Draconian DRM Revealed In Windows 7 1127
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.
Re:Yes, and no. (Score:2, Informative)
You own your computer, they own the software (in this instance). You bought a license to run that software on your machine as is.
Don't like it? Don't use it. There are alternatives. Simple.
Re:How in the hell did this make the front page? (Score:5, Informative)
One word:
kdawson
Re:Yes, and no. (Score:2, Informative)
Indeed, it is a good thing.
OS X has done this for some classes of files since Leopard came out, though the implementation is transparent to (most) users.
If you go in and mess around with a .plist you aren't "supposed" to -- like the launchd plist set, the change will be reverted when you reboot. You can get around that by cryptographically signing the new .plist yourself, using the provided tools and your administrator credentials.
It's not yours anymore. (Score:2, Informative)
That's what DRM is - it's software that takes ownership of your computer away from you, for as long as you use that software.
It's like HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, where you ask to do something core to the basic function of the hardware, and the software denies you access in order to fulfill the wishes of another. "I'm sorry, I can't do that, Dave," is replaced with disabled dialog elements.
Because as long as DRM is active, it really isn't your computer. Try to use it, and for reasons that aren't on a functional basis, it will refuse in favor of the wishes of another. Try to break those protections, and you've broken the law. By running DRM, your computer no longer exists to execute your instructions, but to execute the wishes of the DRM creator. That's what makes it "Digital Rights Management" - your rights and computer are being managed against what might be your intentions.
Ryan Fenton
Re:Just say no (Score:3, Informative)
Couple that with the fact that I could run WOW in WINE, I had purged myself of Windows in my home system.
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.
Re:Yes, and no. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:windows, meh (Score:3, Informative)
And you will face the EXACT same problem if you tried to install generic MS-Windows yourself on some hardware. Install bombs, incompatible drivers, missing drivers, trying to download and find drivers, configuring settings and drivers. Yet, if you bought a machine with preconfigured Linux, it would all "just work". Yours is hardly a "fair" comparison.
The EEE I just bought has Linux, and every single thing on it works perfectly. Imagine that. And it is just as easy to use as any MS-Windows (and yet faster and less expensive).
Re:A DRM ban clause should be added as a constitut (Score:5, Informative)
Re:A DRM ban clause should be added as a constitut (Score:3, Informative)
My hardware can operate on information, but the hardware is still my property.
Re:windows, meh (Score:2, Informative)
Neat, so you don't even know what RAID is for [2brightsparks.com]. Well done.
Think I've had about enough of you, go away now.
Lies, Lies, Lies (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Virtual machine (Score:5, Informative)
It's not even a flaw - you gave Photoshop's installer permission to act administratively on your behalf, so it's exactly what it did!
Re:Irrelevant (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Virtual machine (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Exactly! Furthermore, Windows 7's firewall is fully configurable! (Not sure if Vista's was; I use Vista, but I have an IPCop box for that.)>/p>
If you're running Windows 7, run wf.msc. Inbound rules... outbound rules... Different rules for different locations... It's actually usable and filters inbound and outbound traffic!
Re:A DRM ban clause should be added as a constitut (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunately, you'll never get manufacturers to ditch support for Windows like that, it quite simply has critical mass, and... Linux isn't ready for the mainstream yet.
Re:No it wouldn't (Score:4, Informative)
It's called downgrade right, although it'll still show as a sale in microsoft books.
If you buy vista (or windows 7) business or ultimate version, it gives you right to run windows 2000 pro or xp pro.
It's not "it's", it's "its"! (Score:1, Informative)
it's = "it is"
its = "something belonging to it"
Re:windows, meh (Score:3, Informative)
I set up software RAID with a pair of 1TB SATA drives on a custom-built Gentoo box several months ago. It was almost trivially easy; it was certainly no more difficult than regular partitioning, other than an easy few extra commands to initialize the RAID array.
Setting up RAID in Windows still requires a floppy drive. A FLOPPY DRIVE! It sickens me.
Re:A DRM ban clause should be added as a constitut (Score:3, Informative)
the government is enforcing contract law, as it does EVERYWHERE. You arent fucking forced to buy Windows. Go use linux and stop bitching.
You are like the kid who decides to go see a movie he will hate, so he can complain the movie sucks.
Some people just like whining
Re:A DRM ban clause should be added as a constitut (Score:3, Informative)
I have long found it perplexing that the music and movie industries get to call the shots for the vastly larger software industry when it comes to legislation. I can only assume that the software industry must have some incredibly shitty lobbyists. It's not like it doesn't cost Microsoft money to pay developers to engineer their operating system to RIAA/MPAA specifications.
It is a competitive advantage to M$ if they can claim competition is illegal - like that popular activities like listening to music or watching videos cannot be legally done in Linux.
Re:A DRM ban clause should be added as a constitut (Score:4, Informative)
Yep, there are pretty much two: Linux and BSD
Wow, and Slashdot used to be the place for people who knew about the open source world. BSD isn't an option, it's a family of options with three or four major ones (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD and DragonflyBSD) and a few minor ones. There's also OpenSolaris if you want a UNIX-like system and prefer the SysV side of the family tree, and HURD is now usable, although doesn't support as much hardware as the other options, as is Minix 3.
But UNIX-like systems aren't the only open source operating systems out there. There others, like Haiku or ReactOS, which provide a completely different environment. There's Plan 9 if you want something more UNIX than UNIX, and more obscure ones, like Syllable, KolibriOS, MenuetOS, or AROS, are also usable.
There are lots of options out there. If you don't want a Free Software OS there are a lot of proprietary alternatives too, like SkyOS, QNX (Neutrino is quite a nice desktop), Zeta, and the two RiscOS derivatives.
Re:A DRM ban clause should be added as a constitut (Score:3, Informative)
Applications->Add/Remove->Install firestarter
If you googled for just 1 second you'd have found a GUI firewall.
The Exception (Score:5, Informative)
All of the new Adobe CS4 collection of applications "phone home" now and here is why.
The license allows two installs of an application, based on concurrent use, for example Photoshop could be installed on your workstation and on your laptop with the understanding that you are only using one of them at a time. This is very common. Most applications simply force a registration of the serial number and only allow X number of activations, i.e. Microsoft Office. What Adobe does is check how many machines have that serial installed on it and if you attempt to activate a third it will tell you that you have exceeded the number allowed and that you must deactivate one of the other installs. The software makes it easy to deactivate itself so you can reinstall elsewhere. The silly part is that Adobe sets an entry in your hosts file pointing to activation.adobe.com or something close to that.
If you install the software the first time with your computer disconnected from the internet and change that host file entry to 127.0.0.1 and then reconnect to the internet it will not be able to call home and will assume it is installed on a machine that is not connected to the internet.
Re:A DRM ban clause should be added as a constitut (Score:3, Informative)
I would assume that they allow installers signed by Microsoft-approved certificates to modify the firewall. This would mean that any only joe-the-hacker with a compiler can not do it.
A quick google search shows that this is wrong. Here is the officially published API [microsoft.com]. Or if you want, you can just write to the registry. Here is the code in C# [codeguru.com]. The C# compiler comes with .NET, so everyone can do this.
I guess this means that if you beef up the security on those registry keys then you could prevent any software from adding themselves to the exception list. Just make an Administrator account for installing that does not have access to those keys... I might have to try this out.
I found code to detect hypervisors in Windows 7 (Score:3, Informative)
When, ahem, poking around in the Windows 7 kernel (ntoskrnl.exe), I found something interesting and new to Windows 7: it detects virtual machines. If it finds a virtual machine, it will check the Windows licensing data to see whether your edition of Windows is allowed to run as a VM. It seems like they're putting in enforcement of the EULA rules that were in Vista, but I have no way to test this, since the beta is the Ultimate edition.
The VM detection code itself is rather straightforward: it checks how long it takes to do an opcode that should be very quick ("mov rax, cr3"). Under a hardware VM, this would trap to the hypervisor, causing a delay. The code validates that "rdtsc" time is not elapsing excessively, which would indicate a hypervisor.
If you're making a hardware-assisted hypervisor, you should make use of the virtualization features of the CPU to apply an offset to rdtsc so that the traps to the hypervisor don't get detected this way. AMD processors support this; no idea about Intel.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)