Sony BMG’s DRM Provider Speaks

By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Unfortunately, I think with all that’s going on, someone should have told him to hold off on adding fuel to the fire.

Despite the latest updates from Mark Russinovich, who originally found the rootkit in Sony’s CD copy protection, Matthew Gilliat-Smith, chief executive officer of First 4 Internet, denied that the XCP copy protection system was a rootkit.

“There’s areas of misinformation which I’d be very happy to set straight,” Gilliat-Smith told us. “The first is [the allegation that XCP is some form of] rootkit technology, in the form that would be used to spread malware. What it is, it’s using cloaking techniques that are similar to a rootkit, for the purpose of making speed bumps on the content protection, to make it more difficult to circumvent the protection.”

Gilliat-Smith said his software does not open up any connection between the stealth driver and its host. “Ours does not do that,” he said. “All we’re doing is using a hook and a redirect, so when you look for a file, it is hidden. It is very widely used…since way back in 1994, by many shareware companies and anti-virus companies.”

“This is not malware, not spyware,” Gilliat-Smith reiterated. “No one has suggested that it is. What they’re saying is that rootkit technology - which this is not, in its entirety - is something that potentially could be used to masquerade behind, and I confirmed that the XCP technology no longer uses the cloaking technologies that this article suggested could potentially pose a threat.”

But Gilliat-Smith would not go so far as to say current or future versions of XCP would refrain from using stealth techniques going forward - just the “hook and redirect” method discovered by Russinovich. “Going forward in the future, we will obviously take forward any concerns, and we will make sure that the consumer is foremost in our minds in terms of how we do it,” he told us. “Because it’s a balance between protection and keeping the consumer foremost in our minds…We very quickly alleviated anybody’s concerns, and are moving forward, and continuing to perform the task that badly needs to be done.”

NPD’s Ross Rubin sees the same balancing act, but perceives a different solution: “It comes down to the balance argument: Do you really need to be operating that far down in the OS to discourage casual piracy? I don’t think you do. The users who are determined to crack the codes are really going to focus time and energy on those kinds of efforts anyway. I wouldn’t agree that it’s necessary to dig that deep.” Source: TG Daily

We Say: I would tend to agree with Rubin. Those who really want to crack this, will, no matter how deep into the OS you go. The casual consumer will not. Obviously there is a balancing act between protecting intellectual property and maintaining user-friendliness. What you don’t want to do is give the customer a reason to go somewhere else … and hiding files and installing software without his knowledge is a sure way to lose a customer’s trust and, perhaps, his business.