VERY,VERY HOT READS, I Would Read The News In This Thread This Thead Is To post Any Thing Ye Want About The News,,NEWS WAS MOVED,READ MY FIRST POS...

DVD KNIFE..........Simple tool for extracting video clips from your DVD. The extracted clips will be stored in VOB(DVD) format only. You may copy part of the DVD movie from DVD to hard disk directly. DVD clips unlike video cd are stored in mpeg-2 format.....(free).....GO THERE!
http://www.vcsoftwares.com/

SpeeDefrag 3.0
Wanna defrag your hard disk fast just download SpeeDefrag and feel the difference

Copy Cat 2.0
Wanna copy scratched DVD's or CD's download Copy Cat and feel the fun.

Mp3 Knife 3.0
Wanna cut mp3 songs into pieces just download Mp3 Knife and feel the difference..

Shutdown After 1.0
Wanna schedule windows shutdown download ShutDown After and feel the fun...


DRM has only one purpose: To make you pay multiple times for the content you
used to be able to pay once and enjoy. Instead of owning a CD, you might only
own some bits that evaporate after being viewed a number of times, or an
expiration date. The content cartel wants to create a future where you never
really "own" any content, but only "rent" it.

 

VIRTUAL CD-ROM CONTROL PANEL..........Create a virtual CD drive on your Windows hard disk. For anyone unfamiliar with the terms 'virtual CD' or 'CD emulator', they mean that you can copy the entire contents of a CD-ROM to your hard disk and run the programs or access the files without the need for the original CD. This can make files more accessible, faster and more convenient. Given the speed and size of today's hard drives, you could easily fit a number of CDs onto your hard drive without noticing the difference. Assuming you had 30 full CDs, these would take around 20GB on a hard drive and all will be accessible after a few clicks of a mouse. Hard drives are about 10 times faster than a CD, plus you can instantly access the file instead of grabbing the CD case, inserting the CD and awaiting for the contents to load. It's true, you could try copying the files over to the hard drive, but this can get messy, plus some programs require a CD to be loaded in order to run. This virtual CD program 'pretends' it is a CD drive (even though the files are on your hard drive), so your programs will run as normal. (Link is to the great folks at Softpedia!) .....(free).....GO THERE!
http://www.softpedia.com/get/CD-DVD-Tools/Virtual-CD-DVD-Rom/Virtual-CDROM-Control-Panel.shtml


irtual CDROM Control Panel description Download
This free program for Windows XP lets you create a virtual CD drive on your hard disk. Some visitors to the site have confirmed that it works with Windows 2000 too (but this is not stated in Microsoft's official readme).

For anyone unfamiliar with the terms 'virtual CD' or 'CD emulator', they mean that you can copy the entire contents of a CD-ROM to your hard disk and run the programs or access the files without the need for the original CD. This can make files more accessible, faster and more convenient. Given the speed and size of today's hard drives, you could easily fit a number of CDs onto your hard drive without noticing the difference. Assuming you had 30 full CDs, these would take around 20GB on a hard drive and all will be accessible after a few clicks of a mouse.

Hard drives are about 10 times faster than a CD, plus you can instantly access the file instead of grabbing the CD case, inserting the CD and awaiting for the contents to load. It's true, you could try copying the files over to the hard drive, but this can get messy, plus some programs require a CD to be loaded in order to run. This virtual CD program 'pretends' it is a CD drive (even though the files are on your hard drive), so your programs will run as normal.

It only works with ISO images

Installation instructions
=========================
1. Copy VCdRom.sys to your %systemroot%system32drivers folder.
2. Execute VCdControlTool.exe
3. Click "Driver control"
4. If the "Install Driver" button is available, click it. Navigate to the %systemroot%system32drivers folder, select VCdRom.sys, and click Open.
5. Click "Start"
6. Click OK
7. Click "Add Drive" to add a drive to the drive list. Ensure that the drive added is not a local drive. If it is, continue to click "Add Drive" until an unused drive letter is available.
8. Select an unused drive letter from the drive list and click "Mount".
9. Navigate to the image file, select it, and click "OK". UNC naming conventions should not be used, however mapped network drives should be OK.

You may now use the drive letter as if it were a local CD-ROM device. When you are finished you may unmount, stop, and remove the driver from memory using the driver control.

 

Movies File Share Top Ten



p2pnet.net Feature:- p2pnet's Movies File Share Top Ten is compiled from statistics supplied by p2pnet research company Big Champage.

Only on p2pnet.

If you want to see how BC develops them, head over to the music FSTT, or go to our Q&A with ceo Eric Garland here.

(Note: If a movie returns after being out of the charts for two weeks or longer, it's designated 'new'.) 'Return' means back after a week's absence.

Movies Top Ten File Share Downloads, Global
Week ending January 12, 2006
Ranking Movie Number of Downloads
01 >>> The Chronicles of Narnia (unchanged) 1,020,650
02 >>> King Kong (unchanged) 1,004,540
03 >>> Harry Potter and the Goblet Of Fire (unchanged) 991,594
04 >>> Mr & Mrs Smith (unchanged) 956,307
05 >>> Fantastic Four + #6 936,333
06 >>> The 40 Year Old Virgin 932,444
07 >>> War Of The Worlds - #5 929,932
08 >>> Four Brothers (new) 890,515
09 >>> Batman Begins (unchanged) 882,979
10 >>> Fun with Dick and Jane (unchanged) 880,491

Movies Top Ten File Share Downloads, USA
Week ending January 12, 2006
Ranking Movie Number of Downloads
01 >>> The Chronicles of Narnia (LWW) (unchanged) 552,225
02 >>> King Kong (unchanged) 538,707
03 >>> Mr & Mrs Smith + #4 528,646
04 >>> Fantastic Four + #5 526,961
05 >>> Harry Potter and the Goblet Of Fire - #3 510,158
06 >>> Four Brothers (new) 505,606
07 >>> The 40 Year Old Virgin + #8 504,302
08 >>> Fun with Dick and Jane - #7 490,836
09 >>> The Family Stone - #6 475,858
10 >>> The Wedding Crashers (new) 450,993
http://p2pnet.net/story/7592

 

Newest MediaMax DRM


pdf on this
http://www.mediamaxtech.com/PDF/MediaMax(V6)Features_and_Advantages.pdf



p2p news / p2pnet: SunnComm is touting its 'new' MediaMax Version 6 on the MediaMax Technology web site.

The Sony-BMG Settlement Agreement precluded Sony-BMG from using MediaMax V3 or V5 in the future, but no sooner had the agreement conditions been made public than SunnComm trolls were suggesting on various message boards that MediaMax V6 would be quickly released and it would be back to business as usual.

With the publication on the web site of the V6 features yesterday, the trolls were posting on Freedom-To-Tinker that Sony-BMG had already decided to use MediaMax V6 on a new release this month:

I hear Sony-BMG are thrilled with V6. It's GO GO GO from here on in. Those who just want to steal music and those who pretend to be for consumer rights (but really just want to steal music too) lose again. And I hear Sony will be using V6 on a major release this month.

The V6 PDF file on the MediaMax Technology web site makes interesting reading. Functionally, it's identical to MediaMax V5, except for comments regarding the redesigned EULA. However, this paragraph from the PDF file begs for further scrutiny....

Additional certifications pending … MediaMax has become the most scrutinized battle-tested software in the world. This newest version is designed from the ground up using Microsoft’s latest development tools with a constant awareness of potential security vulnerabilities. As with all previous versions of MediaMax, there is no use of rootkits or other hacker-like elements and no hidden files.

Calling MediaMax the most scrutinized, battle-tested software in the world is a bit rich. It didn't take Alex Halderman long to discover it could be defeated by simply holding down the shift key. And when the EFF arranged for MediaMax V5 to be tested, it was quickly discovered that the product created serious security exposures.

It's also nonsense to suggest V6 was designed from the ground up when it's the same as V5, apart from the fact it could hardly have been redesigned and redeveloped in a few short weeks.

But it's the last line of the paragraph above that puts beyond doubt the lack of credibility of the whole document. It claims, "like all previous versions of MediaMax, there are no hidden files".

Much to the chagrin of SunnComm ceo Peter Jacobs (upper right), all of the Q&As from his AskThe Prez web page have been archived to message boards and provide a permanent record of his answers long after they've been removed from the AskThePrez web site itself. The answers have often come back to haunt him and, like before, he'll have to eat his own words when it comes to MediaMax (including previous versions) not having hidden files.

Here's his reply to a question shortly after Princeton graduate Halderman exposed the Shift Key DRM bypass.

My friend, I´m going to print your letter as it represents the 1000´s of emails I´ve received from like-minded people who, like you, didn´t bother to read enough to understand the Princeton situation.

SunnComm´s position was that Mr. Halderman violated the DMCA by revealing the hidden MediaMax management file name that is placed on a user´s PC, along with instructions on how to remove it.

The SunnComm-alleged violation had NOTHING to do with the Shift Key. He knows it and we know it.

By publicly saying things like, "Gee, if telling people about the Shift Key is a violation of the DMCA, then we need to change that bad law," Halderman is purposely mis-directing the debate, and, by doing so, stoops to a level far below that of his adversaries. The ends NEVER justify the means. I think he´s had enough computer science classes. He needs some time in morality class.

Sorry for the long response, but you did ask me what I thought.

Sincerely,
Peter

The only reason the MediaMax file is no longer hidden is because Halderman told us about the file. But to suggest it was never hidden, or that there never was an intention to hide it, is proven false by Jacobs own words.

One could even add this comment that Jacobs made in an article to further highlight the intent to hide the file:

Future versions of the SunnComm software would include ways that the copy-protecting files would change their name on different computers, making them harder to find, Jacobs said. Moreover, the company will distribute the technology along with third-party software, so that it doesn't always come off a protected CD, he added.

Because SunnComm has in the past managed to get away with publishing a press release on a deal that turned out to be ficticious, - the customer, Will-Shown Technology, didn't even exist - perhaps it believes it can get away with this as well.

Astrid Cameron

(Friday 13th January 2006)
http://p2pnet.net/story/7600








The Professional Device Hole
Thursday January 12, 2006 by Ed Felten

Any American parent with kids of a certain age knows Louis Sachar’s novel Holes, and the movie made from it. It’s set somewhere in the Texas desert, at a boot camp for troublemaking kids. The kids are forced to work all day in the scorching sun, digging holes in the rock-hard ground then re-filling them. It seems utterly pointless but the grown-ups say it builds character. Eventually we learn that the holes aren’t pointless but in fact serve the interests of a few nasty grown-ups.

Speaking of holes, and pointless exercises, last month Reps. Sensenbrenner and Conyers introduced a bill, the Digital Transition Content Security Act, also known as the Analog Hole Bill.

“Analog hole” is an artfully chosen term, referring to the fact that audio and video can be readily converted back and forth between digital and analog formats. This is just a fact about the universe, but calling it a “hole” makes it sound like a problem that might possibly be solved. The last large-scale attack on the analog hole was the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) which went down in flames in 2002 after its technology was shown to be ineffective (and after SDMI famously threatened to sue researchers for analyzing the technology).

The Analog Hole Bill would mandate that any devices that can translate certain types of video signals from analog to digital form must comply with a Byzantine set of design restrictions that talk about things like “certified digital content rights protection output technologies”. Let’s put aside for now the details of the technology design being mandated; I’ll critique them in a later post. I want to write today about the bill’s exemption for “professional devices”:

PROFESSIONAL DEVICE.—(A) The term‘‘professional device’’ means a device that is designed, manufactured, marketed, and intended for use by a person who regularly employs such a device for lawful business or industrial purposes, such as making, performing, displaying, distributing, or transmitting copies of audiovisual works on a commercial scale at the request of, or with the explicit permission of, the copyright owner.

(B) If a device is marketed to or is commonly purchased by persons other than those described in subparagraph (A), then such device shall not be considered to be a ‘‘professional device’’.

Tim Lee at Tech Liberation Front points out one problem with this exemption:

“Professional” devices, you see, are exempt from the restrictions that apply to all other audiovisual products. This raises some obvious questions: is it the responsibility of a “professional device” maker to ensure that too many “non-professionals” don’t purchase their product? If a company lowers its price too much, thereby allowing too many of the riffraff to buy it, does the company become guilty of distributing a piracy device? Perhaps the government needs to start issuing “video professional” licenses so we know who’s allowed to be part of this elite class?

I think this legislative strategy is extremely revealing. Clearly, Sensenbrenner’s Hollywood allies realized that all this copy-protection nonsense could cause problems for their own employees, who obviously need the unfettered ability to create, manipulate, and convert analog and digital content. This is quite a reasonable fear: if you require all devices to recognize and respect encoded copy-protection information, you might discover that content which you have a legitimate right to access has been locked out of reach by over-zealous hardware. But rather than taking that as a hint that there’s something wrong with the whole concept of legislatively-mandated copy-protection technology, Hollywood’s lobbyists took the easy way out: they got themselves exempted from the reach of the legislation.

In fact, the professional device hole is even better for Hollywood than Tim Lee realizes. Not only will it protect Hollywood from the downside of the bill, it will also create new barriers to entry, making it harder for amateurs to create and distribute video content — and just at the moment when technology seems to be enabling high-quality amateur video distribution.

The really interesting thing about the professional device hole is that it makes one provision of the bill utterly impossible to put into practice. For those reading along at home, I’m referring to the robustness rulemaking of section 202(1), which requires the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to establish technical requirements that (among other things) “can only with difficulty be defeated or circumvented by use of professional tools or equipment”. But there’s a small problem: professional tools are exempt from the technical requirements.

The robustness requirements, in other words, have to stop professional tools from copying content — and they have to do that, somehow, without regulating what professional tools can do. That, as they say, is a tall order.

That’s all for today, class. Here’s the homework, due next time:
(1) Table W, the most technical part of the bill, contains an error. (It’s a substantive error, not just a typo.) Explain what the error is.
(2) How would you fix the error?
(3) What can we learn from the fact that the error is still in the bill at this late date?

This entry was posted on Thursday January 12, 2006 at 6:52 am and is filed under Uncategorized, DRM, Analog Hole. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
41 Responses to “The Professional Device Hole”

1. Kevin Says:
January 12th, 2006 at 7:26 am

Hmm, did you and I spot the same error? The dog that didn’t bark in the night?
2. Phil Says:
January 12th, 2006 at 8:43 am

“Professional” equipment isn’t that hard to get. I’ve got a professional video time base corrector, used to clean up analog video (I use it when capturing video for online editing and transfer to homemade DVDs), that coincidentally happens to remove Macrovision copy protection. I’ve got a professional converter for digital audio that allows me to input cable-based SPDIF (from my home theater DVD player) and output fiber-based SPDIF (for my home theater amp), which just happens to reset or turn off SCMS copy management. The grand total for both items was well under $200 on ebay.
3. Quarthinos Says:
January 12th, 2006 at 8:50 am

As far as table W… It seems to me that automatically assuming that an “INCONSISTENT STATE” means that the media has been tampered with and should automatically be treated as protected is bad practice. I would think it’s possible that some form of hardware or software error, or just a scratch on the disc, might cause an “INCONSISTENT STATE” for media that was never copy protected.

(2) is left as an excercise for the reader.
(3) that Hollywood has tried to keep the text of this bill hidden for as long as possible to increase it’s chances of passing?
4. Anonymous Says:
January 12th, 2006 at 9:02 am

Laugh all you like, but when SunnComm releases products using the technology our parner company Mediamax Technology aquired from DarkNoise, the analog hole will be a thing of the past.

http://www.sunncomm.com/press/pressrelease.asp?prid=200402040700
5. PJ Says:
January 12th, 2006 at 9:44 am

Wow, I can’t tell if the spew about darknoise is a troll or just another clueless idiot who doesn’t understand the the so-called ‘analog hole’ is unavoidable without side effects that even the media industries don’t want. Sit back and relax, I say: the media industries have survived player pianos, cassette tapes, and home VCRs.. they’ll survive CD & DVD burners too.
6. Tim Howland Says:
January 12th, 2006 at 9:53 am

Wow, so the government is going to be involved in certifying who is and isn’t “professional”, and therefore allowed to buy “professional equipment”? Because if too many non-professionals are allowed to buy the equipment, the government will have to sanction the manufacturer…

Suddenly free speech- and publishing- only applies to people using media production tools for “lawful business and industrial purposes”? Not exactly what Jefferson and Franklin had in mind, I suspect.

Seems like even if the idiots in washington pass this bill, the odds of it surviving judicial review are pretty slim. Of course, the odds of anyone who breaks an American’s TV set getting re-elected are also pretty slim.

Anyone got a list of the members of congress who voted this moronic bill out of comittee, so we can encourage them not to proceed with their foolishness?
7. Dave Says:
January 12th, 2006 at 10:22 am

The whole bill is the “error.”
8. Chad Says:
January 12th, 2006 at 10:27 am

@Quarthinos

I think it is even more telling that table W refers to “bits” in analog data. It would be more appropriate to refer to “signal”,
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=954

 

Music labels could be in trouble over how they charge subscription services

1/13/2006 2:02:44 PM, by Eric Bangeman

I don't know whatever happened to the old brokerage firm EF Hutton, but I still remember the commercial tagline, "when EF Hutton talks, people listen." Here's an updated version: "when New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer talks, the music industry listens." Spitzer recently launched an investigation into price fixing in online music sales. As the investigation continues, some are calling (subscription required) for him to look into prices offered to the subscription services as well.

Currently, subscription services lack the popularity of the per-song download model. Whether that is because consumers don't understand the value proposition of a all-you-can-listen-to subscription model or don't like renting music is a discussion for another time. At issue here are the prices that services such as Microsoft, Yahoo, Napster, Real, and others pay to the labels in order to offer the music.

According to sources inside the music industry, each of the agreements signed with the music subscription services contain a "most favored nation" clause. MFNs guarantee a label the best possible rate from the services by forcing the likes of Napster to increase its payments should another label sign a more lucrative deal. So if Sony BMG has a deal with Yahoo that pays it 10¢ (note: all numbers are purely hypothetical) each time a song is streamed to a Yahoo! Music subscriber and the EMI Group subsequently comes to terms with Yahoo for 12¢, Sony BMG will also have its payments raised to 12¢ per song.

It is a common practice for companies to negotiate MFN agreements with their suppliers (e.g., a large corporation negotiating long-distance rates with a telecom) as well as in retail, where large chains have MFN clauses with their wholesalers. When it comes to the music business, such agreements are frowned upon.

"Seller-side MFNs are inherently price-increasing and anticompetitive," says Jonathan Potter, executive director of the Digital Media Association, a trade organization whose members include Apple, Yahoo, Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, Microsoft Corp.'s MSN, RealNetworks, Napster, Viacom Inc.'s MTV, and MusicNet Inc.

The end result is collusion on pricing, or something so close to it as to be indistinguishable. Subscription services are then forced to eat the additional costs of MFN agreements or pass them on to consumers in the form of higher prices. The US Department of Justice looked into MFN clauses and their effect on online services back in 2003 and decided not to take any action. However, the market has evolved markedly in the two-plus years since then.

Music services dislike MFN clauses, and while they resist, they are often forced to sign on the dotted line in order to get access to the labels' catalogs. One wonders whether MFNs played a role in Microsoft's struggles to create its own subscription service prior to the launch of Urge.

Regardless of your feelings about music subscription services, this is a story worth keeping an eye on. Record labels haven proven themselves to be avaricious when it comes to selling and licensing their content, and they've been busted for it. Given Eliot Spitzer's history as an entertainment industry watchdog, the labels' greed may land them in another pot of anticompetitive hot water.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060113-5978.html

 

MPAA site offline

p2p news / p2pnet: Has the MPAA fallen into a black hole?

We just surfed over to the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) media site at http://www.mpaa.org/MPAAPress/index.htm to check out the latest PR drivel and got:

The page cannot be found
The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.

So we went to http://www.mpaa.org/MPAAPress/ and saw, "The page cannot be found".

http://www.mpaa.org was next and, Bad Request (Invalid Header Name)

Interesting …….

(Friday 13th January 2006)
http://p2pnet.net/story/7604

 

MPAA Taiwan bust

p2p news / p2pnet: Expect soon to see mainstream media reports saying MPAA clone the MPA has busted a movie pirate in Taiwan who was burning more than 1,500,000 CDs a year, pulling in over $8,330,000 annually.

Hollywood's Foundation for the Protection of Film and Video Works (FVWP) representing the Motion Picture Association (MPA), the overseas version of the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), "joined Taiwan’s IPR Police Task Force in a raid on a pirate optical disc manufacturing and distribution facility in Hsinchu City, seizing a total of 101 DVDR and CD-R burners and arresting a 32-year-old man on suspicion of infringing Taiwan’s Copyright Law," says the MPAA.

Last summer the MPAA's Keystone Kops raided what they said was an illicit disc-burning operation nearer to home – in Los Angeles, in fact. Helped this time by the Southern California High Tech Task Force, the MPAA ‘raided’ New Century Media, a legal LA duplicating business. Afterwards, it claimed it had seized “$30 million in illegal stampers and DVDs".

However, the $30 million figure was pure Hollywood fiction, no ‘pirate’ product was seized and, "False allegations" have "slandered our name and reputation and damaged the business that my husband and I spent 14 years to build," said company owner Jennifer Yu.

The MPAA dreamed up the figures by estimating the value of the DVDs seized, and the value of DVDs that might have been produced using the equipment".

In the Taiwan exercise, "The seized burners were capable of producing as many as 1,706,400 pirated DVD-Rs and 1,584,000 CD-Rs in one year, yielding revenues of $8,332,017, assuming the burners were in operation ten-hours-a-day, seven-days-per-week," said the MPAA.

Where would the MPAA be without "estimated" or "suspected" or "capable of" or "as many as" or "assuming"?

Also See:
illicit disc-burning operation - MPAA kops in another 'raid', June 25 12, 2005
Hollywood fiction - IFPI 'ravaged by pirates' report, June 24, 2005

(Friday 13th January 2006)
[ POST A COMMENT TO THIS STORY ]
http://p2pnet.net/story/7605

 

This thread is getting better than the AD Newsletter for info. I am really getting in the know about current news. Keep it going, I am enjoying it very much

 

OVER 100 FACTS ON DVD FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

HUNDREDS MORE QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.
http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html



DVD Frequently Asked Questions (and Answers)

This is the May 26, 2004 revision of the official Internet DVD FAQ for the rec.video.dvd Usenet newsgroups.
(See below for what's new.) Send corrections, additions, and new questions to Jim Taylor <jtfrog@usa.net>.

This FAQ is updated at least once a month. If you are looking at a version more than a month old, it's an out-of-date copy. The most current version is at DVD Demystified.

http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html

EXAMPLES ANSWERS

# [0] Where can I get the DVD FAQ?

* [0.1] Has the DVD FAQ been translated into other languages?
* [0.2] This FAQ is too long and technical. Is there a simpler version?
* [0.3] Is this FAQ any good? Who wrote it? How do I know it's accurate?
* [0.4] How big is this thing?

# [1] General DVD

* [1.1] What is DVD?
* [1.2] What are the features of DVD-Video?
* [1.3] What's the quality of DVD-Video?
* [1.4] What are the disadvantages of DVD?
* [1.5] What DVD players and drives are available?
o [1.5.1] Which player should I buy?
* [1.6] What DVD titles are available?
o [1.6.1] Where can I read reviews of DVDs?
o [1.6.2] How do I find out when a movie or TV show will be available on DVD?
o [1.6.3] Why isn't my favorite movie on DVD?
o [1.6.4] How can I find DVDs with specific features or characteristics?
o [1.6.5] Why do some rental stores and retailers not carry widescreen DVDs?
* [1.7] How much do players and drives cost?
* [1.8] How much do discs cost?
* [1.9] How is DVD doing? Where can I get statistics?
* [1.10] What are "regional codes," "country codes," or "zone locks"?
* [1.11] What are the copy protection issues?
* [1.12] What about DVD-Audio or Music DVD?
* [1.13] Which studios support DVD?
* [1.14] Can DVD record from TV/VCR/etc?
* [1.15] What happens if I scratch the disc? Aren't discs too fragile to be rented?
* [1.16] VHS is good enough, why should I care about DVD?
* [1.17] Is the packaging different from CD?
* [1.18] What's a dual-layer disc? Will it work in all players?
* [1.19] Is DVD-Video a worldwide standard? Does it work with NTSC, PAL, and SECAM?
* [1.20] What about animation on DVD? Doesn't it compress poorly?
* [1.21] Why do some discs require side flipping? Can't DVDs hold four hours per side?
* [1.22] Why is the picture squished, making things look too skinny?
* [1.23] Do all videos use Dolby Digital (AC-3)? Do they all have 5.1 channels?
* [1.24] Can DVDs have "laser rot"?
* [1.25] Which titles are pan & scan only? Why?
* [1.26] How do I make the subtitles on my Pioneer player go away?
* [1.27] Why does playback sometimes freeze for a second?
* [1.28] The disc says Dolby Digital. Why do I get 2-channel surround audio?
* [1.29] Why doesn't the repeat A-B feature work on some discs?
* [1.30] What's the difference between first, second, and third generation DVD?
* [1.31] What's a hybrid DVD?
* [1.32] What's the deal with DTS and DVD?
* [1.33] Why is the picture black and white?
* [1.34] Why are both sides fullscreen when one side is supposed to be widescreen?
* [1.35] Why are the audio and video out of sync?
* [1.36] Why does the picture alternate between light and dark?
* [1.37] How do I find "Easter eggs" and other hidden features?
* [1.38] How do I get rid of the black bars at the top and bottom?
* [1.39] How should I clean and care for DVDs?
* [1.40] What's a progressive DVD player?
* [1.41] Why doesn't disc X work in player Y?
* [1.42] How do the parental control and multi-ratings features work?
* [1.43] Which discs include multiple camera angles?
* [1.44] Is it ok to put labels or magnetic strips on DVDs?
* [1.45] What's the difference between Closed Captions and subtitles?
* [1.46] What do the "D" codes on region 2 DVDs mean?
* [1.47] What's firmware and why would I need to upgrade it?
* [1.48] Are there discs to help me test, optimize, or show off my audio/video system?
* [1.49] What do Sensormatic and Checkpoint mean?
* [1.50] What are Superbit, Infinifilm, and other variations of DVD?
* [1.51] I don't know the parental control password for my player. What do I do?
* [1.52] Can my DVD player get a virus?

go here to get all the info
http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html

 

GO HERE TO LEARN HOW TO INSTALL A DVD WRITER OR A CD BURNER

Install CD Burner, Installing a CD Writer or DVD player/burner
http://www.helpwithpcs.com/upgrading/installing_cd_recorder.htm

To install your cd burner you will need:

* Compatible CD Recorder or DVD drive (IDE).
* 4 securing screws (supplied with your CD Recorder / DVD Writer).
* Cross-point (Philips) Screwdriver suitable for your PC case.
* IDE Cable (if required).
* Anti-Static Wrist-strap (if available).

Disconnect the power and remove your PC's cover, see our guide.
The first step (after removing the case covers) is to remove the &quot;blank&quot; plastic front from the position in which you want to install the cd writer (fig 1.1), if you have a CD-ROM drive installed then if possible leave a gap in-between the CD-ROM and the CD-WRITER, this will enable a sufficient amount of air to flow between the two drives.

If you have trouble removing the &quot;blank&quot; you can use a flat ended screwdriver to ease the blank out, taking care not to damage the case.



rive will be in the IDE configuration, some CD Writers work best when they are the master, others work fine regardless, always consult the manufacturers instructions that came with your CD Writer.

There are 3 options, Cable Select, Slave, and Master.

Selection is done by means of a jumper, the option you choose will depend on your system set-up.

* Master should be selected if this will be the only device on a single IDE cable, or, if it is the second device to be connected and the other device is set to slave.
* Slave should be selected if this will be the second device on a singe IDE cable, for instance, if you do not already have a CD-ROM drive then you could attach the new device to the same IDE cable as your hard drive (where your hard drive will be the master).
* Cable Select should be selected only when the devices are to be attached as the cable depicts, ie, the first connector (working away from the motherboard) is the slave and the last connector is the master device.

In fig 1.3 to the right you can see a standard IDE Cable, note there are 3 connections (notice the difference in distance between the connectors), connection A plugs into the motherboard and then the slave and master connections are used for IDE devices such as hard drives, CD-ROM Drives and CD Writers.

If you need to attach a second IDE cable refer to your motherboard's manual.

Connecting the cables

The next step is to attach the IDE and power cables (fig 1.6)

The power cable (fig 1.7)

will only fit one way, so you won't put it in the wrong way round, but as a guide the red wire should go to 5v.

The IDE cable will be marked down one side with a red or black strip, this denotes Pin 1, match this with the Pin 1 indicator on the back of the device, further, some IDE cables have a blank in one hole to stop you inserting it in incorrectly.

If you would like to attach an audio cable to the device follow the manufacturer's instructions.

Finishing the Installation

Double check all connections and make sure the device is set correctly as master or slave.

You may wish to test the device is correctly installed before replacing the covers, but it is advisable to replace the covers before reconnecting the mains.

When you reboot your machine the bios should automatically detect the new drive, and then when you get to the windows screen, go to My Computer and you should see your new drive there. The letter assigned to the drive will depend on your machine's configuration.

Next follow the manufacturer's instructions to install your CD Writer software, we will shortly be publishing a course for Nero® burning software which you will find in the courses section.

 

he Dark Side of Symantec

symantecThe Genesis song “Jesus he knows me” has the line “Just do as I say, don’t do as I do” about a priest that does everything for money except what he’s suppose to… Well it seems that Symantec is like that priest. It seems that they created an hidden directory in Windows that nothing can find it.

They hidden the folder by using Norton Protected Recycle Bin to a folder named NProtect. Now on that folder they placed files that they did not want others to delete. Or in other words: They created a rootkit. SecuriTeam Blogs » The Dark Side of Symantec

the story
The Dark Side of Symantec
Ido - January 12, 2006 on 3:21 pm | In Privacy, Full Disclosure, Virus |

The Genesis song “Jesus he knows me” has the line “Just do as I say, don’t do as I do” about a priest that does everything for money except what he’s suppose to…

Well it seems that Symantec is like that priest. It seems that they created an hidden directory in Windows that nothing can find it.

They hidden the folder by using Norton Protected Recycle Bin to a folder named NProtect.

Now on that folder they placed files that they did not want others to delete. Or in other words: They created a rootkit.

The person that discovered this rootkit is Mark Rosonovitch that also found the Sony rootkit.

And if you really want to remove it (why should you? don’t we want to have rootkits on our system?!), Symantec released a “fix” for this vulnerability.

Now I have an open suggestion for law enforcement and legislators out there: Please define such acts like Sony’s and Symantec as a crime and fine Sony and Symantec for it.


http://blogs.securiteam.com/index.php/archives/206

 

QuickTime patch hits trouble

qtA security update to Apple Computer's popular QuickTime media player software is being blamed for causing problems for some Mac OS X and Windows users.

People have reported a variety of glitches on discussion boards on Apple's Web site. Mac OS X users appear to be having the most trouble, including deleted applications and files, unplayable movie files and the disappearance rights to use the professional version of QuickTime, according to postings on Apple's support forum. QuickTime patch hits trouble | Tech News on ZDNet


QuickTime patch hits trouble
By Joris Evers, CNET News.com

A security update to Apple Computer's popular QuickTime media player software is being blamed for causing problems for some Mac OS X and Windows users.

People have reported a variety of glitches on discussion boards on Apple's Web site. Mac OS X users appear to be having the most trouble, including deleted applications and files, unplayable movie files and the disappearance rights to use the professional version of QuickTime, according to postings on Apple's support forum.

Apple released the update, QuickTime 7.0.4, on Tuesday to fix a handful of serious security vulnerabilities. The flaws put computers running Microsoft's Windows and Apple's Mac OS X operating systems at risk of being commandeered by an outsider. An attacker could exploit the flaws by tricking the user into opening a malicious file, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company said.

But Apple's patch apparently has bugs of its own. One user, "Erik Nanstiel," wrote on an Apple forum: "I'm having lots and lots of problems after upgrading to the latest QuickTime. Now I'm contemplating reinstalling my entire system just to get rid of the cursed upgrade."

A woman who said she is a film director wrote that she uses Final Cut Pro and lost all the QuickTime Pro features after installing the update. "Anyone with any clue on how to regain my pro features in QuickTime without buying Steve Jobs another turtleneck?" she asked in the support forum.

Some who installed the new version of QuickTime on Windows PCs say the media player is having trouble connecting to the Internet after installing the update. Other Windows users report not being able to download the software at all when they use the update feature in QuickTime itself.

Apple has published a tool for Mac OS X users that removes the suspected culprit, QuickTime 7.0.4, and restores QuickTime 7.0.1, according to the Mac maker's Web site. People in the forums also report that QuickTime 7.0.4 was pulled from Apple's Web site for some time and then reposted.

An Apple representative was unable to respond to a request for comment.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6026745.html?part=rss&\1tag=feed&\1subj=zdnn

 

Microsoft Extends XP Home Support To 2008

windowsMicrosoft has quietly extended the support lifespan of Windows XP Home, which as recently as last week was scheduled to be put out to pasture at the end of this year.

Analysts had pointed out that XP Home, and most other XP operating systems, would be cut off from technical support on Dec. 31, 2006, a potential problem since XP's successor, Windows Vista, isn't to release until shortly before that date

In a blog written last Wednesday, JupiterResearch analyst Joe Wilcox put the blame at Windows Vista's door. "It's more a problem of product delays, that Microsoft repeatedly delayed release of Windows Vista," he wrote. TechWeb | News | Microsoft Extends XP Home Support To '08

Microsoft Extends XP Home Support To '08

By Gregg Keizer, TechWeb News

Microsoft has quietly extended the support lifespan of Windows XP Home, which as recently as last week was scheduled to be put out to pasture at the end of this year.

Analysts had pointed out that XP Home, and most other XP operating systems, would be cut off from technical support on Dec. 31, 2006, a potential problem since XP's successor, Windows Vista, isn't to release until shortly before that date

In a blog written last Wednesday, JupiterResearch analyst Joe Wilcox put the blame at Windows Vista's door. "It's more a problem of product delays, that Microsoft repeatedly delayed release of Windows Vista," he wrote.

In an updated support lifecycle listing, Microsoft said that all Windows XP products--which include Home, Pro, Embedded, Media Center, and Tablet PC--will enjoy mainstream support for "two years after the next version of this product is released."

Assuming Vista releases in November of this year, XP's mainstream support will end November, 2008.
http://www.techweb.com/wire/software/175803888

 

I stumbled on a post about a member’s very first post here on aD and thought that was something I should look up as well. I forgot what mine was about until I found it, great to see one's very first post. Here’s the thread and it looks like [bold]ireland[/bold] was part of it as well. Some of the names that are in it haven't been around in a while... Boy does that bring back memories!

http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/6/136566

 

GAME OF CHICKEN



This is an actual radio conversation released by the Chief of Naval Operations, 10-10-95, MSG#H0000115020ecb52EMHS:

#1: "Please divert your course 15 degrees to the north to avoid a collision."

#2: "Recommend that you change YOUR course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision."

#1: "This is the captain of a U.S. navy ship. I say again divert YOUR course."

#2: "No, I say again divert YOUR course."

#1: "This is the aircraft carrier Enterprise, we are a large warship of the U.S. navy. Divert your course NOW!"

#2: "This is a lighthouse. Your call."

 

TODAY IS FRIDAY THE 13th

Friday the 13th is a day fraught with peril.

Origins: Although most of us would probably affirm that superstition's role in Western culture is now a much diminished one, more a source of amusement than anything else, there are still those who allow their trepidation over particular days or dates to prevent them from engaging in their choice of activities. We may make jokes about Friday the 13th and only kiddingly instruct loved ones to exercise greater care on that day, but those who suffer from a fear of the number thirteen (triskaidekaphobia) or a fear of Friday the 13th (paraskevidekatriaphobia) may genuinely feel limited by the rumored potential for ill luck connected with the date.

The reasons why Friday came to be regarded as a day of bad luck have been obscured by the mists of time — some of the more common theories link it to a significant event in Christian tradition said to have taken place on Friday, such as the Crucifixion, Eve's offering the apple to Adam in the Garden of Eden, the beginning of the Great Flood, or the confusion at the Tower of Babel. Chaucer alluded to Friday as a day on which bad things seemed to happen in the Canterbury Tales as far back as the late 14th century ("And on a Friday fell all this mischance"), but references to Friday as a day connected with ill luck generally start to show up in Western literature around the mid-17th century:

* "Now Friday came, you old wives say, Of all the week's the unluckiest day." (1656)

From the early 19th century onward, examples abound of Friday's being considered a bad day for all sorts of ordinary tasks, from writing letters to conducting business and receiving medical treatment:

* "I knew another poor woman, who lost half her time in waiting for lucky days, and made it a rule never to . . . write a letter on business . . . on a Friday — so her business was never done, and her fortune suffered accordingly." (1804)

* "There are still a few respectable tradesmen and merchants who will not transact business, or be bled, or take physic, on a Friday, because it is an unlucky day." (1831)

Friday was also said to be a particularly unlucky day on which to undertake anything that represented a beginning or the start of a new venture, thus we find references to all of the following activities as endeavors best avoided on Fridays:

* Needleworking: "I knew an old lady who, if she had nearly completed a piece of needlework on a Thursday, would put it aside unfinished, and set a few stitches in her next undertaking, that she might not be obliged either to begin the new task on Friday or to remain idle for a day." (1883)

* Harvesting: "My father once decided to start harvest on a Friday, and men went out on the Thursday evening, and, unpaid, cut along one side of the first field with their scythes, in order to dodge the malign fates which a Friday start would begin." (1933)

* Laying the keel of, or launching, a ship: "Fisherman would have great misgivings about laying the keel of a new boat on Friday, as well as launching one on that day." (1885)

* Beginning a sea voyage: "Sailors are many of them superstitious . . . A voyage begun [on a Friday] is sure to be an unfortunate one." (1823)

* Beginning a journey: "I knew another poor woman, who . . . made it a rule never to . . . set out on a journey on a Friday." (1804)

* Giving birth: "A child born on a Friday is doomed to misfortune." (1846)

* Getting married: "As to Friday, a couple married on that day are doomed to a cat-and-dog life." (1879)

* Recovering from illness: "If you have been ill, don't get up for the first time on a Friday." (1923)

* Hearing news: "If you hear anything new on a Friday, it gives you another wrinkle on your face, and adds a year to your age." (1883)

* Moving: "Don't move on a Friday, or you won't stay there very long." (1982)

* Starting a new job: "Servants who go into their situations on Friday, never go to stay." (1923)

In some cases, Good Friday (the Friday before Easter) was regarded as an exception or 'antidote' to the bad luck usually associated with Friday beginnings:

* "Notwithstanding the prejudice against sailing on a Friday . . . most of the pleasure-boats . . . make their first voyage for the season on Good Friday." (1857)

* "It was accounted unlucky for a child to be born on a Friday, unless it happened to be Good Friday, when the event was counterbalanced by the sanctity of the day." (1870)

The origins of the connection between the number thirteen and ill fortune are similarly obscure. Many different sources for the superstition surrounding the number thirteen have been posited, the most common stemming from another Christian source, the Last Supper, at which Judas Iscariot was said to have been the thirteenth guest to sit at the table. (Judas later betrayed Jesus, leading to His crucifixion, and then took his own life.) This Christian symbolism is reflected in early Western references to thirteen as an omen of bad fortune, which generally started to appear in the early 18th century and warned that thirteen people sitting down to a meal together presaged that one of them would die within the year:

* "I have known, and now know, persons in genteel life who did, and do, not sit down to table unmoved with twelve others. Our notion is that one of the thirteen so partaking, will die ere the expiry of the year." (1823)

* "The old story runs, that the last individual of the thirteen who takes a seat has the greatest chance of being the 'doomed one'." (1839)

Superstition held that the victim would be the first person to rise from the table (or the last one to be seated), leading to the remedies of having all guests sit and stand at the same time, or seating one or more guests at a separate table:

* " . . . Miss Mellon always gave the last comer an equal chance with the rest for life . . . she used to rise and say, 'I will not have any friend of mine sit down as the thirteenth; you must all rise, and we will then sit down again together.'" (1839)

* "Every one knows that to sit down thirteen at a table is a most unlucky omen, sure to be followed by the death of one of the party within the year . . . Some say, however, that the evil will only befall the first who leaves the table, and may be averted if the whole company are careful to rise from their seats at the same moment." (1883)

* " . . . so far is this feeling carried that one of the thirteen is requested to dine at a side table!" (1823)

(The "thirteen at the table" form of superstition again harkens back to the Last Supper: the one who left the table first, Judas Iscariot, died at his own hand soon afterwards.)

More generally, groups of thirteen people in any context — at a table, in a room, on a ship — were believed to inevitably lead to tragedy:

* "On a sudden an old woman unluckily observed there were thirteen of us in company. This remark struck a panic terror into several who were present . . . but a friend of mine, taking notice that one of our female companions was big with child, affirmed there were fourteen in the room . . ." (1711)

* "Notwithstanding . . . opinions in favour of odd numbers, the number thirteen is considered as extremely ominous; it being held that, when thirteen persons meet in a room, one of them will die within the year." (1787)

* "Many will not sail on a vessel when [thirteen] is the number of persons on board; and it is believed that some fatal accident must befall one of them." (1808)

By the late 19th century the superstition surrounding thirteen had become even more general, with people going out of their ways to avoid anything designated by the number thirteen, whether it be hotel rooms, desks, or cars:

* "'Look at that,' said Parnell, pointing to the number on his door. It was No. 13! 'What a room to give me!'" (1893)

* "For some time before the late War I went almost daily to the British Museum reading room . . . I gave some attention to the desks left to the last comers . . . there was a very marked preference of any other desk to that numbered '13'." (1927)

* "The mechanic helped him get out [of the racing car]. 'May as well scratch,' he said. 'He won't be good for anything more this afternoon. It's asking for trouble having a No. 13.'" (1930)

Once again these ill omens were avoided through artifice, such as the renumbering of rooms in hotels and inns to eliminate any Room #13's, and misnumbering the floors above the 12th floor in multi-story buildings so that tenants could pretend 13th floors were really 14th floors.

Just as Friday was considered an inauspicious day of the week on which to embark upon a new enterprise, so the 13th day of a month came to signify a particularly bad day for beginning a venture. Although regarding the confluence of a particularly unlucky day of the week (Friday) and a particularly unlucky day of the month (the 13th) as a date of supreme unluckiness might seem to be obvious and inevitable, superstitions regarding Friday the 13th are not nearly as old as most people tend to think. The belief in Friday the 13th as a day on which Murphy's Law reigns supreme and anything that can go wrong will go wrong appears to be largely a 20th century phenomenon. (The claim that the Friday the 13th superstition began with the arrest of the final Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Jacques Demolay, on Friday, October 13, 1307, is a modern-day invention.)

Books of English folklore generally cite a 1913 Notes & Queries reference as the earliest known expression of Friday the 13th as a day of evil luck, and this corresponds to what we found when we searched The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times for similar references. In both newspapers the first mentions of the ill-fated date occured in 1908, as in this short piece about a U.S. senator from Oklahoma who dared to tempt fate by introducing 13 bills on Friday the 13th:

 

iTunes MiniStore spyware

p2p news / p2pnet: A new item in Apple's latest iTunes upgrade is worrying a lot of people.

Sony BMG tried to sneak rootkit Digital Restriction Management applications hidden on music CDs onto customer's computers and is still paying dearly for it.

Now, iTunes 6.0.2 includes a new application author, bloggist and Apple fan Kirk McElhearn has described as "invasive" and which others have labelled "spyware".

The new iTunes 'MiniStore' apparently tracks the songs you're playing and, "makes music download recommendations whenever people click on songs stored on their own computers, even those not purchased through iTunes," says the San Jose Mercury News.

Apple? Spyware? Could it be true? And, If it is, How could Apple stoop so low? - are probably the two dominant questions.

On the first, it certainly looks as if there is, at the least, an application which reports back on what iTunes users are doing.

And as to the second, a company capable of using teenaged RIAA victims in a blackly cynical iPod promo, and which can sue Apple-friendly journalists for doing what journalists do, dig for information and then report it, is certainly capable of surreptitious data mining.

Included in the iTunes 6.0.2 update is the MiniStore which critics say, "tracks a person's listening behavior with a unique identification number, and does so without notifying consumers," says the story.

"What bothers me most is the fact that Apple generally doesn't do this sort of thing,'' it has McElhearn, who's published several books on Macintosh computers, saying. "It's kind of a letdown. Someone said, 'It's as if someone breaks into your house and makes a list of the books you have'."

The monitoring program can be turned off and Apple says it doesn't save or store information used to create recommendations for the MiniStore, but, "The problem isn't so much the data gathering, but that Apple didn't spell out what it was doing and why, the Mercury News quotes Institute for the Future researcher Alex Soojung-Kim Pang as saying.

"Certainly, the basic principle that information about us can be put to good use for us is something people buy into,'' Pang said. "The problem is, Apple didn't tell anyone.''

The MiniStore spyware issue has, "raised eyebrows particularly high in the community of Apple computer users, though the new feature is also included in the Windows-based iTunes," says CNET News. "Macintosh users have typically not been exposed to many of the advertising-supported or adware programs that are common in the Windows world, and which routinely raise privacy concerns through poorly disclosed data exchanges.

"Indeed, in 1999, RealNetworks was sued for releasing a version of its RealJukebox that included a 'Global Unique Identifying Number,' which identified a listener's specific copy of the player without initially disclosing this feature in a privacy policy. RealNetworks said it had added the identifying feature as a way to 'offer valuable personalized services' but later removed it after lawsuits and customer criticism ensued."

Some bloggers and online sources have dismissed the exposure of the data transfer software as a, "typical feature of music-playing software," says CNET, adding:

"However, some bloggers are calling for a more specific disclosure of exactly what data the iTunes software is sending back to Apple - and what it is being used for."

Stay tuned.
http://p2pnet.net/story/7608

from cdfreaks


EFF warns about iTunes 6.0.2 'calling home' with usage data
Posted by Seán Byrne on 14 January 2006 - 02:03 - Source: ConsumerAffairs.com - News

Apple recently launched iTunes 6.0.2, what appears like a minor version update of iTunes 6.0.1. However, besides their announced stability and performance improvements, the new version actually includes an iTunes MiniStore, which monitors the user's listening habits and recommends music and artists based on this gathered data. Unfortunately, Apple has not made it clear that this update also sends song listening information back to Apple. While they claim that they are not collecting data, Sony's infamous XCP already caused privacy concerns over its ability to 'phone home'.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has said that it is happy if software would need the user to voluntarily upload listening information in order to collect listening data. However Apple's MiniStore is activated automatically by default without any notice and must be manually turned off. Worse still, even though Apple may not collect data itself, they have not clearly stated any measures to prevent data sent back from being disclosed/leaked to 3rd parties. Until Apple clearly mentions how its handles its MiniStore data, the EFF recommend that users turn off the MiniStore, such as by going into the 'Edit' menu and selecting 'Hide MniStore'.

At this week's MacWorld expo, Apple proudly unveiled version 6.0.2 of iTunes, which it simply claimed "includes stability and performance improvements over iTunes 6.0.1."

Among these supposed improvements is the Apple iTunes MiniStore -- a localized "recommendation" engine that looks at what you listen to and then suggests additional songs and artists you might like. The MiniStore arrives turned on by default without asking a user's permission first.

What Apple didn't point out in all its hoopla over the new version is that the MiniStore not only makes recommendations but also automatically transmits your listening information over the Internet back to the Apple Mothership.

After all the problems Sony BMG’s XCP has caused between how it enforces its copy protection to privacy concerns over sending data back to Sony BMG, it seems quite unusual for Apple to risk privacy issues by sending back data on listening habits just to try to lure some extra sales, at least without getting the user to agree to enable the new feature.

Originally DRM was suppose to just prevent consumers from making unlimited/unauthorised copies of their content. Now, it seems like companies are abusing it in every way they can, including locking content to certain equipment and players, restricting usage and now more often recently, help spy on the consumer's listening habits.

Feel free to discuss about iTunes and other online music stores on our Music Download, Peer to Peer (P2P) & Legal Issues.
http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/12944

 

The Analog Hole

p2p news view / p2pnet: The entertainment industry says there's a thing called the Analog Hole through which millions of people around the world - their erstwhile customers - would rob them blind, only given half a chance. Every man, woman and child with a computer and online account is, after all, a potential thief, say the music and movie cartels.

The Analog Hole is, "the practice of converting analog content into digital format without embedded copy-protection instructions," said Tech Daily's Sarah Lai Stirland recently, and Hollywood is, "concerned about the potential for mass online redistribution of entertainment programming via the hole".

And it must be real. How else would the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) have been able to stage (and we use the word advisedly) a demonstration?

Enter the Analog Hole law, "the first of the MPAA/RIAA's Horror Triple Feature to be introduced into Congress," as the EFF's (Electronic Frontier Foundation) Danny O'Brien describes it. "The others are the Broadcast Flag and technology mandate for digital radio."

Professor Ed Felten (right) thinks the Analog Hole may, however, be useful as a teaching aid >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The Professional Device Hole
By Ed Felten - Freeedom to Tinker

Any American parent with kids of a certain age knows Louis Sachar’s novel Holes, and the movie made from it. It’s set somewhere in the Texas desert, at a boot camp for troublemaking kids. The kids are forced to work all day in the scorching sun, digging holes in the rock-hard ground then re-filling them. It seems utterly pointless but the grown-ups say it builds character. Eventually we learn that the holes aren’t pointless but in fact serve the interests of a few nasty grown-ups.

Speaking of holes, and pointless exercises, last month Reps. Sensenbrenner and Conyers introduced a bill, the Digital Transition Content Security Act, also known as the Analog Hole Bill."

"Analog hole" is an artfully chosen term, referring to the fact that audio and video can be readily converted back and forth between digital and analog formats. This is just a fact about the universe, but calling it a “hole” makes it sound like a problem that might possibly be solved. The last large-scale attack on the analog hole was the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) which went down in flames in 2002 after its technology was shown to be ineffective (and after SDMI famously threatened to sue researchers for analyzing the technology).

The Analog Hole Bill would mandate that any devices that can translate certain types of video signals from analog to digital form must comply with a Byzantine set of design restrictions that talk about things like “certified digital content rights protection output technologies”. Let’s put aside for now the details of the technology design being mandated; I’ll critique them in a later post. I want to write today about the bill’s exemption for “professional devices”:

PROFESSIONAL DEVICE.—(A) The term‘‘professional device’’ means a device that is designed, manufactured, marketed, and intended for use by a person who regularly employs such a device for lawful business or industrial purposes, such as making, performing, displaying, distributing, or transmitting copies of audiovisual works on a commercial scale at the request of, or with the explicit permission of, the copyright owner.

(B) If a device is marketed to or is commonly purchased by persons other than those described in subparagraph (A), then such device shall not be considered to be a ‘‘professional device’’.

Tim Lee at Tech Liberation Front points out one problem with this exemption:

“Professional” devices, you see, are exempt from the restrictions that apply to all other audiovisual products. This raises some obvious questions: is it the responsibility of a “professional device” maker to ensure that too many “non-professionals” don’t purchase their product? If a company lowers its price too much, thereby allowing too many of the riffraff to buy it, does the company become guilty of distributing a piracy device? Perhaps the government needs to start issuing “video professional” licenses so we know who’s allowed to be part of this elite class?

I think this legislative strategy is extremely revealing. Clearly, Sensenbrenner’s Hollywood allies realized that all this copy-protection nonsense could cause problems for their own employees, who obviously need the unfettered ability to create, manipulate, and convert analog and digital content. This is quite a reasonable fear: if you require all devices to recognize and respect encoded copy-protection information, you might discover that content which you have a legitimate right to access has been locked out of reach by over-zealous hardware. But rather than taking that as a hint that there’s something wrong with the whole concept of legislatively-mandated copy-protection technology, Hollywood’s lobbyists took the easy way out: they got themselves exempted from the reach of the legislation.

In fact, the professional device hole is even better for Hollywood than Tim Lee realizes. Not only will it protect Hollywood from the downside of the bill, it will also create new barriers to entry, making it harder for amateurs to create and distribute video content — and just at the moment when technology seems to be enabling high-quality amateur video distribution.

The really interesting thing about the professional device hole is that it makes one provision of the bill utterly impossible to put into practice. For those reading along at home, I’m referring to the robustness rulemaking of section 202(1), which requires the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to establish technical requirements that (among other things) “can only with difficulty be defeated or circumvented by use of professional tools or equipment”. But there’s a small problem: professional tools are exempt from the technical requirements.

The robustness requirements, in other words, have to stop professional tools from copying content — and they have to do that, somehow, without regulating what professional tools can do. That, as they say, is a tall order.

That’s all for today, class. Here’s the homework, due next time:

(1) Table W, the most technical part of the bill, contains an error. (It’s a substantive error, not just a typo.) Explain what the error is.

(2) How would you fix the error?

(3) What can we learn from the fact that the error is still in the bill at this late date?

Also See:BELOW
demonstration - MPAA demos Analog Hole, January 6, 2005
describes it - The Analog Hole bill, December 18, 2005

(Saturday 14th January 2006)
http://p2pnet.net/story/7610


MPAA demos Analog Hole

p2p news / p2pnet: "When there's an issue called the analog hole and the MPAA is offering live demos of said hole in its Sin City hotel room (at CES), what's a blog writer to do?"

Indeed. But that was the predicament The 463: Inside Tech Policy found itself in.

It quotes Tech Daily's Sarah Lai Stirland as highlighting an MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) effort to, "convince media and Congressional staffers enjoying the new Comdex in Las Vegas" that the famed analog hole is, "the practice of converting analog content into digital format without embedded copy-protection instructions".

Hollywood studios are, "concerned about the potential for mass online redistribution of entertainment programming via the hole," says Stirland.

And, observes 463, "when Hollywood studios are concerned, presto, legislation appears. House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner and the committee's top Democrat, John Conyers, have introduced a bill (H.R. 4569), that would put locks on analog conversion devices.

"As the LA Times editorialized last week, the problem with the legislation is that, 'it would give Hollywood unprecedented control over what people do with the programs that come into their homes. Studios could force TiVos and other digital recorders to erase pay-per-view or on-demand movies stored for more than 90 minutes. New computers could be prevented from showing copyprotected programs, such as a movie downloaded from an online store, in high definition'."

The editorial from, "Hollywood's home town daily paper" concludes, "In the meantime, if the goal is to deter illegal copying, Hollywood should work harder to help viewers watch what they want when they want to. And Congress should understand that piracy cannot be curbed simply by giving Hollywood more control."

The Analog Hole law is, "just the first of the MPAA/RIAA's Horror Triple Feature to be introduced into Congress," said the EFF's (Electronic Frontier Foundation) Danny O'Brien recently.

"The others are the Broadcast Flag and technology mandate for digital radio. Perhaps they think that Congress will 'compromise' by passing one of the three. Or perhaps they're hoping for a troika of victories in 2006 in their endless campaign against their own customers."
http://p2pnet.net/story/7610

The Analog Hole bill ----

p2p news / p2pnet: F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr, is well known both for his position as the house judiciary committee chairman, and as an enthusiastic supporter of the entertainment industry cartels.

In March last year, the Webcaster Alliance thought the at the time latest CARP (Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel) proposal looked like "another classic case" of Sensenbrenner, "abusing his power for the benefit of the Recording Industry".

The Alliance also had, "serious questions about the RIAA-[Recording Industry Association of America]-financed $18,000 trip Chairman Sensenbrenner took to Thailand and Taiwan in January 2003" and thought, "there needs to be an investigation into that."

The RIAA is owned by the Big Four Organized Music cartel, Sony BMG, Vivendi Universal, EMI and Warner Music.

And together with messrs John Conyers, Jr, and Lamar Smith, (chairman of house judiciary committee's subcommittee on courts, the internet, and intellectual property) he worked hard against the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act (DMCRA, HR 107).

Smith, too, is an entertainment industry enthusiast >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

A Lump of Coal for Consumers: Analog Hole Bill Introduced
By Danny O'Brien - Deep Links (EFF, Electronic Frontier Foundation)

While the Senate was standing up for civil liberties, the House was handing out a Christmas gift to Hollywood. For digital consumers and innovators, however, it looks to be a nasty stocking-filler.

Representatives Sensenbrenner and Conyers have introduced H.R. 4569, the "Digital Transition Content Security Act of 2005," a.k.a. the return of the MPAA's "Plugging the Analog Hole" scheme, which is itself just a variant on the dreaded "Hollings Bill" introduced back in 2002.

The new bill is a rehash of the one we first mentioned on Halloween. It would impose strict legal controls on any video analog to digital (A/D) convertors "manufacture[d], imported or otherwise traffic[ed]" in the United States.

Digitizers and digital media devices that won't jump through the specified outrageous regulatory hoops - automatically deleting protected analog content after ninety minutes; outputting only "down-rezzed" images, and satisfying "robustness criteria" that weld the hood shut against user modification and open source developers - are expected to simply turn off and refuse to convert watermark-protected analog video.

And how is this analog video protected? Using an old broadcast-flag like technology called CGMS-A and a new watermarking system called VEIL.

Mandating the VEIL watermark on all video A/D devices is particularly remarkable, as VEIL has had no independent testing as a copy protection technology. In fact, VEIL's main use until now has been in a series of Warner-licensed Bat-Toys!

Yet, if H.R. 4569 becomes law, technology companies would be bound by law to support this Bat-Toy technology in their products. Anyone who creates a new device that cannot pass on the VEIL watermark, or somehow overrides it, is breaking the law. If he does it for "purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain", he's a bona-fide criminal.

And if VEIL is so widely broken as to be deemed unusable (couldn't happen to a Bat-Toy technology, could it?), the U.S. government, in the form of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), will be expected to devise and enforce a new solution. So the Bat-Toy is only the nose under the technology mandates tent - if VEIL doesn't work out, government bureaucrats get to replace it with whatever strikes them as a good idea at the time.

The Analog Hole law is just the first of the MPAA/RIAA's Horror Triple Feature to be introduced into Congress. The others are the Broadcast Flag and technology mandate for digital radio. Perhaps they think that Congress will "compromise" by passing one of the three. Or perhaps they're hoping for a troika of victories in 2006 in their endless campaign against their own customers.

Whatever the MPAA's plan, however, your representatives need to understand that their constituents are not eager for a world of more DRM, more tech mandates, and less innovation. Write to them now
http://p2pnet.net/story/7353