No Rock And Roll Fun

SHIFT: So, Alex Halderman twigged that if you insert a CD with copy protection into a Windows PC but hold the shift key down, it disables Windows AutoRun facility and so the copy protection doesn't kick in. (It's hard to believe that something so simple could work, but apparently it does - there's your record companies' multi-millions of R&D going to good use then.

SunnComm, the people behind the copy protection system, have lashed out saying that Halderman's claims and conclusions are "erroneous" - which makes you wonder, if they're not true, why are SunnComm trying to sue him for USD10million?. Surely if his claim that their super-duper technology can be defeated by holding down a single key on the keyboard is "erroneous", everyone will discover that the first time they try it, so where's the problem?

Ah, but SC are also waving the US' DCMA act about, too - they claim that Halderman has broken the law simply by telling people the name of a program they might have had installed on their own computers (thereby allowing them to delete it). Just think that through for a minute. There's a law in the US which prevents you from being allowed to know what software is installed on your system, and criminal penalties stop anyone telling you. Hmm.