Managing Rights Management

Another Sony Rookit Bruhaha?

Security company F-secure revealed on Monday that it had detected rootkit like behavior that is reminiscent of the 2005 fiasco. F-Secure says the culprit is the Sony MicroVault USM-F fingerprint reader software that comes with the USB stick that installs a driver that is hiding a directory under "c:\windows\". So,... Read more →

Recently Published Patent Applications

Every Thursday, the US Patent and Trademark Office publishes pending patent applications. Publication has no bearing on whether a patent will eventually be issued based on the application. Still, issued patents and published applications are often indicators of what people have been thinking about and the kinds of things that... Read more →

Who IS Supporting Blu-ray's BD+?

The BD+ licensing authority has added a page with information on which companies have completed the licensing process. At the moment, Fox is the only content company listed. But there is a long list of hardware and software vendors mentioned. In addition to Sony, the list as of yesterday morning... Read more →

The DRM Cat and Mouse Game-The BBC Gets It Right

Jonathan Fildes, Science and technology reporter for BBC News has written a good article on the arms wars between security and DRM technology providers and hackers. The Microsoft DRM system used by the BBC's iPlayer has already been cracked and people using the trial version of the player have already... Read more →

Recently Issued Patents

Both of today's patents concern watermarking and are assigned to Digitmarc. The first describes an iterative coding technique. The second concerns the use of digital watermarks to control video record. 7,263,203, Digital watermarks, assigned to Digimarc. Abstract An iterative encoding technique assesses trial watermark encoding of an object, and redresses... Read more →

The User Exerience: BioShock Anti-Piracy Rules

Games Digest reports that 2Kgames has loosed restrictions on the number of machines on which each user can simultaneously install BioShock. Originally, the user was restricted to 2 machines; the limit is now reportedly 5. The changes came in response to numerous user complaints regarding Sony's SecuROM protection software used... Read more →

How To Unlock An iPhone

Several outlets including the AP/Boston Globe and the New York Times are reporting that 17 year old "hacker" George Hotz has figured out how to unlock an iPhone. His now runs on T-mobile rather than on ATT. The steps for unlocking can be found here. Read more →

SoundExchange Drops DRM Requirement

Ars Technica writer Jacqui Cheng reports that SoundExchange has backed off from its position that Web broadcasters must implement DRM. On the bright side, it doesn't appear as if DRM is part of the terms this time around. Previously, SoundExchange stated that webcasters who agree to the deal must actively... Read more →

Recently Published Patent Applications

Every Thursday, the US Patent and Trademark Office publishes pending patent applications. Publication has no bearing on whether a patent will eventually be issued based on the application. Still, issued patents and published applications are often indicators of what people have been thinking about and the kinds of things that... Read more →

Paramount's CTO Says HD-DVD Exclusive Not Necessarily Permanent

PCWorld has an interview by Melissa Perenson with Alan Bell, Paramount's CTO, who says that the switch to HD-DVD exclusively may not be permanent, or at least the door remains open to Blu-ray support at some unspecified future time. In the lead-in to the interview, Perenson writes: Rumors have swirled... Read more →