Ritek fish-and-chips spyware
p2pnet.net News:- U-Tech Australia has teamed up with the entertainment cartels to force Consumer Control COD’n'chips spyware into the homes of people who buy their products.
The idea is RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) transmitters will be buried in discs to monitor how people who’ve bought them, use them. And if the purchasers do anything the music or movie studios don’t like, receivers in the play-back units will close everything down, al la Broadcast Flag.
It’s really, really simple: if you can see something, or hear it, you can copy it in one form or another. Period.
But the movie and music monopolies want people to believe there’s such a thing as DRM (digital rights management) and they’re aided and abetted in this by the likes of Sunncomm and First4Internet, two companies who make and market so-called copyright protection software.
Their efforts aren’t doing so well. Ask Sony BMG which continues to suffer serious fall-out from its disastrous rootkit DRJ spyware effort under which it secretly planted Customer Control DRM on music CDs which automatically installed on buyers’ computers.
But Ritek and its U-Tech subsidiary figure “Chip-on-Disk” (COD) is the answer, says ITNews.com.au.
“This technology holds the potential to protect the intellectual property of music companies, film studios, gaming and software developers worldwide,” it has Ritek ceo Gordon Yeh saying.
“DVDs will soon be tracked with embedded radio transmitter chips to prevent copying and piracy, according to the company which makes movie discs for Warner, Disney, Fox and other major studios,” says the story, going on:
“The technology, which can also be used for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs, will allow movie studios to remotely track individual discs as they travel from factories to retail shelves to consumers’ homes. Home DVD players will eventually be able to check on the chip embedded in a disc, and refuse to play discs which are copied or played in the ‘wrong’ geographical region, the companies behind the technology expect.”
U-Tech will work with major movie studios on a large-scale test of an RFID-based supply chain management process at its manufacturing plant and distribution centre in Oz, says ITNews.com.au, adding:
“RFID readers will then be built-in to home DVD players to extend the anti-copying technology into homes as part of a digital rights management system.”
Not to worry, though. Rytek’s fish-and-chips probably won’t be any more successful than software DRM, believes Ars Technica’s Ken Fisher.
Not only is there no installed base to support COD as of yet, there have been no significant trials, either, he says, going on, “Reports that talk about this technology as if it’s coming any day now have jumped the gun,” and adding:
“The likelihood of ever seeing this technology in today’s ubiquitous DVD format or even tomorrow’s HD DVD or Blu-ray discs is therefore slim to none. With DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray players all shipping today without support for COD, the best the system can hope for is spotty support in future players. Without near complete coverage, the system will be ineffective on the consumer end, which means that it shows no promise for DVD. That ship has sailed, circumnavigated the globe several times, and is currently filming a Girls Gone Wild installment.”
Also See:
ITNews.com.au – DVD chips ‘to kill illegal copying, September 18, 2006
Ars Technica – New chip to thwart DVD piracy is a long way off and faces considerable challenges, September 17, 2006
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September 20th, 2006 at 12:07 am
This will never happen. If somehow this hare-brained idea ever comes to light, no one will buy Ritek’s blanks or someone will find a way to either disable the chips or circumvent the “protection” scheme. Fuck you, you sleazy chinks!