Previous |
Next |
December 07, 2005, 12:37 PM ET
Campus Researcher Probes CD Security
The brouhaha over Sony’s controversial CD copy-protection software includes some interesting substories—like the role that college researchers played in exposing the company’s clumsy attempt to fix its mess. After Sony came under fire for selling discs that surreptitiously installed insecure software on users’ hard drives, the company offered CD buyers a program that promised to remove the offending software. But John Alex Halderman, a 24-year-old graduate student at Princeton University, discovered that the new program opened up an even bigger security hole that the one it was intended to patch.
Mr. Halderman is no stranger to dubious digital-rights technology: In 2003 he was nearly sued by SunComm Technologies Inc., a maker of CD-encryption software, for writing in an academic paper that the company’s antipiracy technology was easily breached. Mr. Halderman is, according to Wired News, "one of a handful of smart researchers who seem determined to hold the recording industry’s feet to the fire." (Wired News)
Add Your Comment
Commenting is closed.