Crazzaper writes "There's a lot of controversy over ISP capping with Time Warner leading the charge. Tom's Hardware has an interesting article about how capping is the new form of DRM at the ISP level. The author draws some comparison to business practices by large cable operators and their efforts to protect cable TV programming. While this is understandable from the cable operator's perspective, the article points out how capping will affect popular services such as Steam for game content publishing and distribution, cloud-computing and online media services. Apparently this is also an effective way of going after casual piracy."

Macworld is reporting that an internet advocacy group has asked the FCC to investigate whether the WiFi-only restriction on the Skype for iPhone app is in violation of federal law. "Since its release on Tuesday, Skype for iPhone has been downloaded more than a million times — that's a rate of six downloads a second, according to the company. All this despite the fact the software only works via the iPhone's Wi-Fi connection, and not AT&T's 3G network. [...] The letter cites the FCC's Internet Policy Statement (PDF link) which states that 'consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice' in order to 'preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet.'"

N!NJA writes "Hulu has started encoding the html that they send to people's browsers, and then decoding it using javascript before rendering it. [...] They then run the character stream through a series of javascript functions to convert it back into plain text before pushing it into your browser using DHTML. That's quite a lot of effort just for fun, so I assume that is to stop screen scrapers from parsing content." I really can't understand all this effort. Boxee displayed the Hulu advertising perfectly. I suspect Alec Baldwin is to blame.

Ponca City, We love you writes "What did the Obamas give Queen Elizabeth II on Wednesday when they arrived at Buckingham Palace? An Obama aide reported the queen was given an iPod loaded with video and photos of her 2007 trip to the United States, as well as songs and accessories. She also received a rare songbook signed by the composer Richard Rodgers. The gift issue had come up after Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited the White House last month. Mr. Brown gave Mr. Obama a pen holder carved from the timber of an anti-slave ship, receiving in return a DVD box set of American movies, igniting a torrent of criticism in the British press. According to news reports, the queen gave the Obamas a silver-framed signed photograph — a gift she gives to all visiting dignitaries."

Dr_Barnowl writes "Electronic Arts has posted a SecuROM de-authorization management tool. Once downloaded, the tool will search your drives for EA games infested with the draconian online DRM system, and help you download their respective individual de-activation tools. This isn't a perfect solution, since it's still possible to run out of activations in the event of hardware failure or other source of data loss, but since the announcement that this particular DRM system will be dropped for The Sims 3 , it would seem that EA has had a minor epiphany about DRM." I'm sure EA's hand was forced in part by the FTC's recent warning against deceptive DRM practices. Hal Halpin of the Entertainment Consumers Association commented further on the issue, suggesting to developers that such measures need to be displayed on game boxes, and that standardization of EULAs could be next on the list.

After taking heavy criticism for the use of SecuROM in Spore and other games, EA has made the decision to go back to simple serial code authentication for The Sims 3. EA's Rod Humble said simply, "We feel like this is a good, time-proven solution that makes it easy for you to play the game without DRM methods that feel overly invasive or leave you concerned about authorization server access in the distant future."

Jane Q. Public writes "At the Federal Trade Commission's Seattle conference on DRM, FTC Director Mary Engle started off by referencing the Sony rootkit debacle, and said that companies are going to have to get serious about disclosing DRM that may affect the usability of products. She also said that disclosure via the fine print in a EULA is not good enough, and 'If your advertising giveth and your EULA taketh away, don't be surprised if the FTC comes calling.' Transcripts and webcasts are available from the FTC website." Update 18:13 GMT by SM: as Jane Q. Public was nice enough to diplomatically point out, the webcasts are no longer functioning, but transcripts are still available.

Engadget is reporting that the iPhone 3G is finally available contract-free if you are willing to pay a much higher premium. Without a contract consumers are looking at $599 for an 8GB model and $699 for the 16GB. AT&T has the added restriction that you must be an existing AT&T customer, but Apple (retail stores only, sorry) will sell one to anyone willing to pay the premium. This change brings the model much closer to the prevailing European model where phones are sold as hardware and the plans are handled completely separately.

Island Dog sends news that shortly after Valve showed off their new anti-piracy methods in Steamworks, Microsoft and Stardock were quick to demonstrate their new, similar technologies as well. All three companies are bending over backwards to say that this is not traditional DRM. Stardock (the company behind the Gamer's Bill of Rights) calls their system Game Object Obfuscation (Goo), "a tool that allows developers to encapsulate their game executable into a container that includes the original executable plus Impulse Reactor, Stardock's virtual platform, into a single encrypted file. When a player runs the game for the first time, the Goo'd program lets the user enter in their email address and serial number which associates their game to that person as opposed to a piece of hardware like most activation systems do. Once validated, the game never needs to connect to the Internet again." Microsoft's update to Games for Windows Live has similar protections. "You can sign in and play your game on as many systems as possible, but you have to have a license attached to your account. Of course, this only works for online games."

ISoldat53 sends this quote from McClatchy DC: "The CIA, which has been monitoring foreign countries' use of electronic voting systems, has reported apparent vote-rigging schemes in Venezuela, Macedonia and Ukraine and a raft of concerns about the machines' vulnerability to tampering. Appearing last month before a US Election Assistance Commission field hearing in Orlando, Fla., a CIA cybersecurity expert suggested that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his allies fixed a 2004 election recount, an assertion that could further roil US relations with the Latin leader. ... Stigall said that most Web-based ballot systems had proved to be insecure. The commission has been criticized for giving states more than $1 billion to buy electronic equipment without first setting performance standards. Numerous computer-security experts have concluded that US systems can be hacked, and allegations of tampering in Ohio, Florida and other swing states have triggered a campaign to require all voting machines to produce paper audit trails."

Lulfas writes "Steam is implementing a new anti-piracy solution that, according to them, removes all DRM. Called Computer Executable Generation (CEG), this system creates a unique copy of the game when it is purchased through Steam, essentially using a 100% unique keygen system. It will be installable on any system, but only playable by one person at a time (hooked into the correct Steam account, of course). Will this be enough to satisfy anti-DRM players while at the same time giving the publishing companies what they require?"

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Discovery Communications, the parent company of the Discovery Channel, is alleging that Amazon's Kindle e-book reader infringes upon their patent for DRM-encumbered e-books (Discovery's complaint, PDF). The patent in question was filed back in 1999 and issued in 2007 — coincidentally one day after Kindle 1.0 went on the market — and has claims for DRM implemented with a great many particular symmetric key ciphers and key exchange algorithms, (the patent has 171 claims). Unlike most software patents, this one goes into quite a lot of detail about how the encryption is to be performed. But it will still be interesting to see if it can pass the 'machine or transformation' test now that In Re Bilski is being accepted as precedent. After all, it seems like all of these encryption and e-book distribution schemes could be run on a general-purpose PC, so is the 'invention' actually tied to a 'particular machine or apparatus' just because an e-book 'viewer' (not to mention 'home system', 'library', and 'kiosk') happens to be specified in the patent's claims? Or can the encryption of an e-book be claimed as some kind of 'transformation' when the law in that area is especially murky — when no one knows how In Re Bilski may affect the precedent of In Re Schrader?"

An anonymous reader writes "BoingBoing Gadgets has updated their story from yesterday on DRM contained in the new iPod Shuffle. (We also discussed this rumor last week.) It's a false alarm. There is a chip in the headphone controls but it is just an encoder chip. There is no DRM and no reason to believe that third party headphones wouldn't work with the new Shuffle. (Apple would still prefer you to license the encoder under the Made for iPod program, but with no DRM, there is no DMCA risk to a manufacturer reverse engineering it.) The money quote: 'For the record, we do not believe that the new iPod headphones with in-line remote use DRM that affects audio playback in any way.'"

theodp writes "Steve Jobs wasn't around to convince you that you should be impressed, but on Wednesday Apple unveiled a 4GB Shuffle that's half the size of its predecessor. Holding up to 1,000 songs, the pre-shrunk Shuffle sports a 10-hour battery life and also adds a new VoiceOver feature that can recite song titles, artists, and playlist names, as well as provide status information. Even without a show from Steve, the new player is generally leaving folks dazzled, although there are some complaints." Update: 3/14 at 14:10 by SS: Reader Mike points out some disturbing news that the new Shuffle contains DRM which, according to a review at iLounge, prevents it from fully working with any headphones that don't have an Apple "authentication chip."

moonbender writes "Fake but working iTunes gift cards are being sold on Chinese auction sites for a fraction of their value: 'The owner of the Taobao shop told us frankly that the gift card codes are created using key-generators. He also said that he paid money to use the hackers' service. Half a year ago, when they started the business, the price was around 320 RMB [about $47] for [a] $200 card, then more people went into this business and the price went all the way down to 18 RMB [about $2.60] per card, "but we make more money as the amount of customers is growing rapidly."' The people at Chinese market researcher Outdustry have apparently confirmed this by buying a coupon and transferring it into an iTunes account. Oops."

In a recent blog post, CNet's Jon Oitsik has called for a policy shift with respect to data encryption. A new standard by the Trusted Computing Group promises the availability of self-encrypting hard drives soon, leading some to call for immediate adoption. Will this create even more security problems due to lazy custodians, or should someone responsible for keeping your information safe be required to move to the new hardware? Hopefully the new hardware comes with a warning to continue to use other data protection measures as well.

An anonymous reader writes "I love cabbages has reverse-engineered Adobe's ADEPT DRM (e-book protection). On February 18, I love cabbages released code that decrypts EPUB e-books protected with ADEPT and followed that up on February 25, with code that decrypts PDF e-books protected with ADEPT. On March 4, I love cabbages was given a DMCA take down notice. And there's plenty of evidence he got it right. DS:TNG (Dmitry Sklyarov: The Next Generation)?"

David Gerard writes "iPhone development sounds closed-shop but simple — apply to be a developer, put application on the App Store, you and Apple make money. Except Apple can't keep up with the request load — whereas getting a developer contract used to take a couple of days, it's now taking months. Some early developers' contracts are expiring with no notice of renewal options. And Apple has no idea what's going on or the state of things. If you want to maintain a completely closed system, it helps if you can actually keep up with it." Reader h11:6 points out news of a recent study which suggests that "Android's open source nature will give it a boost over Apple's iPhone," and thus take the lead in sales as soon as three years from now. It will be interesting to see how they deal with the flood of proposed apps as their popularity rises.

We recently discussed the fight brewing between the music industry and the popular music games, such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero, over the licensing fees paid for songs used within the games. Well, Warner has stepped things up and denied access to future songs without a payment increase. "Once the already-agreed-upon music runs out in the Summer however, the two companies will have to hammer out a new deal that's amenable to both. If MTV Games ends up giving Warner a larger slice of the pie, you have to think that the rest of the labels will begin asking for the same cut." The Rock Band games have seen a steady stream of DLC additions to their song libraries, the most recent being Stevie Ray Vaughan's Texas Flood album. Activision has been busily working on new Guitar Hero content as well, revealing details for Guitar Hero Greatest Hits, which is due out in June. Ben Heck (of Xbox 360 laptop fame) has just put together a breath controller for Guitar Hero World Tour's bass drum, for those unable or unwilling to use the standard pedal.

thefickler writes "The credit crisis couldn't have come at a worse time for newspapers, which were already suffering at the hands of the Internet. Now it seems that the Hearst Corporation is planning to launch an e-reader later this year to try to save its dwindling newspaper readerships. Apparently the e-reader will have a bigger screen than the Kindle, helping it to accommodate ads. It's not clear whether Hearst will go it alone, or try to gather wider industry support for its venture. As one pundit observed, 'it seems a slender thread on which to hang the entire American newspaper industry.'"