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$995.00???? ....where'd they get the money????
Mario's tired of the negativity here??? LOLOLOLOL .....too bad he is partly directly responsible for generating it, with "projections" that never pan out and expectations never met, unrealistic time-frames, yada, yada, yada..............
He (Mario) hasn't posted any of his enlightening posts here for a while.......and the pps goes up......go figure........
.....a funnel and a broomstick should help ;)
....speaking as one who has nothing particularly good to say about SCMI, might I suggest you take notice of the fact that the pps has been going up of late................take a friggin' pill ALREADY!!
...no rush if he were to want any (although I can't imagine why anyone would at this point)......probably could get it cheaper by the end of the week.....
Amen!!! Talk is cheap, especially when there are no actions to back it up!
Posted by: mariomax
In reply to: docgfd who wrote msg# 33000
Date:10/29/2005 12:26:28 PM
Post # of 33001
George,
Thank-you for your reply, foresight seems not to be on your
agenda, lets talk in February when the 4th quarter numbers will be finalized and audited. Have a good week-end. mariomax
....as is retail.
Those that bailed 4 cents ago are geniuses!!!!!
From the drop in the pps (down 3.5%) (again) I'd be hard to convince that someone was accumulating, esp with the daily shares traded being just a notch above the daily average,
All is now well.......MORE 'positive developments!' Must be time to load up!!
HEPH....likely run before FDA verdict
Perhaps good ole Mario can do that for the investors.......he's certainly reliable IMHO.......
Sting: what alternatives are available?? Am I missing something here? This company is in limbo, and
I can't see financing coming from anywhere (unless its the death spiral type, in which case this is mute).
What are they going do? Sell their copy machines?
Mario: You're welcome. Perhaps you would also like to comment on the merger, the dividends, etc while side-stepping your original 'February' comment (always nice to have an escape hatch entitled 'current business climate,' isn't it?).....of course in your usual cerebral way.....
Yep....its almost February......I'm sure IR will fill us all in soon.....
"George,
Thank-you for your reply, foresight seems not to be on your
agenda, lets talk in February when the 4th quarter numbers will be finalized and audited. Have a good week-end. mariomax"
In AOOR at 0.394 eom
.....which unto itself may bring this nightmare to sub-penny.
Catch 22: they can't or won't release a PR until the suits are settled........and the pps keeps tanking, partially because of no news......
....I'm not so sure its strictly a matter of greed. For me, at this point and with the losses already sustained, I figure what's another cent-and-a-half? I won't be any more greedy than to get the hell out of this stock at or near to even, if it ever gets there again.....and I'm not holding my breath, either.........
Sting: It appears to me that the rootkit in and of itself was more of an "insult" to the consumer, but only had the potential to cause damages (in the form of 'harm') to that consumer, by a hacker dropping a like-code (aka virus) into that rootkit and being able to have full access to that computer and its files.
I agree, that if nothing beyond the installation of the rootkit occured, no foul....no harm, beyond the lack of permission for access.
I suppose damage could be proven if a consumer's computer got fried or had secure info removed from it, as the e-trail to the root kit and the supplanted virus could be ascertained easily enough by those technically-inclined to do so.
I gotta tell ya......I started surfing around for an article, anything, that would put some kind of positive spin on SunnComm, Sony, et al, but there were slim to no pickin's. The best I could come up with was that article that said Sony had created " a bottom" in DRM of what consumers would tolerate (although if that's the case, what the hell.....anything that works!)
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=1040
Sony-BMG – "Most people, I think, don't even know what a Rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Remember those words? They’re true. Most people didn’t know what a rootkit was. But Sony-BMG gave us all an excellent education on rootkits, spyware, and Digital Rights Management.
Sony-BMG’s XCP (Extended Copy Protection), designed by First4Internet, is a DRM scheme that prevents individuals from copying unlimited CDs. If an individual is unfortunate enough to have auto run enabled and agrees to the EULA, the XCP CD installs the DRM software. The only problem is the EULA doesn’t include all the specifics. It doesn’t state the DRM would be hidden on one’s machine, and it doesn’t articulate its removal process. In addition, those who are able to remove this software run the risk of damaging their machine. It’s also discovered that Sony-BMG’s proprietary music player “phones home” with information.
Not only did Sony-BMG break the trust with the consumer, it was discovered their copy protection scheme could be easily exploited by a malicious individual. Quite simply, the individual could name a virus identically to the XCP copy protection files. Since a rootkit file or folder is hidden by its very nature, most anti virus or spyware applications would be unable to discover the virus. It was soon discovered that Sony’s other copy protection software, Media Maxx, created by SunnComm, also suffered from easily exploitable vulnerabilities.
Sony-BMG has since been sued by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott under the states new spyware law. The state of Texas finds that Sony-BMG used deceptive trade practices when they distributed CDs with MediaMax and XCP software.
Because of Sony-BMG’s fiasco, the future of the DRM has been cast into doubt and destroyed any credible argument against online piracy. Most of all, they betrayed the consumer.
Sony BMG to Offer Protection Free Replacements
http://hometheaterinfo.com/nov.htm
With all the recent negative press from online news sites and blogs, it seems Sony is willing to do anything to regain a reputation of any kind.
Sony BMG has made an offer to exchange XCP protected CDs with unprotected CDs or unprotected MP3s.
Earlier this week Sony recalled 4.7 million CDs bundled with the insecure XCP DRM software after a wave of bad press.
Sony has also set up a site regarding the XCP software. Which includes information on how to swap your XCP protected discs for clean discs. This site also covers an update to remove the ‘hiding’ aspect of XCP, to allow users to see the XCP components and any viruses which are bundled within.
‘Sony DRM is Malware’ Official.
Former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson once said “A week is a long time in politics” and TrustedReviews can now officially reveal that a fortnight is a lifetime on the Internet. It was two weeks ago that Mark Russinovich reported on www.sysinternals.com that he had found that Sony BMG had included a rootkit within some CD playing software that’s included with a number of Sony BMG audio CDs. Many (all?) Sony BMG CDs have used a form of content protection to prevent bad people from copying them since April 2004. In practice this means that when you run the CD into your PC you are obliged to install a piece of Sony software that runs in the background to check that you don’t have any CD ripping software open. Naturally you have to click to accept a license, which none of us would normally bother to read, but if you did you’ll find the following pearls:
"As soon as you have agreed to be bound by the terms and conditions of the EULA, this CD will automatically install a small proprietary software program (the “Software”) onto your computer. The Software is intended to protect the audio files embodied on the CD, and it may also facilitate your use of the digital content. Once installed, the Software will reside on your computer until removed or deleted. "
The software in question is supplied by a British company First 4 Internet Ltd (www.first4internet.co.uk) which was founded at the end of 1999. The Chairman, Nicholas Bingham, (appointed in 2002) worked at Sony Pictures and Sony Television for a total of 12 years as President-International and was also Chairman of VIVA TV in Germany.
First 4 Internet lists XCP Content Management among its products, but seemingly the DRM software used by SONY BMG is called MediaJam. In principle there’s nothing wrong with content protection. However, MediaJam installs a rootkit called Aries.sys, which is misnamed as ‘Network Control Manager’ to reduce the chances that you will spot it running on your PC. Presumably Aries.sys is digitally signed by Microsoft, however Microsoft, First 4 Internet and Sony BMG are reluctant to either confirm or deny this. Because Aries is a rootkit it is installed at a very low system level which renders it invisible to anti-spyware software. More worryingly the rootkit is used to hide any code that starts with the characters $sys$, which allows Sony BMG to hide software within Windows to prevent its CD contents from being ripped.
Anti-piracy software accused of license violation
Uproar over controversial anti-piracy software carried by some Sony music CDs has intensified with claims that the software itself uses open source computer code without due acknowledgement.
The controversial anti-piracy software was first revealed on 31 October. US computer expert Mark Russinovich discovered that some Sony BMG music CDs not only refused to play normally on PCs – a tactic often used to prevent copying – but employed a sophisticated cloaking technique to hide the software. This was to prevent users from simply uninstalling the copy-prevention – or digital rights management (DRM) – software from their computers.
The discovery was so controversial because experts realized that this same cloaking software could be used to hide other programs on a computer, such as viruses and hacking tools for remotely controlling a computer. On 9 November, several programs designed to exploit the software were discovered, although there have been no reports of users being affected.
Now several computer programmers say the original anti-piracy software seems to contain code lifted from other software, which could constitute license infringement.
Reverse engineering
The anti-piracy program, called XCP, was created for Sony BMG by the UK-based company First 4 Internet. German programmer Sebastian Porst has posted details of the alleged infringements on his blog.
By painstakingly translating the finished program back into its original code, Porst and others claim to have found pieces of program taken from free community software projects for playing audio on computers. Such software can be usually be utilised only on the condition that its creators are credited. A spokeswoman for First 4 Internet told New Scientist that the company had no comment to make on the accusations.
Because the analysis is based on "reverse engineered" code, it is not absolutely clear that the code was copied. Porst also concedes that there could be coincidental similarities.
Bad to worse
Criticism of Sony BMG over the anti-piracy system was already intense, with one lawsuit being filed against the company in California, US. The suit accuses the company of breaching the state's anti-spyware laws with its cloaked software.
An investigation carried out by another US computer expert, Dan Kaminsky, suggests that more than 500,000 computers could be running the Sony software. This was because the DRM software was programmed to communicate with servers operated by Song BMG and Kaminsky was able to estimate the number of requests made by going through publicly available logs of domain name requests.
Censure of Sony proved so fierce that on 11 November the company announced it would stop producing CDs carrying the software. It also posted a web-accessible program to remove the software from affected computers.
But even this backfired when, on 15 November, computer experts found that the software fix could actually be used to hijack computers.
“Deep regret”
Alex Halderman and Ed Felten at Princeton University in New Jersey, US, discovered that the web-based fix uploads a small program to a computer in order to uninstall the anti-piracy software. They found this program could be hijacked through other web pages in order to take over a machine.
Halderman and Felten have since discovered a similar problem with another uninstaller issued for different DRM software included on some Sony CDs. The software, called MediaMax, is made by US company Sunncomm which also created a web-based uninstaller. Again, the researchers found that this uninstaller uploads a program that could potentially be hijacked.
In a statement issued on 16 November, Sony BMG says: “We share the concerns of consumers regarding these discs. We deeply regret any inconvenience this may cause our customers and we are committed to making this situation right.”
Bruce Schneier, a prominent computer security expert, criticizes anti-virus companies for not detecting the XCP software sooner and for not being more critical of it. "The story to pay attention to here is the collusion between big media companies who try to control what we do on our computers and computer-security companies who are supposed to be protecting us," he writes on his weblog.
CD's Recalled for Posing Risk to PC's
The global music giant Sony BMG yesterday announced plans to recall millions of CD's by at least 20 artists - from the crooners Celine Dion and Neil Diamond to the country-rock act Van Zant - because they contain copy restriction software that poses risks to the computers of consumers.
The move, more commonly associated with collapsing baby strollers, exploding batteries, or cars with faulty brakes, is expected to cost the company tens of millions of dollars. Sony BMG said that all CD's containing the software would be removed from retail outlets and that exchanges would be offered to consumers who had bought any of them. A toll-free number and e-mail message inquiry system will also be set up on the Sony BMG Web site, sonybmg.com.
"We deeply regret any inconvenience this may cause our customers," the company said in a letter that it said it would post on its Web site, "and are committed to making this situation right." Neither representatives of Sony BMG nor the British company First 4 Internet, which developed the copy protection software, would comment further.
Sony BMG estimated last week that about five million discs - some 49 different titles - had been shipped with the problematic software, and about two million had been sold.
Market research from 2004 has shown that about 30 percent of consumers report obtaining music through the copying and sharing of tracks among friends from legitimately purchased CD's. But the fallout from the aggressive copy protection effort has raised serious questions about how far companies should be permitted to go in seeking to prevent digital piracy.
The recall and exchange program, which was first reported by USA Today, comes two weeks after news began to spread on the Internet that certain Sony BMG CD's contained software designed to limit users to making only three copies. The software also, however, altered the deepest levels of a computer's systems and created vulnerabilities that Internet virus writers could exploit.
Since then, computer researchers have identified other problems with the software, as well as with the software patch and uninstaller programs that the company issued to address the vulnerabilities. Several security and antivirus companies, including Computer Associates, F-Secure and Symantec, quickly classified the software on the CD's, as malicious because, among other things, it tried to hide itself and communicated remotely with Sony servers once installed. The problems were known to affect only users of the Windows operating system.
On Saturday, a Microsoft engineering team indicated that it would be updating the company's security tools to detect and remove parts of the Sony BMG copy-protection software to help protect customers.
Researchers at Princeton University disclosed yesterday that early versions of the "uninstall" process published by Sony BMG on its Web site, which was designed to help users remove the copy protection software from their machines, created a vulnerability that could expose users of the Internet Explorer Web browser to malicious code embedded on Web sites.
Security analysts at Internet Security Systems, based in Atlanta, also issued an alert yesterday indicating that the copy-protection software itself, which was installed on certain CD's beginning last spring, could be used by virus writers to gain administrator privileges on multi-user computers. David Maynor, a researcher with the X-force division of Internet Security Systems, which analyzes potential network vulnerabilities, said the copy-protection feature was particularly pernicious because it was nearly impossible for typical computer users to remove on their own.
"At what point do you think it is a good thing to surreptitiously put Trojans on people's machines?" Mr. Maynor said. "The only thing you're guaranteeing is that they won't be customers anymore."
Some early estimates indicate that the problem could affect half a million or more computers around the globe.
Data collected in September by the market research firm NPD Group indicated that roughly 36 percent of consumers report that they listen to music CD's on a computer. If that percentage held true for people who bought the Sony BMG CD's, that would amount to about 720,000 computers - although only those running Windows would be affected. (Consumers who listen to CD's on stereo systems and other noncomputer players, as well as users of Apple computers, would not be at risk.) Dan Kaminsky, a prominent independent computer security researcher, conducted a more precise analysis of the number of PC's affected by scanning the Internet traffic generated by the Sony BMG copy-protection software, which, once installed, quietly tries to connect to one of two Sony servers if an Internet connection is present.
Mr. Kaminsky estimated that about 568,000 unique Domain Name System - or D.N.S. - servers, which help direct Internet traffic, had been contacted by at least one computer seeking to reach those Sony servers. Given that many D.N.S. servers field queries from more than one computer, the number of actual machines affected is almost certainly higher, Mr. Kaminsky said. Although antivirus companies have indicated since late last week that virus writers were trying to take advantage of the vulnerabilities, it is not known if any of these viruses have actually found their way onto PC's embedded with the Sony BMG copy protection software.
Mr. Kaminsky and other security and digital rights advocates say that does not matter. "There may be millions of hosts that are now vulnerable to something that they weren't vulnerable to before," Mr. Kaminsky said. For some critics, the recall will not be enough.
"This is only one of the many things Sony must do to be accountable for the damage it's inflicted on its customers," said Jason Schultz, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group in California.
On Monday, the foundation issued an open letter to Sony BMG executives demanding, among other things, refunds for customers who bought the CD's and did not wish to make an exchange, and compensation for time spent removing the software and any potential damage to computers. The group, which has been involved in lawsuits over the protection of digital rights, gave the company, which is jointly owned by the Sony Corporation and Bertelsmann, a deadline of Friday morning to respond with some indication that it was "in the process of implementing these measures."
Mr. Schultz said: "People paid Sony for music, not an invasion of their computers. Sony must right the wrong it has committed. Recalling the CD's is a beginning step in the process, but there is a whole lot more mess to clean up."
"While I'd love to believe that the egg on Sony's face will force other entertainment companies to shy away from trying to protect their copyrights using DRM, I think the XCP and MediaMax debacles are, ironically, going to usher in an era of widespread acceptance of DRM. By making DRM that is so egregiously horrible, Sony has set the floor for what the public will accept. So long as the next generation of DRM doesn't leave computers vulnerable to viruses the way the XCP rootkit does, the media and the public won't kick up a fuss."
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=2005120715150660
O.K. .....now I've finally seen EVERYTHING:
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/#010606sweden
Anti-Copyright Political Faction Emerges in Sweden
Sweden is notorious for being one of the largest piracy centers in Europe. Now, a political group in the country is hoping to change laws that make file-sharing illegal. The group, called Piratpartiet (Piracy Party), hopes to uproot existing European copyright laws to create a legal file-sharing environment, while abolishing DRM protections and protecting user privacy. The group is beyond the bluster stage, and is currently validating signatures collected to officially register in Sweden. The group also hopes to garner four-percent of nationwide votes to gain a seat in Parliament. The move follows an initiative in France to construct a legalized file-sharing system, something that strays far from the thinking of major music labels and entertainment interests.
Piratpartiet Manifesto (in Swedish)
Inquirer "Swedish Pirates Get Own Political Party"
Afterdawn "P2P users set up a political party in Sweden"
Research These Companies: Piratpartiet Piracy Party Sweden
biz.yahoo.com/rb/051230/s....html?.v=1
....can't spin a dead horse......although I'm sure he would try..................
Who TF needs to wait for February, Mario. So much fer yer valuable ability to look ahead (looks like mine was a "little" more ON). Didn't you want to tell us what a great buying opportunity this is now?? Or are you looking for another job already?
Posted by: mariomax
In reply to: docgfd who wrote msg# 33000
Date:10/29/2005 12:26:28 PM
Post # of 33001
George,
Thank-you for your reply, foresight seems not to be on your
agenda, lets talk in February when the 4th quarter numbers will be finalized and audited. Have a good week-end. mariomax
....and like from 'Up In Smoke,' its time to burn the Labrador....
....now THAT'S what I call a Santa Claus rally........
Careful odie lest you be accused of the same thing.....
Posted by: mariomax
In reply to: docgfd who wrote msg# 33000
Date:10/29/2005 12:26:28 PM
Post # of 33001
George,
Thank-you for your reply, foresight seems not to be on your
agenda, lets talk in February when the 4th quarter numbers will be finalized and audited. Have a good week-end. mariomax
Did it arrive 'postage due?'
Who wrote the response? ....Mario?
......don't know if you remember Mayor Ed Koch of NY City, but a while back when he was running for re-election, the opposition had bumper stickers made up that read: "Don't be a Koch sucker!" .....pretty good (and hilarious) play on words.
........Koch records? .....time for another, yet similar, bumper sticker.......................
Posted by: mariomax
In reply to: docgfd who wrote msg# 33000
Date:10/29/2005 12:26:28 PM
Post # of 33001
George,
Thank-you for your reply, foresight seems not to be on your
agenda, lets talk in February when the 4th quarter numbers will be finalized and audited. Have a good week-end. mariomax
.......and speaking of duped, February's right around the corner. ......yeah, we'll friggin' talk alright!
....dead (or lost) money. Duped?
You betcha! .......disgraceful......
.....don't know if this article has been posted before as I don't bother to get in here on a daily basis any more, so forgive me if its a repeat. .......sounds like we, or at least I, will be bagholders with this stock for quit some time to come:
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,69763,00.html
By Quinn Norton | Also by this reporter
02:00 AM Dec. 07, 2005 PT
The ongoing saga of Sony BMG's sneaky, lawsuit-inducing, copy-protection software opened a new chapter Monday when the music company released an uninstaller program to allow customers to remove the offending code from their PCs.
The release was Sony's second attempt at erasing its errors -- its previous push of mea-culpaware last month backfired horribly when 24-year-old Princeton University researcher John "Alex" Halderman found that the uninstaller opened up a security hole even worse than the original digital rights management program. And while the discovery shocked outsiders, and embarrassed Sony, it was a little like déjà vu to Halderman, one of a handful of smart researchers who seem determined to hold the recording industry's feet to the fire.
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Find local technology jobs. "The same companies keep producing new copy-protection technology, and I keep getting interested in it," says Halderman.
Years before Sony's rootkit scandal made DRM folly a subject of international news, Halderman was already keeping a close eye on the music industry's technological measures. When, in 2003, DRM-maker SunnComm International introduced a new approach to copy protecting audio CDs in its MediaMax software, Halderman checked it out.
His research revealed that the new discs installed software that interfered with the user's ability to copy the audio CD at a kernel level. "It was radically different than anything before; it turned the computer against the user," says Halderman.
The software used a Microsoft Windows feature called AutoRun that executes software on a CD without the user's knowledge or consent. Holding down the Shift key stopped AutoRun and prevented the software from being installed. Halderman wrote about the software, and the "infamous Shift key attack," in an academic paper and posted it online. Within 24 hours, SunnComm was threatening a $10 million lawsuit, and vowing to refer Halderman to authorities for allegedly committing a felony under the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA.
By the next day, the company had backed down in the face of public outrage. Looking back, Halderman says, "The whole experience was a whirlwind.... The response was way bigger than (anything I'd) expected."
So Halderman was well prepared when SysInternals security expert Mark Russinovich discovered last October that Sony BMG was using software that works much like SunnComm's MediaMax with an added cloaking technology that could be exploited by more-malicious code.
Halderman and his adviser, Princeton professor Ed Felten, picked up the thread, and began a series of revelatory analyses into the functionality and provenance of the stealthy code, which was called XCP and had been produced by U.K. company First 4 Internet.
His curiosity whetted anew by the affair, Halderman even took a second look at the competing SunnComm system -- still in use -- and found new problems, including the fact that MediaMax secretly installs itself even if the user refuses to click on the license agreement giving it permission to do so.
And when Sony released an uninstaller for the First 4 Internet code, it was Halderman who discovered that it came with an ActiveX control that would make users vulnerable to attack through their web browsers.
Sony recalled the uninstaller and went back to the drawing board.
Halderman's interest in copy-protected CDs began when he was an undergrad, and has continued through grad school under the auspices of Felten. "He likes to do work that is relevant, where he can apply his computer-science knowledge to things that matter to regular people," says Felten.
Felten is no stranger to exposing the foibles of DRM schemes. In 2001, the recording industry briefly suppressed Felten's research into a flawed digital-watermarking technology by threatening to invoke the DMCA.
Unlike the situation in 2003, Halderman doesn't see much possibility of a suit against him for his Sony research, but the risk is never far from his mind. He says his chosen field forces him to learn about more than just security and DRM. "It's difficult to be only a scientist in this field, you have to know about law, public policy and the business world."
Halderman doesn't normally encounter CDs with DRM -- he must actively seek them out for his research. "I mostly listen to opera," he says. "There are very few classical-music discs that are copy protected."
The researcher says he plans to dig into Sony's new uninstaller, but he hopes to find nothing negative to report. On future DRM schemes, however, he's not so optimistic. "Manufacturers adopt new tricks with each revision," he says. "If there are new copy-protection programs for CDs, I'll continue to look at them."
jr.....no offense taken.....just passing on what Jr. e-mailed to me. I'm no techie (wanna discuss the torque required for abutments on maxillary posterior teeth using a 3i gingi-hue abutment on a titanium implant? then we can party lol) ....stuff like MP3 might as well be in Swahilli when I'm confronted by it.
All I know is Jr. got a worm in his lap-top at school, and when he plugged in his I-pod, it squwaked at him a few times and then shit the bed....as in dead.....no screen, no nothing.
I told him to contact Apple to see if they had any words of wisdom for him......the worm and the dead Ipod may just be a coincidence, of course, but it made me wonder....
Cheers,
George
....kinda OT, kinda on.......my son just sent me this e-mail from school; his computer got infected a few days ago (which is pretty impressive since he's up to date on anti-virus, and his college has a main firewall/anti-virus blanket protection for the entire campus). I don't know the source of the article, and I've deleted the expletives (there were PLENTY) from his e-mail, but since it seems to involve Apple, I thought I'd throw it up here as an FYI...............
"THAT VIRUS WAS AN MP3 INFECTING VIRUS, THE FIRST ONE EVER, MY IPOD IS NOW F@#&ING DONE, LIKE DEAD, WHY MEEEEEE????? READ THIS:
First MP3 virus infects millions of iPods
The virus rapidly spreads trough Grokster, Kazaa, BearShare and other popular P2P networks, jumping from iTunes software to iPods. RIAA denies involvemen
When Josh Smith, 17, turned on his iPod on his way to school this morning nothing sounded suspicious. He was happily pedaling his bike while enjoying his favorite Nirvana songs. Then, some 30 seconds into the song, the Nirvana music faded and new music appeared. Violins, many violins. “It was disgusting. I almost choked. I haven’t been exposed to such nasty music for many years. It was like a torment.” (It was later confirmed that the boy was exposed to Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”.) “I first thought it was just one corrupted song; that somebody played a joke on me”, - continued Mr. Smith who then sheepishly admitted that he had recently downloaded “few dozen songs” from Kazaa. “I skipped the song. Things returned to normal. Then, suddenly, more violins, and then the organ. Yikes! I began browsing through my iPod: at least half of my songs have been vandalized. Vivaldi, Bach, Mozart, jazz, country, blue grass – my entire collection was ruined.”
“We are facing a massive worm attack on popular P2P networks,” – confirms Eugene Kaspersky, the Head of Virus Research at Kaspersky Labs. “This is apparently the first successful mp3 virus.” It was widely believed that mp3 standard was virus-safe. It appears that somebody managed to find and exploit a vulnerability in iPod’s embedded software, which lacks the level of anti-virus protection of large desktop operating systems. Playing an infected song causes iPod’s buffer overflow and malicious code sneaks into the iPod. When synchronized, the virus jumps into iTunes software client. It then connects to a remote server that uploads more malicious code, which in turn infects more mp3 files stored on the hard drive. And that is not whole story. The virus apparently scans the PC for Grokster, Kazaa, BitTorrent or other file-sharing software. If it finds it it copies itself onto other computers on the network. As a result, about 10% to 15% of all files on the major networks are infected. “Apparently, the virus writers released the virus a few weeks ago, and when it has widely spread they suddenly activated the payload”, - suggests Mr. Kaspersky.
Although the virus is easily detectable removing it is problematic.
Kaspersky Labs and other anti-virus companies shall be able to come up with software that removes the virus from the PCs. Unfortunately, this does not help. The virus remains on iPod and would copy itself on iTunes at the next synch. And removing it from iPods seems to be beyond the reach of virus hunters. iPod runs a proprietary embedded OS developed by Pixo. Kaspersky, Symantec and other anti-virus companies have no experience with it. Besides, it’s a closed platform; the documentation is sparse at best. Few industry insiders even went as far as to hint that Pixo might be behind the attack:
the disagreement between Pixo and Apple is an open secret in Silicon Valley.
Pixo believes that Apple has not properly compensated it. Since such allegations would be next to impossible to substantiate it doesn’t make sense even to ask Pixo to rebuff them..."
They're not? The 4th quarter is what you've been touting here for ages, especially in terms of reaching the "projection," and now, suddenly its not relevant?? LOL