You've asked a whole lot of really good questions -- thoughtful, cogent, articulate. That's what makes this such an interesting issue to address, because there are so many ways to look at it. At bottom, though, we hope that higher ed will look at this as an opportunity to communicate important values to students. Universities probably create more intellectual capital than the rest of the economy. They have a huge stake in ensuring that intellectual property is valued. Your students are almost certain to work in an intellectual-property-related industry, rather than manufacturing. Our future depends on our intellectual property being respected, not just in the US, but in China and Korea and everywhere else. We need to start teaching those lessons at home, now.

Thanks for listening, and thanks for participating.

Dan Carnevale (Moderator):

That's all the time we have for today's chat. Sorry we could not get to everyone's question. Thanks again to Cary Sherman for his answers. If you would like to continue the discussion, please visit the Chronicle Forums to carry on the conversation there.

p2pnet will shortly be presenting the results of its Sultans of Spin survey.

Stay tuned.

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Also See:
spamming universities - New RIAA attack on US students, April 12, 2007
bald-faced threats - RIAA ramps up attack on family, April 10, 2007
Chronicle for Higher Education - Inside the Recording Industry's New Antipiracy Campaign, April 12, 2007
http://p2pnet.net/story/11952

 

MS acknowledges WGA hacks

p2pnet.net news:- Bill and the Boyz have admitted their Windows Genuine (dis)Advantage police application is falling down on the job, but they're not giving up.

"I know many of you are aware of reports of hacks that attempt to exploit our OEM BIOS based activation," posts WG(d)A senior product manager Alex Kochis on the Microsoft WG(d)A blog. "We're aware of this type of hack and I wanted to take a minute to describe how these work and how we plan to respond."

He goes on:

First, what is OEM BIOS based activation?

Here's a little more information on how OEM BIOS based activation works. This form of product activation is also known as OEM Activation or just OA, which is how Microsoft refers to it and how I will refer to it in this post. Back at the launch of Windows XP when Microsoft introduced Windows Product Activation, we recognized that as easy as end-user activation is, it still represented an extra step. In an effort to reduce the impact of even that extra step but maintain the overall effectiveness of product activation, Microsoft worked with OEMs to develop an implementation that would work best for them and their customers while keeping the goals of product activation clearly in focus. As we looked to develop a solution, it was important to ensure that product activation technology could still deliver an acceptable degree of protection, while at the same time, reduce the need for an extra step by the end user. A couple of key factors stand out as enabling the OA 1.0 solution that was delivered in Windows XP.

Large OEMs tend to ship large numbers of PCs with Windows preinstalled. They also have the ability during their manufacturing processes to identify systems that will ship with Windows pre-installed.

Also, because of the direct relationship Microsoft has with those OEMS, the company has a higher degree of confidence that a genuine COA will be attached to each PC and that there will be accurate reporting of the number of units shipped preinstalled with Microsoft Windows.

These factors lead Microsoft and the major OEMs to place a marker in the BIOS of the OEM's motherboard to identify OEM systems that were to be pre-installed with licensed copies of Windows XP. This marker, which is added to a specific location in the BIOS of the motherboard, enables a copy of Windows XP to look for that known value in the BIOS of the motherboard and, when found, confirm it was booting on a PC that was sold by a specific OEM and licensed to boot Windows.

Not the first time

Over the years we've seen examples of BIOS editors that, with some work, allowed people to make an edited BIOS appear to be an OEM BIOS. In Windows XP this kind of BIOS editing wasn't as difficult as it is in Windows Vista and frankly, because there were easier ways to pirate Windows XP, I don't think much attention was ever paid to it. However, because Windows Vista can't be pirated as easily as Windows XP, it's possible that the increased pressure will result in more interest in efforts to hack the OEM Activation 2.0 implementation.

Windows Vistas OEM Hacks

There appear to be two primary variants of OA 2.0 hacks circulating. One is similar to the XP approach I described above where actual editing of the BIOS on the motherboard is done to make the motherboard appear to be from an OEM. It is a pretty labor-intensive process and quite risky. If you mess up editing the BIOS of any motherboard, you can quite easily render it permanently useless. So while this method works today, it's potentially hazardous and really doesn't scale well to large numbers of systems, which makes it less of a threat.

The second variant does not change anything in the BIOS itself, but uses a software-based approach to fool the OS into thinking it's running on OA 2.0-enabled hardware. And while this method is easier to implement for the end user, it's also easier to detect and respond to than a method that involves directly modifying the BIOS of the motherboard.

I do want to say something here about how we plan our responses. As I've said in the past, we focus on hacks that pose threats to our customers, partners and products. It's worth noting we also prioritize our responses, because not every attempt deserves the same level of response. Our goal isn't to stop every "mad scientist" that's on a mission to hack Windows. Our first goal is to disrupt the business model of organized counterfeiters and protect users from becoming unknowing victims. This means focusing on responding to hacks that are scalable and can easily be commercialized, thereby making victims out of well-intentioned customers.

Slashdot Slashdot it!

Also See:
blog - Reported OEM BIOS Hacks, April 10, 2007
http://p2pnet.net/story/11957

 

P2p file sharing favourite with teens

p2pnet.net news:- Most Canadian and US teenagers are still getting their music fixes from the free and independent sites and services rather than those run by corporate wannabes.

That's the conclusion of a new study by investment banker Piper Jaffray & Co, quoted by the CBC.

"P2P sharing is still the primary way teens get their music," Piper Jaffray analysts Michael Olson and Gene Munster wrote in a research note to clients.

But, "buying online music is becoming more mainstream," he reckons.

The company's retail research team surveyed about 600 teenagers in 11 cities in the US and Canada, and partnered with youth organization DECA Inc to complete an additional 1,200 surveys, it says.

And speaking of surveys, don't forget to complete p2pnet's Sultans of Spin poll.

As I write this, out of around 2,100 views, we've had 674 responses.

Do you share files online? and Have the RIAA sue 'em all lawsuits persuaded you to stop sharing? are the first two questions.

Some 489 of 659 people said said Yes to the first, and 618 of 656 said No to the second.

I plan to do a post on this soon, possibly tomorrow or Sunday, after which I'll put the survey online publicly so anyone, anywhere, can analyse it. And I'll leave it up for another week or so.

Cheers!
Jon

Slashdot Slashdot it!

Also See:
CBC - More teenagers buying music online: study, April 12, 2007
http://p2pnet.net/story/11958

 

'Clean up the Net for kids'

p2pnet.net news:- Two US senate Democrats say they plan to "clean up the Internet for children".

A "discussion draft" from Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Max Baucus of Montana suggests, "Operators of Web sites with racy content must label their sites and register in a national directory or be fined," says CNET News.

The proposal, "relies on the idea of embedding a new tag ... in all Web pages that the government deems unsuitable for minors," it states. Then future Web browsers used by minors could be configured to reject labeled web pages.

"The Department of Justice during the Clinton administration proposed Web labeling, but a federal court took a dim view of it," says the story, quoting an excerpt from the 1996 opinion.

The government's tagging proposal would require all content providers that post arguably "indecent" material to review all of their online content, a task that would be extremely burdensome for organizations that provide large amounts of material online which cannot afford to pay a large staff to review all of that material. The Carnegie Library would be required to hire numerous additional employees to review its online files at an extremely high cost to its limited budget. The cost and effort would be substantial for the library and frequently prohibitive for others.

Moreover, "This is hardly the first time that the idea of mandatory Web labeling has surfaced in Washington," says CNET, continuing that the Bush administration's self-proclaimed Top Cop, attorney general Alberto Gonzales, "called for it in a widely publicized speech in April 2006, and a Senate committee approved such a requirement that included prison terms of up to five years for anyone who did not comply. The Bush administration has repeatedly defended it as a 'rather modest' proposal, though the full Senate failed to vote on the legislation last year."

With the Pryor-Baucus plan, "media outlets that do not rate articles or videos touching on sensitive topics could find themselves fined (or their domain names possibly deleted)," says the story, adding:

"If they do rate 'harmful' articles, however, minors using certain Web browsers would be blocked from reading them. Harmful to minors is defined in the legislation as any type of material that appeals to the prurient interest by depicting or describing an actual or simulated sex act - and lacks serious scientific, literary, artistic or political values for minors."

In associated news, proposals from Tim O'Reilly and Jimbo Wales to introduce a Net Code of Conduct are failing to impress the online community at large.

Slashdot Slashdot it!

Also See:
CNET News - Senators propose labels for adult Web sites, April 7, 2007
p2pnet - Big Music spoof 'marketing' ploy, October 19, 2006
failing to impress - Killing online freedom of speech, April 13, 2007
http://p2pnet.net/story/11960

 

AnyDVD History

6.1.3.6 2007 04 13
- Fix: AnyDVD 6.1.3.5 did not work correctly on Windows 2000
- Some minor fixes and improvements
- Updated languages
http://static.slysoft.com/SetupAnyDVD.exe

 

K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 1.71
Author: KL Software
Date: 2007-04-13
Size: 28.6 Mb
License: Freeware


K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of codecs and related tools. Codec is short for Compressor-Decompressor. Codecs are needed for encoding and decoding (playing) audio and video. This Codec Pack is designed as a user-friendly solution for playing all your movie files. You should be able to play all the popular movie formats and even some rare formats.

The K-Lite Codec Pack has a couple of major advantages compared to other codec packs: It it always very up-to-date with the latest versions of the codecs; It is very user-friendly and the installation is fully customizable, meaning that you can install only those components that you really want; It has been very well tested, so that the package doesn't contain any conflicting codecs; It is a very complete package, containing everything you need to play your movies; and has different packages.

The K-Lite Mega Codec Pack combines the contents of three codec packs:
* K-Lite Codec Pack Full
* QuickTime Alternative
* Real Alternative

download here
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download5230.html




K-Lite Codec Pack Full 2.89
Author: KL Software
Date: 2007-04-13
Size: 15.2 Mb
License: Freeware

K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of codecs and related tools. Codec is short for Compressor-Decompressor. Codecs are needed for encoding and decoding (playing) audio and video. This Codec Pack is designed as a user-friendly solution for playing all your movie files. You should be able to play all the popular movie formats and even some rare formats.

The K-Lite Codec Pack has a couple of major advantages compared to other codec packs: It it always very up-to-date with the latest versions of the codecs; It is very user-friendly and the installation is fully customizable, meaning that you can install only those components that you really want; It has been very well tested, so that the package doesn't contain any conflicting codecs; It is a very complete package, containing everything you need to play your movies; and has different packages.

Full contains even more codecs. It also has encoding support for various formats. This package is for power users and people who do their own encodings.

download here
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4844.html



K-Lite Codec Pack Standard 2.89
Author: KL Software
Date: 2007-04-13
Size: 5.7 Mb
License: Freeware

K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of codecs and related tools. Codec is short for Compressor-Decompressor. Codecs are needed for encoding and decoding (playing) audio and video. This Codec Pack is designed as a user-friendly solution for playing all your movie files. You should be able to play all the popular movie formats and even some rare formats.

The K-Lite Codec Pack has a couple of major advantages compared to other codec packs: It it always very up-to-date with the latest versions of the codecs; It is very user-friendly and the installation is fully customizable, meaning that you can install only those components that you really want; It has been very well tested, so that the package doesn't contain any conflicting codecs; It is a very complete package, containing everything you need to play your movies; and has different packages.

Standard contains everything you need to play all the commonly used formats. This package should be enough for the average user.

download here
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4620.html



K-Lite Codec Pack Basic 2.89
Author: KL Software
Date: 2007-04-13
Size: 2 Mb
License: Freeware

K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of codecs and related tools. Codec is short for Compressor-Decompressor. Codecs are needed for encoding and decoding (playing) audio and video. This Codec Pack is designed as a user-friendly solution for playing all your movie files. You should be able to play all the popular movie formats and even some rare formats.

The K-Lite Codec Pack has a couple of major advantages compared to other codec packs: It it always very up-to-date with the latest versions of the codecs; It is very user-friendly and the installation is fully customizable, meaning that you can install only those components that you really want; It has been very well tested, so that the package doesn't contain any conflicting codecs; It is a very complete package, containing everything you need to play your movies; and has different packages.


download here
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download5228.html

 

Defining Privacy and Its Limits

privacy1 A student in a public university dormitory room had a "reasonable expectation of privacy" for his personal computer and its hard drive, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday. The decision also found that despite that right to privacy, an administrator in the case under review had the right to conduct a remote search of the computer without a warrant because of the circumstances involved.

The decision — by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit — is among the highest level court rulings to date on a set of legal questions pitting privacy vs. security that are increasingly present in academe. While experts cautioned that the decision involved a specific set of facts, several also said it provided guidance for students on their privacy rights and for administrators at public colleges and universities on setting computer policies that give them the flexibility they feel they need to prevent security breaches. Jobs, News and Views for All of Higher Education - Inside Higher Ed :: Defining Privacy -- and Its Limits Linked by shanmuga Friday, 13th April 2007 12:51AM



Defining Privacy — and Its Limits

A student in a public university dormitory room had a “reasonable expectation of privacy” for his personal computer and its hard drive, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday. The decision also found that despite that right to privacy, an administrator in the case under review had the right to conduct a remote search of the computer — without a warrant — because of the circumstances involved.
The decision — by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit — is among the highest level court rulings to date on a set of legal questions pitting privacy vs. security that are increasingly present in academe. While experts cautioned that the decision involved a specific set of facts, several also said it provided guidance for students on their privacy rights and for administrators at public colleges and universities on setting computer policies that give them the flexibility they feel they need to prevent security breaches.

The ruling dates back to an incident in 1999, and the actions of administrators at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, when they were notified by Qualcomm Corporation, a San Diego company that produces wireless computing devices, that someone on Madison’s network was hacking into the company’s network. Ultimately, a then-student at Madison whose computer was found to be used in the hacking entered into an agreement with prosecutors in which he agreed to admit guilt, received a sentence of time served on federal charges arising from the hacking, and was released after eight months in prison. But Jerome T. Heckenkamp, the then-student, also won the right to appeal the case in the hope of clearing his name, and his appeal focused on information gathered by Madison officials.

Jeffrey Savoy, a computer security official at Wisconsin, was the person who received Qualcomm’s complaint. When he confirmed that someone on the Madison network was hacking the company, he also found that this same person appeared to have gained unauthorized access to portions of the university’s network as well. Of particular concern to Savoy was that this hacker had gained access to the server used by the university to house 60,000 e-mail accounts and to deliver about 250,000 e-mail messages each day.

Savoy was able to link the intrusions to a computer from a specific dormitory room and eventually was able to identify the room and the computer accounts being used as belonging to Heckenkamp. The decision by the appeals court then details the dual tracks taken by Qualcomm and Madison. The company decided to seek a warrant for a search of Heckenkamp’s room, but Savoy continued to monitor the situation in the meantime. He found that Heckenkamp had lost a job in the university’s computer help desk two years before and so had extensive knowledge of the university networks — enough to do real damage.

As the investigation continued, Savoy saw that the computer in question was being used, and that the hacker might well have been able to see that his actions were being detected. So Savoy, with university police officers, went to Heckenkamp’s room, entered it when the door was ajar and nobody was there, and disconnected the cord attaching it to the network.

Using Heckenkamp’s password, which he had provided to a police officer, Savoy also conducted some tests on the computer to be certain that he had been successful in blocking its access to the university network. When Heckencamp was indicted in California, evidence in the case was a mix of materials obtained with a warrant the day after Savoy was in the room, but also information Savoy had obtained remotely.

In its analysis of the case, the appeals court said there can be “no doubt” that Heckenkamp’s expectation of privacy on his computer was “legitimate and objectively reasonable.” Further, the court said that this privacy expectation did not go away when Heckenkamp attached his computer to the university’s network. In language that would be relevant to many colleges, the court said that “the mere fact of accessing a network does not in itself extinguish privacy expectations.”

While that part of the decision establishes the norm for a public university student’s computers to be assumed private (thus requiring a warrant for searches), the court went on to say that Savoy’s actions were protected because of the way the university had established and communicated its policies, and because of his intent.

The relevant part of the university policy, quoted by the judges, says the following: “[A]ll computer and electronic files should be free from access by any but the authorized users of those files. Exceptions to this basic principle shall be kept to a minimum and made only where essential to ... protect the integrity of the university and the rights and property of the state.”

It was legitimate for the university to act as it did, the judges found, because it was acting out of concern about its own e-mail network, not to help with the law enforcement investigation set off by Qualcomm, and it acted in ways that were consistent with the university’s policies that Heckenkamp had agreed to follow. Savoy “needed to act immediately to protect the system,” the court found. In this situation, Savoy acted with legitimate “special needs” that justified not waiting for a warrant, the court found. The ruling was about the remote search of the computer, not the in-room search.

Benjamin Coleman, a San Diego lawyer who represented Heckenkamp in the case, said that he was disappointed that the evidence was not thrown out, and said that an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is possible. But Coleman said that the ruling gave students a key victory because it rejected that there was no basis for Heckenkamp to presume the privacy of his computer. Even though the court defined some narrow limits to that right, Coleman said, “this is the first decision at this level that says college students have an expectation to privacy on their computers, so this is very good for students’ privacy rights.”

Tracy Mitrano, director of the Computer Policy and Law Program and director of information technology policy at Cornell University, said that it was “notable” that the judges found “an objective expectation of privacy to the user in the content of his or her hard drive even when attached to a network system.” Mitrano said it was important to note that there is “never an absolute expectation of privacy,” but that the appeals court was setting up a balancing test.

This balancing, while not an absolute victory for students, is significant, Mitrano said, and is “a good thing for privacy advocates.” She added: “From the broader cultural perspective it begins to distinguish the ‘technological’ from the ‘legal’ in the sense of offering a response to Scott McNealy’s famous dictum about ‘you have no privacy, get over it.’ On the basis of this case one could say, ‘just because something is technologically possible, i.e. remote inspection of a hard drive, does not necessarily make it legal.’”

The case also provides a clear lesson for colleges, Mitrano said: “Write good policy.”

“Not only should a policy allow for free expression (’no monitoring of the network or devices attached to it for content as a practice’) but also for circumstances under which exceptions will be made (’security, network maintenance, regulatory compliance, contractual obligations and investigation of violations of law or policy’),” Mitrano said via e-mail.

Steven L. Worona, director of policy and networking programs for Educause, said he thought the appeals court “got it right” in balancing the various issues at play. Worona cautioned that “like most decisions involving the balance of conflicting rights and needs, this one was nuanced and highly fact-specific” so people should “exercise caution before drawing any overly broad conclusions.”

He added, however: “I think students can take comfort in the clear statement that connecting a personal computer to a campus network does not do away with their expectations of privacy. And I think network administrators can take comfort in the conclusion that they can take reasonable actions when their systems are under attack.”
— Scott Jaschik
Comments




Related stories

* The Brave New World of MySpace and Facebook, April 3
* Campus Downloading Crackdown, March 1
* A Lesson in Viral Video, Feb. 7
* Everything to Everyone, Jan. 27, 2006
* After ‘Grokster,’ the Battle Continues, Nov. 16, 2005
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/09/heckenkamp

 

When will these idiots learn that they only have a say over what happens in the USA.. They do not own the rest of the world.
This kind of attitude is why America is so disliked in many parts of the world. At least some elected people in the US have some sense.

 

Researchers Explore Scrapping Internet
By Anick Jesdanun
Associated Press
posted: 13 April 2007
01:36 pm ET


NEW YORK (AP) — Although it has already taken nearly four decades to get this far in building the Internet, some university researchers with the federal government's blessing want to scrap all that and start over.



The idea may seem unthinkable, even absurd, but many believe a “clean slate'' approach is the only way to truly address security, mobility and other challenges that have cropped up since UCLA professor Leonard Kleinrock helped supervise the first exchange of meaningless test data between two machines on Sept. 2, 1969.



The Internet “works well in many situations but was designed for completely different assumptions,'' said Dipankar Raychaudhuri, a Rutgers University professor overseeing three clean-slate projects. “It's sort of a miracle that it continues to work well today.''



No longer constrained by slow connections and computer processors and high costs for storage, researchers say the time has come to rethink the Internet's underlying architecture, a move that could mean replacing networking equipment and rewriting software on computers to better channel future traffic over the existing pipes.



Even Vinton Cerf, one of the Internet's founding fathers as co-developer of the key communications techniques, said the exercise was “generally healthy'' because the current technology “does not satisfy all needs.''



One challenge in any reconstruction, though, will be balancing the interests of various constituencies. The first time around, researchers were able to toil away in their labs quietly. Industry is playing a bigger role this time, and law enforcement is bound to make its needs for wiretapping known.



There's no evidence they are meddling yet, but once any research looks promising, “a number of people (will) want to be in the drawing room,'' said Jonathan Zittrain, a law professor affiliated with Oxford and Harvard universities. “They'll be wearing coats and ties and spilling out of the venue.''



The National Science Foundation wants to build an experimental research network known as the Global Environment for Network Innovations, or GENI, and is funding several projects at universities and elsewhere through Future Internet Network Design, or FIND.



Rutgers, Stanford, Princeton, Carnegie Mellon and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are among the universities pursuing individual projects. Other government agencies, including the Defense Department, have also been exploring the concept.



The European Union has also backed research on such initiatives, through a program known as Future Internet Research and Experimentation, or FIRE. Government officials and researchers met last month in Zurich to discuss early findings and goals.



A new network could run parallel with the current Internet and eventually replace it, or perhaps aspects of the research could go into a major overhaul of the existing architecture.



These clean-slate efforts are still in their early stages, though, and aren't expected to bear fruit for another 10 or 15 years — assuming Congress comes through with funding.



Guru Parulkar, who will become executive director of Stanford's initiative after heading NSF's clean-slate programs, estimated that GENI alone could cost $350 million, while government, university and industry spending on the individual projects could collectively reach $300 million. Spending so far has been in the tens of millions of dollars.



And it could take billions of dollars to replace all the software and hardware deep in the legacy systems.



Clean-slate advocates say the cozy world of researchers in the 1970s and 1980s doesn't necessarily mesh with the realities and needs of the commercial Internet.



“The network is now mission critical for too many people, when in the (early days) it was just experimental,'' Zittrain said.



The Internet's early architects built the system on the principle of trust. Researchers largely knew one another, so they kept the shared network open and flexible — qualities that proved key to its rapid growth.



But spammers and hackers arrived as the network expanded and could roam freely because the Internet doesn't have built-in mechanisms for knowing with certainty who sent what.



The network's designers also assumed that computers are in fixed locations and always connected. That's no longer the case with the proliferation of laptops, personal digital assistants and other mobile devices, all hopping from one wireless access point to another, losing their signals here and there.



Engineers tacked on improvements to support mobility and improved security, but researchers say all that adds complexity, reduces performance and, in the case of security, amounts at most to bandages in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse.



Workarounds for mobile devices “can work quite well if a small fraction of the traffic is of that type,'' but could overwhelm computer processors and create security holes when 90 percent or more of the traffic is mobile, said Nick McKeown, co-director of Stanford's clean-slate program.



The Internet will continue to face new challenges as applications require guaranteed transmissions — not the “best effort'' approach that works better for e-mail and other tasks with less time sensitivity.



Think of a doctor using teleconferencing to perform a surgery remotely, or a customer of an Internet-based phone service needing to make an emergency call. In such cases, even small delays in relaying data can be deadly.



And one day, sensors of all sorts will likely be Internet capable.



Rather than create workarounds each time, clean-slate researchers want to redesign the system to easily accommodate any future technologies, said Larry Peterson, chairman of computer science at Princeton and head of the planning group for the NSF's GENI.



Even if the original designers had the benefit of hindsight, they might not have been able to incorporate these features from the get-go. Computers, for instance, were much slower then, possibly too weak for the computations needed for robust authentication.



“We made decisions based on a very different technical landscape,'' said Bruce Davie, a fellow with network-equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc., which stands to gain from selling new products and incorporating research findings into its existing line.



“Now, we have the ability to do all sorts of things at very high speeds,'' he said. “Why don't we start thinking about how we take advantage of those things and not be constrained by the current legacy we have?''



Of course, a key question is how to make any transition — and researchers are largely punting for now.



“Let's try to define where we think we should end up, what we think the Internet should look like in 15 years' time, and only then would we decide the path,'' McKeown said. “We acknowledge it's going to be really hard but I think it will be a mistake to be deterred by that.''



Kleinrock, the Internet pioneer at UCLA, questioned the need for a transition at all, but said such efforts are useful for their out-of-the-box thinking.



“A thing called GENI will almost surely not become the Internet, but pieces of it might fold into the Internet as it advances,'' he said.



Think evolution, not revolution.



Princeton already runs a smaller experimental network called PlanetLab, while Carnegie Mellon has a clean-slate project called 100 x 100.



These days, Carnegie Mellon professor Hui Zhang said he no longer feels like “the outcast of the community'' as a champion of clean-slate designs.



Construction on GENI could start by 2010 and take about five years to complete. Once operational, it should have a decade-long lifespan.



FIND, meanwhile, funded about two dozen projects last year and is evaluating a second round of grants for research that could ultimately be tested on GENI.



These go beyond projects like Internet2 and National LambdaRail, both of which focus on next-generation needs for speed.



Any redesign may incorporate mechanisms, known as virtualization, for multiple networks to operate over the same pipes, making further transitions much easier. Also possible are new structures for data packets and a replacement of Cerf's TCP/IP communications protocols.



“Almost every assumption going into the current design of the Internet is open to reconsideration and challenge,'' said Parulkar, the NSF official heading to Stanford. “Researchers may come up with wild ideas and very innovative ideas that may not have a lot to do with the current Internet.''



Associated Press Business Writer Aoife White in Brussels, Belgium, contributed to this report.



* Quiz: Greatest Inventions
* U.S. to Keep Control of Internet
* Hackers Attack Every 39 Seconds

http://www.livescience.com/technology/070413_ap_new_internet.html

 

CPM (Cute Partition Manager) 0.9.7
Author: OSL Corp.
Date: 2007-04-13
Size: 233 Kb
License: Freeware

CPM (Cute Partition Manager) is a strong HDD partition management tool. Using Cute Partition Manager, you can easily add, edit, delete and manage the partitions in your computer. Most of the hard disks have plenty of space and can easily accommodate more than one operating system. In order to have multiple operating systems, you need to partition your hard disk with a partition management utility (like Cute Partition Manager).

Cute Partition Manager is very easy to use. It lets you preview the changes before you save them. It lets you edit the boot flag, partition type and other advanced parameters. It gives you total control of your system during the partition process. For example, it lets you remove all existing partitions and install all the operating systems from scratch. It supports all versions of Windows (9x, ME, NT, 2K, XP, Vista), DOS, Linux.

download here
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download5369.html

 

Ireland, yeah I also had trouble with the 6136 anydvd update, everything went wacky after that update, I got this message, warning, reboot, I did, no dvd drive found, I have 2, or unisntall, I uninstalled, than re-installed, that worked, so far so good I hope.

 

Windows Memory Diagnostic

License Type: Free
Price: Free
Date Added: Apr 2007
Operating Systems: Windows XP
File Size: 639KB
Downloads Count: 11463
Author: Microsoft
Check the health of your system's memory.
If your system crashes often and you're getting blue screens loaded with error messages, your problem may be bad system memory. Use this diagnostic tool for a quick checkup.

GO HERE TO DOWNLOAD
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,64964/description.html?tk=nl_hsxdwn

 

No-Brainer Backups Using Windows' Own Tools
Five options for implementing a Windows backup strategy without investing a dime in third-party utilities.
Scott Dunn
Wednesday, December 20, 2006 01:00 AM PST

Any PC user who hasn't been hiding under a rock knows the importance of making backup copies of critical system and data files. But many people may not realize that Windows XP and 2000 have several built-in backup options. These tips will help you devise a perfect Windows backup strategy.

Option #1: Last Good Configuration: Every time you shut down your system, Windows makes a backup of certain Registry and driver settings (specifically, those in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet). If things go awry and you can't start Windows (or you merely have second thoughts about a new graphics driver you've just installed), you can restore your machine to its previous state by pressing <F8> just before Windows starts. Use the arrow keys to select Last Known Good Configuration, and press <Enter>. (If you have already restarted Windows with hardware settings you don't want, this technique won't work because the system stored the info from those drivers in its backup when you most recently exited Windows.)

Option #2: Device Driver Rollback: Windows XP automatically backs up your old device drivers when you update them. You can restore a device to the way it was in happier times by reverting to this backup when a new driver causes problems. Choose Start, Run, type devmgmt.msc, and press <Enter> to open Device Manager. Double-click the device whose driver you want to restore to open its Properties dialog box. Click the Driver tab and select Roll Back Driver (see Figure 1).

Option #3: System Restore: A good way to back up system settings, drivers, and critical system files in XP is by using System Restore, which can back up your configuration automatically on a defined schedule if you allocate sufficient storage to it. Use it to make backups (which it refers to as "restore points") prior to making any system change (Windows creates a new restore point automatically whenever you install new software.) Choose Start, Programs (or All Programs), Accessories, System Tools, System Restore. Then select Create a restore point and follow the prompts. System Restore doesn't affect your data, nor does it work every time, so don't count on it as your only protection.

Option #4: Hardware Profiles: You might find these useful when testing new hardware or device drivers. Choose Start, Run, type sysdm.cpl, and press <Enter>. Click the Hardware tab and then the Hardware Profiles button. Select your current profile---or the profile that you want to back up---from the list, and click Copy. Name it something like Test Profile and press <Enter>. Choose the startup settings you prefer under 'Hardware profiles selection', and click OK. When you restart your PC, choose Test Profile (or whatever you named the profile). If your experiments make Windows unusable, choose your original profile at the startup prompt; you may need to change your hardware back, too. If you like the new configuration, return to the Hardware Profiles dialog box and either delete the old default profile or make the new one your default.

Option #5: Windows' Backup Utility: To back up your files manually in XP and 2000, choose Start, Programs (or All Programs), Accessories, System Tools, Backup. Users of XP Home Edition can install the program from the Windows CD: Look for it in the valueadd\msft\ntbackup folder, right-click the Ntbackup file, and choose Install. Be forewarned, however, that the utility's Automated System Recovery feature doesn't work in XP Home.

 

iTunes and rental downloads?





p2pnet.net news:- Will Apple's iTunes, already seriously overcharging for movie and music downloads, launch a rental bid? And if it does, will anyone care?

The corporate music industry insists iTunes is where it's at, and that may be the case for the tiny (relatively speaking) handful of punters who keep the iTunes fiction alive by paying $1 and up for downloads worth only a few cents, and $10 and up for movies worth only a dollar or so, top whack.

The vast majority of online music lovers, however, get their downloads from the growing range of affordable and independent download services and the free p2p networks Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG are trying so desperately to kill.

Unsupported Apple figures put the total number of sales since it started up in 2003 at somewhere arounnd two biillion. However, one billion songs a day are shared online as mp3s, says a new IDC white paper.

And that's a conservative estimate, it says.

Instead of figuring out ways to tap this mind-boggling market, which would make their shareholders wealthy beyond their wildest dreams, the Big 4 are trying to gain control by driving anything which looks even remotely like competition out of business, and suing their own customers.

"The world's biggest music companies are expected to ask Apple to introduce a music subscription service to its iTunes digital media store as part of negotiations to renew their agreements with the computer company," says MSNBC.

"Those discussions will begin in earnest next week when Universal Music, the largest record company, sits down at the bargaining table with Apple. Universal's competitors, Sony-BMG, Warner Music and EMI, have either commenced talks with Apple already or are poised to do so, according to people close to the matter.

"This year's talks are vital for the record industry because they come amid a continued deterioration in compact disc sales."

It might be more accurate to say, "a continued deterioration in compact discs".

Be that as it may, "What is clear is that the labels are looking for a way to curb losses they blame on digital music sales," says Top Tech News. "The numbers are telling. A new report from Enders Analysis forecasts global music sales will fall to $23 billion in 2009. That's 16 percent below last year's sales and about half of the $45 billion industry peak in 1997.

"According to the Enders report, the decline in CD sales will slow in 2010 as MP3 penetration plateaus. Meanwhile, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry reported 2005 digital download sales doubled to $2 billion."

The negotiations, "offer another example of the tensions between traditional media companies that create content and the technology groups that distribute it online," says MSNBC, adding:

"The record industry, in particular, has long been frustrated that Apple has reaped most of the profits of the burgeoning online music market through sales of its iPod player. By contrast, they have earned only modest royalties from digital music sales because most of the songs on iPods and other devices result from illegal download."

Slashdot Slashdot it!

Also See:
conservative estimate - 1 billion songs a DAY shared online, March 8, 2007
MSNBC - Music labels ask Apple to adopt subscription, April 12, 2007
Top Tech News - Will iTunes Adopt a Subscription Model?, April 12, 2007
http://p2pnet.net/story/11965

 

FREE 7-ZIP

License
7-Zip is open source software. Most of source code is under GNU LGPL license. AES code is under BSD LICENSE. unRAR code is under mixed license: GNU LGPL + unRAR restriction. Check license information here: 7-Zip license.

You can use 7-Zip on any computers, including computers in commercial organizations. You don't need to register or pay for 7-Zip.
But you can make a donation to support further development of 7-Zip.

The main features of 7-Zip
High compression ratio in new 7z format with LZMA compression
Supported formats:
Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS
For ZIP and GZIP formats 7-Zip provides compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
Self-extracting capability for 7z format
Integration with Windows Shell
Powerful File Manager
Powerful command line version
Plugin for FAR Manager
Localizations for 63 languages
-Zip works in Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP. There is port of command line version for Linux/Unix.
On 7-Zip's Source Forge Page you can find forum, bugs report and feature request systems.

DOWNLOAD HERE
http://www.7-zip.org/

 

Fresh UI
Download Now User Reviews Rate This Product
License Type: Free
Price: Free
Date Added: Mar 2007
Operating Systems: Windows NT, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows 9.x, Windows Me, Windows XP
File Size: 645KB
Downloads Count: 51155
Author: Freshdevices
Experience Windows tweakers' heaven with this tool.
Fresh UI is a kind of tweaker's heaven: With it you can change scores of settings in XP, many of which you no doubt never even knew existed. Want to alter most any aspect of the Windows interface? Go ahead. Customize the Start menu? No problem. Change global menu settings, the way applications work, and dozens of network and Internet settings? You can do all those things, and a whole lot more.

--Preston Gralla

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http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,22766/description.html

 

This is How We Catch You Downloading
Posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday April 15, @09:29AM
from the line-and-worm dept.
marto writes "All over Europe thousands of people are being threatened with court action for allegedly sharing games like Dream Pinball 3D on P2P networks. Now, documents obtained by TorrentFreak show details of the anti-piracy company's techniques for identifying alleged file-sharers on the internet and the gathering of claimed 'forensic quality' evidence for use in court cases.


This is How We Catch You Downloading
Written by enigmax on April 14, 2007

All over Europe thousands of people are being threatened with court action for allegedly sharing games like Dream Pinball 3D on P2P networks. Now, documents obtained by TorrentFreak show details of the anti-piracy company’s techniques for identifying alleged file-sharers on the internet and the gathering of claimed ‘forensic quality’ evidence for use in court cases.

Evidence

In March we reported in some detail about the case of 500 UK file-sharers being legally pursued following claims that they uploaded games from the German publisher ‘Zuxxez’ onto file-sharing networks.

Since then, many people have been in touch with the law firm who sent the threatening letters, demanding evidence that they actually did something. TorrentFreak has obtained copies of the latest letters and within the claimed evidence is a description of how the anti-piracy system used by Logistep AG (the company hired to track the alleged pirates) is supposed to work.

The cleverly named “File Sharing Monitor” is the system being used by Logistep to gather evidence against file-sharers. It is actually just a modified version of the Shareaza P2P application that is configured to search for infringing files, and collect the information from the hosts that share these files.

The “File Sharing Monitor” only targets Gnutella and eDonkey users, so it is still unclear how they track down BitTorrent users. Here is how it works:

1. The client connects to the P2P network, searches for sources of the infringing file, and collects the IP addresses that were gathered through the search.
2. The client requests to download (a piece of) the file from the host that was found through the search.
3. The filename, file size, IP-address, P2P protocol, P2P application, time, and the username are automatically inserted into a database, if the host permits the download.
4. This is the “best” part. The application does a WHOIS search for the ISP information and automatically sends an infringement letter to the ISP if needed.

The claim is that the “File Sharing Monitor” is totally foolproof and that it can provide forensic-quality information to a court in order that file-sharers be punished. The question remains whether an IP-address is sufficient evidence to sue a person for downloading copyrighted material. Recent cases suggest that the RIAA and the MPAA will need more evidence than that.

Here is the ‘evidence’ for the functioning of the Logistep system. You decide.
http://torrentfreak.com/this-is-how-we-catch-you-downloading/

 

Wi-Fi Bug Found in Linux
Apr 15, 2007 - 3:09 PM - by Digital Dave
Linux fans need to read this.

A bug has been found in a major Linux Wi-Fi driver that can allow an attacker to take control of a laptop -- even when it is not on a Wi-Fi network.

There have not been many Linux Wi-Fi device drivers, and this is apparently the first remotely executable Wi-Fi bug. It affects the widely used MadWi-Fi Linux kernel device driver for Atheros-based Wi-Fi chipsets, according to Laurent Butti, a researcher from France Telecom Orange, who found the flaw and released the information in a presentation at last month's Black Hat conference in Amsterdam.

pcworld.com

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,130717-pg,1/article.html

 

Is Outlook 2007 slow to respond? Do you often get the "Not Responding" message?

On my wife’s brand new Dell Inspiron 6400 (Core 2 Duo 2 gigs RAM, 7200 RPM harddrive) – Outlook 2007 often slows/is blocked with the message “Outlook is Not Responding”. My wife is frustrated because her new computer appears no faster than the five year old AMD it replaced. As the house IT guy I’m frustrated.

In the end alot of googling suggested the addins (Lockergnome had the best thread). Many people have found removing the Dell installed Cyberlink (crapware?) has improved performance. In our case I went alot further I’ve studied most of the addins (Menu Tools -> Trust Center… -> Add ins) and found most of unnecessary for a home user:

* Exchange Unified Messaging – clever but we don’t run an exchange server.
* Microsoft Outlook Mobile – forwards important messages to your mobile (cellphone) – clever except that if your on the road chances are the laptop is to.
* Several more of limited value to the home user.

So I disabled most of them via add-in manager (at the bottom of the Trust Center Dialog). Some of the add-ins refuse to be disabled this way and you may need remove (ie uninstall) them.

Good luck and improving your performance. BTW To my regular readers my blog will return to my regular writing when the laptop is completely sorted out.

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http://www.notesfromatooluser.com/2007/04/is_outlook_2007.html