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Draconian DRM Revealed In Windows 7
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Feb 16, 2009 09:18 PM
from the just-who-did-you-think-owns-your-machine dept.
from the just-who-did-you-think-owns-your-machine dept.
TechForensics writes "A few days' testing of Windows 7 has already disclosed some draconian DRM, some of it unrelated to media files. A legitimate copy of Photoshop CS4 stopped functioning after we clobbered a nagging registration screen by replacing a DLL with a hacked version. With regard to media files, the days of capturing an audio program on your PC seem to be over (if the program originated on that PC). The inputs of your sound card are severely degraded in software if the card is also playing an audio program (tested here with Grooveshark). This may be the tip of the iceberg. Being in bed with the RIAA is bad enough, but locking your own files away from you is a tactic so outrageous it may kill the OS for many persons. Many users will not want to experiment with a second sound card or computer just to record from online sources, or boot up under a Linux that supports ntfs-3g just to control their files." Read on for more details of this user's findings.
Re — Photoshop: That Photoshop stopped functioning after we messed with one of its nag DLLs was not so much a surprise, but what was a surprise: Noting that Win7 allows programs like Photoshop to insert themselves stealthily into your firewall exception list. Further, that the OS allows large software vendors to penetrate your machine. Even further, that that permission is responsible for disabling of a program based on a modified DLL. And then finding that the OS even after reboot has locked you out of your own Local Settings folder; has denied you permission to move or delete the modified DLL; and refuses to allow the replacement of the Local Settings folder after it is unlocked with Unlocker to move it to the Desktop for examination (where it also denies you entry to your own folder). Setting permissions to 'allow everyone' was disabled!
Re — media: Under XP you could select 'Stereo Mix' or similar under audio recording inputs and nicely capture any program then playing. No longer.
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A DRM ban clause should be added as a constitution (Score:5, Insightful)
For the sake of civil liberties, culture and sanity and as weird as it may seems I am not joking. Laws are made by the people for the people and some disconnected tenants of some ivory towers need to be reminded of it.
Re:A DRM ban clause should be added as a constitut (Score:5, Insightful)
Repealing the DRM clause of the DMCA would suffice.
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No it wouldn't (Score:5, Insightful)
The only thing they will respond to is a mass boycott. And considering this is Windows, which is pretty much locked into most large scale networks as it is, not to mention end users' homes, good luck.
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Re:A DRM ban clause should be added as a constitut (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:A DRM ban clause should be added as a constitut (Score:5, Insightful)
Large, well funded and powerful interest groups.
Oh, you said elected and not selected. Well obviously the masses elect who they're told to. Can't have one of those crazy third party candidates who aren't all ready bought and paid for get into office.
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Re:A DRM ban clause should be added as a constitut (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:A DRM ban clause should be added as a constitut (Score:5, Insightful)
Who elects those politicians?
The oligarchy appoints a set to choose from and mindless idiots pick the prettiest one.
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Re:A DRM ban clause should be added as a constitut (Score:5, Insightful)
For the sake of civil liberties, culture and sanity and as weird as it may seems I am not joking. Laws are made by the people for the people and some disconnected tenants of some ivory towers need to be reminded of it.
The Constitution doesn't regulate transactions between private parties. It regulates the powers granted to the Government. If you don't like the DRM in Windows 7/Vista/XP/whatever then vote with your feet and wallet. It's not like there aren't alternatives available.
You want to amend a document that's only been changed 27 times in ~200 years over computer software? Just think about what you are advocating for a minute.
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Re:A DRM ban clause should be added as a constitut (Score:5, Insightful)
The Constitution doesn't regulate transactions between private parties. It regulates the powers granted to the Government.
DRM in the US is not a transaction between two private parties. Instead, it is the *government* offering to step in and put legal force behind one party's interference with another's right to use their own property.
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Re:A DRM ban clause should be added as a constitut (Score:5, Insightful)
If the DRM is disclosed up front and you still buy the product then you have no one to blame but yourself.
Most DRM would be irrelevant if the government weren't willing to throw people in the slammer for disabling it or helping others to disable it. Without this radical government intrusion into your own personal affairs, you wouldn't have to blame anyone because most DRM would be hacked into oblivion.
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Re:A DRM ban clause should be added as a constitut (Score:5, Insightful)
If the DRM is disclosed up front
Since when is that the case? Unless you're willing to do a lot of research up front, it's not as though there's a DefectiveByDesign label on it.
and you still buy the product
Then you should still have the right to reverse engineer it. The DMCA is what made this a government issue. Repeal that and I don't care about touching the constitution.
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Re:A DRM ban clause should be added as a constitut (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course; having an amendment that says "DRM is bad" would be pretty silly.
The idea would be to neutralize the government's ability to back up DRM and similar tech (like Trusted Computing). DRM would be a noting but a waste of money and a fun challenge if not for the DMCA. Similarly, no one's going to waste their time and money on TC hardware unless they are forced to.
So I'd envision it more like:
"Congress shall pass no law limiting the rights of persons to manipulate, operate, or otherwise utilize as they see fit any of their possessions or effects, nor the sale or trade of tools to be used for such purposes."
There ya go, "The Hacker's Amendment". And it leaves plenty of room for interpretation, just like the rest of the Constitution...
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Re:A DRM ban clause should be added as a constitut (Score:5, Insightful)
As you may notice if you read my comment, it was about the DRMs and not about Windows version X (which I don't really care because I don't use at all). The DRMs are starting to be omnipresent and this is really bad, just try by yourself to copy a scene from a bluray movie to include it in a report, a parody, a backup or any other fair use, you will find that there are obstacles in your way.
Even if you would settle for a downgrade of the artwork it will be difficult to find something to convert the HDMI ouput signal to something recordable because of HDCP feature of HDMI.
Content publishers, hardware manufacturers and software publishers are working hands in hands to lock the cultural content in DRMs. To all this insanity you add the american DMCA and patent office to it and you will find that there is an oligopoly protected by the governement which is impeding seriously in your access to culture.
I'm not an american, I'm not even a constitutional expert in my country but I would think that access to culture should be a civil right and that any civil right should be part of the constitution of every countries.
Just think of what you are not advocating for a minute.
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Re:A DRM ban clause should be added as a constitut (Score:5, Insightful)
How well did that work out again? ;)
If you think you can get 38 states to sign off on a DRM banning amendment then I guess all the power to you. Personally I think the GP's was a rather absurd suggestion. A better suggestion would be encouraging people to vote with their wallet and not give Microsoft the business. I certainly won't be buying it if the summary is accurate.
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Maybe no amendment, but law needs changing (Score:5, Insightful)
While certainly a commendable course of action, it bears recognizing that a legislative revision is most certainly in order even if not at the level of a constitutional amendment, as it is currently, and rather ridiculously, a federal offense to work around such DRM, even if no copyright violation takes place. So, ostensibly, under the terms of the DMCA, even the act of installing a second sound card to try to get around this obnoxious and unconscionable crippling imposed by Microsoft, which impedes even the copying of a user's self-produced media, would itself comprise "circumvention" and put such a user at odds with the law. This is truly a ridiculous and untenable state of affairs.
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Re:A DRM ban clause should be added as a constitut (Score:5, Interesting)
My "fix" is to revoke the copyright for any programs that have DRM.
No DRMed program will ever enter the public domain in any real sense (in that it could be modified/built upon/etc.)
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Re:Irrelevant (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:A DRM ban clause should be added as a constitut (Score:5, Insightful)
It especially doesn't make sense as MS's yearly net profits exceed the entire gross revenues of either the recording or movie industries.
What's with the tail wagging the dog here?
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Re:Virtual machine (Score:5, Informative)
...but what was a surprise: Noting that Win7 allows programs like Photoshop to insert themselves stealthily into your firewall exception list
Given the firewall issue...
What's with this "Windows 7 firewall issue" nonsense? This is how it has always worked for the Windows firewall, XP and Vista suffers from the same flaw. It isn't new or surprising for Windows 7.
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Re:A DRM ban clause should be added as a constitut (Score:5, Insightful)
I mostly agree with your point. The quickest way to kill DRM is not to buy OR pirate anything that supports DRM.
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windows, meh (Score:5, Funny)
Boy am I glad that I finally took the plunge. Learning about the mac, messing with ubuntu. It took a long, long time to wean myself off but I've finally kicked the habit. I'm just so grateful there are alternatives. Up to recently I felt like a battered wife, hating Windows but still using it. Such a relief. (not trying to troll, just stating how I feel. For those who want to stay on Windows, my condolences.)
The "True Name" of Windows 7 (Score:5, Funny)
I'm beginning to think ... and hope ... that the "True Name" for Windows 7 is really going to be "Windows Chapter 7." Wouldn't that be nice?
Proof? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that I don't believe this guy, but can we have some screen shots and some evidence before we scream and yell to the rest of the world?
If indeed Windows 7 does this, I know a lot of people that will get a "rude awakening" from DRM and they will not stand for it.
Re:Proof? (Score:5, Funny)
some evidence before we scream and yell to the rest of the world?
You're new here, aren't you?
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FUD? False alarm? (Score:5, Insightful)
As much as I want to believe this, I'm not so sure that these effects are intentional.
First of all, can anyone duplicate them? Secondly, is a binary really the best way to test this? I would think that one would want to interact with whatever APIs control the recording process. In any case, I think that more investigative work needs to be done.
Re:FUD? False alarm? (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed. For all we know, the problems this guy is having with his sound card are due to a driver bug or incompatibility rather than an intentional crippling of the audio, while the problems he's having with Photoshop and the problems with his Local Settings folder are due to introducing foreign code that messes up Windows in ways that Microsoft could not have anticipated.
Besides... why would the current version of Photoshop be coded against undocumented features in still unreleased Windows 7?
I am Willing to abandon Windows over draconian DRM, but I want evidence of that before I'll lambast Microsoft for it.
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How in the hell did this make the front page? (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, this is one of the worst-written front page stories on I've seen on ./ in quite some time. No citation, no proof, nothing. Not even a fucking link to a story? Please.
Win7 might very well be Evil Incarnate. But it's not like your gonna convince anyone with 'journalism' that reads along the line of "yeah this one guy I know says that win7 totally sucks".
Re:How in the hell did this make the front page? (Score:5, Informative)
One word:
kdawson
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Re:How in the hell did this make the front page? (Score:5, Insightful)
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The audio things is also highly suspect (Score:5, Insightful)
From what I've seen, there are very little changes in the audio layer from Vista to Windows 7. Now in Vista, all the audio DRM stuff relates to protected audio path and only matters if you are playing a DRM's file through a player that uses it. It has no effect, whatsoever, on media you produce. I say this as someone who has actually done plenty of audio production on a Vista system.
Now as for the audio thing it sounds like one or maybe both of two possibilities:
1) Crappy drivers. Windows 7 is still in the beta stage, and thus so are drivers for it. Some companies are rather fast with drivers for that and they are essentially release quality. Other companies suck at the drivers and thus have poor (or no) drivers out. Check a hardware board and you'll find all kinds of people saying "Where can I get Windows 7 drivers for my soundcard?"
2) Crappy hardware. Not all soundcards are created equal. You will find professional soundcards on the market that can handle 96 simultaneous inputs, 96 simultaneous outputs all at 24-bit 96kHz without dropping a sample. You'll also find cheap consumer cards that can't even do what they claim on the box. One thing that cheap cards have problems with more often than they should is operating full duplex, meaning outputting sound and inputting it at the same time. Some just plain can't do it, others can do it but have to cut the input or output sample rate, others are just flaky. Just because a soundcard has inputs, doesn't mean it deals with them well, since that is a feature many users don't make use of.
So I'd want to see this done in a properly controlled setup: It a quality, current, soundcard that is known to have good input and output quality, and known to have no issues doing both at the same time. Also ensure there are beta drives out from the company that don't state any major problems. Put it in a system and try it in Vista and make sure it works. Then Put Windows 7 on that same system, and try it again. If there's a problem, ok well then maybe there is something to this (though I'd still be interested in drivers). If not, and I suspect not, then this guy needs to STFU.
I get more than a little tired of morons who have a problem on their system and instantly run and blame the OS. No, it is often NOT the OS's fault. I get even more tried of all the FUD surrounding MS and DRM. I heard all this crap about Vista's audio DRM and how it was going to not let you control your own music. Well guess what? It is all 100% bullshit. You can record in Vista, you can mix and master in Vista, you can encode to non-DRM's format, including MS's own Windows Media format (which has no DRM by default, you have to set it up yourself). Vista doesn't at all mind or interfere.
This really strikes me as more of the same. I mean the guy is clearly a moron. He goes and downloads a crack for CS4, let's not play make believe like that's what he wasn't doing, and it doesn't work. So he blames Windows? What the hell? Then a random rant about audio. Ya, I'm thinking no.
I can't for sure say he's wrong, I've not yet test Windows 7 my self, but his story has all the markings of BS.
Parent
Short on details... (Score:5, Insightful)
This article is seriously short on details.
So you replaced a DLL and the application stopped working? What DLL? What evidence do you have supporting your theory that it is the OS's fault?
So you can no longer record application's audio? Are you using the same drivers? On my system the sound card has to specifically support such functionality.
Windows 7 might contain tons of scary DRM but unfortunately this article contains no real proof of that. In fact it is so vague that is sounds almost like voodoo.
Re:Short on details... (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod this guy up, I'm shocked at the number of comments that immediately start bashing Windows and promoting Linux, when this article is flimsy at best.
I know for a fact at there's SEVERAL CS4 cracks out there that DO NOT WORK and do exactly what this author is describing (break the app completely), unless they explain what DLL they use, I can only assume they broke the app themselves. Hell, they could have hexedited random parts of the file on a whim and blamed MS for it suddenly not working, that's how little they divulge.
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kdawson is an idiot (Score:5, Insightful)
1. What Photoshop CD4 dll? Does it do this with Vista? Does it do this with XP? Why is this attributed to Windows 7?
2. What sound card and driver? Does it do this with Vista? Does it do this with XP? Why is this attributed to Windows 7?
3. What build of Windows 7? Who is the testor? Why is two paragraphs of incomplete information hitting the front page and it's not an "Idle" post?
kdawson, you are truly an idiot.
You CAN take control of the Local Settings folder! (Score:5, Funny)
Open a Windows Explorer window, navigate to the directory, right click on the it, select Properties, go to the resulting Security tab, and click the Advanced button contained there.
Click Edit, select "Administrators" from the list of potential owners, click the Replace owner on subcontainer and objects checkbox, then click the OK button.
After a couple minutes you'll be presented with a Window informing you that you need to close all property dialogs for the ownership changes to be visible. Follow this advice by clicking the OK button in the File Properties window and you should now be back at the Windows Explorer window you originally opened.
Right Click on the directory again and select Properties one additional time. Go to the Security tab, and click the Advanced button again also.
Click the Add.. button in the Permissions tab, type in Administrators as the name (ensure your Local Computer domain is selected), and select Full control from the list of available permissions. Click OK out of the Permission Entry dialog, select Replace all existing inheritable permissions on all descendants... then click OK from the Advanced dialog.
After a couple minutes you should once again be back at the File Properties dialog. Feel free to click OK and close Windows Explorer.
Facts? (Score:5, Insightful)
- No valid article referenced here
- Posted by kdawson
- I've known several geeks over a very long time taking the effort to differentiate the words cracking and hacking. This joke of a slashdot posting laughs at me.
So an idiot used a pirated DLL to get rid of a nagging screen and somehow this means Windows 7 has draconian DRM. Jesus Christ...I meant to say, fucking idiots. Being in bed with RIAA? What sound card? what drivers? what the fuck?
This reeks of user error (Score:5, Interesting)
I suspect that the user upgraded to Win7 beta from XP - because ever since Vista there has been no "Local Settings" folder. In Vista, the old "Local Settings" folder which existed in XP was relocated to AppData\Local.
In the location of the old Local Settings folder is an NTFS junction, which merely redirects to the new AppData\Local location. Windows Explorer doesn't handle these junctions correctly and instead of redirecting you, will erroneously give you an "Access Denied" message.
Also, programs have always been able to insert themselves as exceptions into the Windows Firewall. Many applications which require internet access and which are blocked by the firewall will ask you if they can create a firewall exception for themselves. So programs have always been allowed to insert exceptions into the firewall - it's not a requirement that the program has to ask you first.
If a program is already running on your computer then it means the firewall is no longer responsible for stopping that application in any way - the firewall only protects against outside threats.
It's also far more likely that your modifications to the DLL broke something, which would explain why CS4 no longer worked. Why jump to the inane conclusion that Microsoft/Adobe are plotting against us all in some wild conspiracy?
This is likely not even DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
A
Largely this feature would be a good thing if extended to applications.
Application gets exploited: Windows cans it.
Unfortunately TFA goes straight to the assumption of DRM. They also don't really attempt to circumvent it or even to actually go see if you can turn SFC off in Windows 7 (looking for it now)
Unsourced FUD (Score:5, Interesting)
A guy gets on here and makes a bunch of unsourced statements about MS and everyone laps them up like mother's milk.
It's funny how the most recent scuttlebutt has been about how Windows 7 is really just Vista SP3 and is no different from Vista and boy isn't it amazing how MS just keeps putting out Vista with a different name.
Yet apparently, this OS that is just another version of Vista is so radically different that it changes the very nature of hardware access.
Fully aware that the Nazi's will mod this down into invisibility, but had to post it anyway, for pete's sake people, get a life.
Congrats kdawson I'm officially done with slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
It's been real everyone, last one out hit the lights.
Lies, Lies, Lies (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Looking forward to Windows 8 (Score:5, Insightful)
You think Windows 8 will have less DRM?
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Re:Yes, and no. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Yes, and no. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Yes, and no. (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems that the problem was that Windows was cooperating with the app vendor to lock out such hacking attempts.
No, it doesn't. It seems that the "hacked" DLL is broken. Or, at incompatible with how Photoshop is expecting to link with it. Or doesn't exactly mimic the expected entry points. Or doesn't initialize the same global variables correctly. Or is referenced differently by the Windows 7 kernel. Or did work through some black magic but is now broken through a new security model. Etc.
DLLs are "dynamic link libraries." They're .lib files that live in memory and can be used by multiple programs simultaneously. Using them is relying on Windows to compile your program for you; change them at your peril. This is a Windows 95-era problem.
But, more evidence that this article is unresearched garbage.
And then finding that the OS even after reboot has locked you out of your own Local Settings folder ...
Here's what actually happened. Open a command prompt under Windows 7 (doesn't even have to be an administrator command prompt) and navigate to your user profile. (C:\users\username). Type in dir a:l. Those of you following along at home will notice that Local Settings is a reparse point - the "real" location where all of these files reside is at AppData\Local. (They're similar to *nix hard links.)
Vista (and evidently Windows 7) use reparse points to make sure legacy (or poorly-coded) programs don't break. Install a 32-bit program on 64-bit Windows and it will magically end up in Program Files (x86) instead of Program Files.
There are security permissions associated with these. No 32-bit process will ever make it's way to the 64-bit Program Files folder even if Administrator with a capital-A Himself launched that process with his UAC-emblazoned blessing. The same thing is true for that Local Settings reparse point.
So, why did his foray into Local Settings fail? Explorer.exe is supposed to know about AppData\Local and is barred from the legacy backdoor. Why couldn't he set privileges or take ownership or use his crappy Unlocker program? You can't take ownership/set privileges/whatever on a reparse point; that has to be done on the folder it links to. All of those actions would have succeeded (or have been unnecessary) on AppData\Local.
Interestingly enough, the command prompt can use the Local Settings reparse point. Navigate to c:\users\username . The command cd Local Settings will succeed (even on a non-administrator command prompt.) The command mkdir loltest will succeed and show up in a directory listing. But double-clicking on the Local Settings "folder" in the Explorer shell will fail. But, the loltest folder will show up in AppData\Local even though it supposedly created inside Local Settings. I wonder why the command prompt use the Local Settings reparse point, but the shell can't.
As for degraded record quality while playing back? I called it "crappy audio drivers" when Vista was first released. Lo, Creative fixed it, however slowly. Have faith, or turn down the sample rate in the control panel.
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Re:Yes, and no. (Score:5, Insightful)
i'm not seeing how MS has done you wrong. use the app as licensed. this is like criminals whining about people putting better locks on their houses.
No, this is like me buying a bicycle from you, and you putting proprietary locks on the axles to prevent me from switching them w/o your permission.
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Your analogy is off by just a bit (Score:5, Insightful)
This is more like locksmiths complaining about the state putting better locks on their own houses.
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Re:Yes, and no. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Yes, and no. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:oh please (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not trying to defend microsoft, but maybe it's a form of virus protection? You know, virus modifies dlls, OS detects that the dll is not what was installed, and blocks it. No big deal. Sure, it might check if it was the user who modified it, but I don't know if windows is capable of doing this or if microsoft cares.
What I'm saying is, until I have a better proof that this is DRM I will not run around crying "evil microsoft".
That said, I will never install software from them in my pc.
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Re:Aim at the foot (Score:5, Insightful)
We all know the only real winners will be Apple, and Windows XP. Linux will likely carry along with it's .8% market share or whatever it has been at for the past 10 years or so. If these allegations are true, and hold in the final version (remember this is BETA software), it could be problematic. However, there could also be good security reasons for these changes (allowing applications to register what dlls they use and not running if they're changed is a good security practice that can prevent third party applications from breaking their software through the insertion of trojans and/or adware). The inability to fix some of the issues is also probably due to the beta nature of Windows 7.
As for the sound issue, do we really know that this is the OS doing it, and not the driver manufacturers not having this feature implemented in their driver yet? Lots of things could be at fault, and to call DRACONIAN DRM on it is a bit hasty.
Phil
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