Linux is the answer...

[acroyear]

My ancient history linux system (an old win-98 box now running fedora core 1) was able to rip and burn a viral Sony "protected" CD (G3 Live in Tokyo) in a matter of minutes with no hessitation at all.  cdrdao easily isolated out the file-system tracks from the music track, looking at the table of contents, ripped the 2 discs with no hessitation, and easily allowed me to burn a copy with no filesystem (and attached trojan).

In fact, the 2nd cd wasn't even protected by the trojan -- its "security" merely works by assuming that the user has put cd1 in their computer first, as the malicious program, which traps the O/S call to tell the computer there's a new CD, has the ID # of the second disc programmed into it.

If the user put the second disc in first, it would be rippable with no hesitation at all.

Sony is very stupid.

Sometimes it IS in the world's advantage that the media industry thinks nobody runs anything but Windows.

Yes, I'm aware that this post is violating the DMCA. Bring 'em on...

Comments

[mshelby.livejournal.com]

if you already have sony's rootkit installed on your windows machine, Sophos has a tool to remove it. from what i've read, it looks like they are going to claim that this tool does not violate the DMCA (or even sony's EULA) because of the excessive damage sony has inflicted upon consumers. pretty good article from SecurityFocus here.

oh, these sony cd's do have drm for the mac as well, although not as malicious as the windows version...