Speed Bump
Geniuses at work. Be careful.
SunnComm Technologies Inc. of Phoenix created the MediaMax CD-3 system to prevent CD buyers from distributing music free over the Internet. The system is supposed to let users make a few copies for personal use, but forbid the production of many copies. Last month BMG, the music subsidiary of the giant German media firm Bertelsmann AG, released its first MediaMax disk in the United States, 'Comin' From Where I'm From,' by R&B artist Anthony Hamilton.
But John Alexander Halderman, a Princeton graduate student in computer science who obtained a copy of the Hamilton CD, said it's easy to bypass all the limitations imposed by the MediaMax system. The technology is designed to work only with computers using Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating systems. Users of Apple Macintosh or Linux computers can copy the disks without restriction.
And so can Windows users, if they disable a standard feature of Windows called 'autorun.' This feature causes a disk to start up as soon as it's inserted into the computer's CD-ROM drive. The MediaMax software is installed when that happens. If autorun is switched off, MediaMax will not be activated. If users want to leave autorun switched on, they can bypass it when running a MediaMax disk simply by holding down the shift key for a few seconds after inserting it. This prevents the MediaMax software from loading.
'I can't believe they didn't think someone would discover this right away,' Halderman said. 'Their engineers must know that this can be disabled. This isn't any deep secret of computer science. It's Windows 101."
Indeed, officials at SunnComm and BMG say they know the system can be bypassed.
"We were fully aware of this," said BMG spokesman Nathaniel Brown, who said setting technical limits on CD copying would have little impact on hard-core file swappers. "We look at copy management as a speed bump," he said.
* Ray, 10/07/2003 11:28:06 AM
