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CGI, I misread your question. It was described in the SB2A that they were looking for funds. The SB2A was not the prospectus for those funds though.
Reading it again, I'm not sure who the funds go to, since they include warrants to purcahse MediaMax shares, as well as MediaMax shares OWNED BY SUNNCOMM (your dividends in other words) and also SunnComm shares. I would think to SunnComm, since they are the ones who have the agreement with Granite.
On November 14,2005 the Company's fifth post effective amendment to a
registration statement originally filed on June 29, 2004 with the Securities and
Exchange Commission which registered 96,290,414 the Company's common shares
owned by SunnComm International, Inc. became effective. The aggregate price of
the offering amount registered for the selling shareholder was solely for the
purpose of calculating the registration fee pursuant to Rule 457 and it was not
an indication of the actual value because there was no viable trading market in
the Company's common stock. At November 14,2005 there was 62,310,521 registered
shares held for sale. SunnComm has an agreement with Granite Associates, Inc., a
registered broker-dealer, to sell 56,000,000 of the registered shares in two
unit offerings by December 15,2005.
Offering I involves the offer of up to 14 million units, each of which includes
two registered shares of MediaMax common stock offered under the prospectus, one
Class A Warrant to purchase a restricted common share of MediaMax at an exercise
price of $.05, and one Class B Warrant to purchase a restricted common share of
MediaMax at an exercise price of $.10. The purchase price per unit is $.075.
None of the Warrants, the shares purchasable thereunder, nor the units
themselves are being offered under the registration statement. Only the
registered shares of MediaMax common stock owned by SunnComm which comprise a
portion of the units are being offered under the prospectus.
Offering II involves the offer of up to 14 million units, each of which includes
two registered shares of MediaMax common stock offered under the prospectus, one
restricted share of SunnComm common stock, one Class A Warrant to purchase a
restricted common share of MediaMax at an exercise price of $.05, and one Class
B Warrant to purchase a restricted common share of MediaMax at an exercise price
of $.10. The purchase price per unit is $.105. None of the Warrants, the shares
purchasable thereunder, the SunnComm restricted common stock, nor the units
themselves are being offered under the prospectus. Only the registered shares of
MediaMax common stock owned by SunnComm which comprise a portion of the units
are being offered under the prospectus.
The Company will not receive any proceeds from the sale of the registered shares
by the selling shareholder. The Company estimates that it has incurred
approximately $20,000 in legal and accounting fees, none of which are owed or
have been paid to directors, officers or affiliates.
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1057024/000119983505000619/mediamax_10qsb-09302005.txt
CGI
It would have been MMXT if they did receive the $800K, which I doubt is without contingencies. I would think that the $800K is not available until they secure the other $2.2M. If the $800K was committed before the recent fiasco, I would suspect they they are already trying to get the funds back.
It was the MMXT filings that described hiring Granite to get finance for them, so any funds received go to MMXT (at least initially).
OK, I'm learning as I go along. What I have found is quite disconcerting.
It looks very much to me that the 29 claims in the patent application that underpins MediaMax have been rejected.
This is the application
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FP...
This links to the status of the application...
http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_CH/.cmd/ad/.ar/sa.getBib/.c/6_0_69/.ce/7_...
Click the Non-Final Rejection link. That gives a PDF document that states all 29 claims have been rejected and the reason given is that they were anticipated by another patent held by Sun Microsystems.
I've found the status. Can you still give your opinion on the 2nd part of my question?
the zapkitty
Do you know enough about patent applications to answer this?
US 2005-0177516 - 10/773,686
Filed 2/6/04
Non-final office action mailed 6/15/05
(which means that it is abandoned but can be revived).
First of all, where on the patent application does it show the status? I can't see it listed. I've accessed it via the link given in http://sonyrootkit.blogspot.com/
Secondly, reading all 4 application, the last one appears to be the one that is at the heart of MediaMax (e.g not the extra stuff such as mail-a-friend or whatever we call it these days). Yet, according to your post, that has the status Non-final office action mailed 6/15/05 (which means that it is abandoned but can be revived).
How could it be in the abandoned state if SunnComm's core IP is based on it?
TIA
Kenco,
What patents are you talking about. I thought the only patents we had were for the previous product that BTEK developed.
Someone pointed to a patent application for the technology behind the current product but that was a patent application, not patent.
Do you have a link.
Financing...
So, I called. Mario says that the Granite folks "brought in $800,000 and something" but were unable to secure any more than that.
Weren't we told that the balance WOULD be paid on the 15th some time back? Now it looks like that was never on the cards.
How secure is the $800K. If I were lending to a company fighting for its survival and knowing it needed $3M+ to survive, any funds I commit would be contingent on the the balance also being raised.
Financiers are not idiots. If $3M is needed to survive, then my $800K, if it is all that is received, will achieve nothing except pay back expenses and salaries until the money finally runs out.
I like the spin for today. We are better off without the financing it seems, because we will be able to get a better deal elsewhere. Oh yeah!
Just like we were better of having the security exposure discovered in our software, because it tested our mettle and made our product all the better for it.
I'm sure if we end up bankrupt someone will be telling us we are better off because the bashers, MMs, shorts, Macrovision, Felten and Halderman will no longer have a reason to attack us.
I missed the detail. It does look like it's on hold. I feared that.
We really need an official company statement on all the topics tdj wrote on. It is not good enough to be disclosing them to one person and not all of us.
I thought the selective disclosure would have ended with KC coming aboard.
Didn't he say they were continuing to use MediaMax, not put it on hold?
Alj,
The time taken to solve a problem is the time between when it was first discovered and reported and the time that a working fix was made available. That is how it is measured in the industry. The actual time spent by the programmers on the problem is irrelevant. Some companies have 1 programmer that can only do so much in a day and that company will take a lot longer to fix it than a company that may have several programmers and possibly have 7 X 24 operations. However, several of the comments made here on how fast we were, and the SunnGramm from KC, were making comparisons with industry standards and the competition. If you are going to do that then you use industry measurement criteria in the comparison. I don't know whether we had 1 or 20 programmers working on the problem. That doesn't matter. The overall time taken is what matters and that is what you and others have been on about for a few days with the comments on how great we were.
The security exposure was discovered and documented in detail on November 29th and reported to Sony-BMG promptly by the EFF in late November according to reports. SunnComm issued a patch that fixed the problem correctly on December 8th. That is somewhere between 8 and 10 days to get it right.
If SunnComm wasn't made aware of the problem until the 6th then we should ask why Sony-BMG sat on their collective butts for 6 to 8 days doing nothing. But I don't believe that was the case. I would think that Sony-BMG were on to SunnComm the very day they found out about the problem. I only used the 6th to give Sting the greatest possible leeway in his "hours not day" comment and even on that unrealistically generous supposition, his comment was still wrong, as was the overnight and 1 day comment. IMO, SunnComm took at least 8 days to fix the problem and I have yet to see anything that says otherwise.
Its very odd that being factual on this board brings you up for criticism.
I also noticed that all the praise for SunnComm on this issue has come from SunnComm/MediaMax and not from 3rd parties. The joint Sony/EFF press release on the problem made us look like outsiders.
In other words, your contributions today impress me by confirming that your cross hairs are unrelentìngly trained on Sunn Comm, and only on SunnComm. Why should your trigger finger be itching only in one direction? You are saying –– am I right? –– that whatever Microsoft or Macrovision do (no mention of First4!) is not susceptible to criticism.
My cross hairs are trained on my investment and the fact that I see it vanishing very fast.
Unlike others here, I do not see this error and the fix made by SunnComm as some great achievement that we ought to be proud about. It was a monumental mess up.
Sony-BMG were being dragged through the coals because of XCP. Some here were suggesting that we were so much on top of things that we even knew of XCP's weaknesses before Sony and the others found out. Yet all that time we had a huge security exposure in our product. The EFF asked iSEC Partners to look at MediaMax and they found the securuity exposure. It was also described as a not uncommon error.
Why didn't SunnComm find it themselves? It was not some error that only occurs using some weird combination of events, but a "not uncommon error". We severely embarrassed our best customer right when things were calming down. It put SunnComm's name on every newspaper and online journal in the world, for all the wrong reasons. We had already embarrased Sony-BMG with the problems with the uninstaller, so how come it took others to find this problem in our code. Considering the pressure Sony-BMG was under, the fact that we did not go through our code with a fine tooth comb to root out such issues is a disgrace. It made us look incompetent.
Although it was easy to fix the problem, the exposure itself was serious and should never have happened.
The SunnComm MediaMax version 5 software distributed by Sony BMG could expose the computers of millions of users to attacks by malicious hacker and virus writers. They undermine significant security protections otherwise present on computers running Windows, which are designed to prevent users (either people or programs) from gaining control of your computer.
While others may try to put a gloss on what has happened, I firmly believe that our chances of survival are now less than 10%. There was always a risk that we wouldn't survive, being a small company with not much revenue and difficult access to finance. But I still would have put our chances of success at over 70% and success would have had a huge impact on the share price. I now seriously doubt we will ever recover from this.
I'm not laying all the blame at the feet of SunnComm. They certainly should not have let that security exposure get into MediaMax and they should have been the one to discover and fix it. But it is that combined with the uninstaller issue and the huge fallout from XCP that together throws into doubt that the industry will use this type of technology to protect content. They are rethinking their whole strategy.
And as I said in a previous post, the problems with MediaMax for CD will also impact our DVD product.
IMO we are in a predicament.
Alj
Hours or days, that partly depends when you start counting. By your own count, the second solution was found within 48 hours. The fundamental fact remains that the problem has been fixed on a short time-frame
You start counting from when the problem is reported. The 2nd solution wasn't a new problem, but getting the first problem fixed correctly. If you leave your computer in for repair and get it back a week later, but find it still faulty and they take another week to get it right, then in my books it took 2 weeks to repair. I wouldn't call that 2 problems fixed each fixed in 1 week.
The fundamental fact remains that the problem has been fixed on a short time-frame
The fundamental fact remains that they didn't fix the problem overnight (your statement from memory) and they didn't fix the problem in a day (Peter) and they didn't fix the problem in hours (Sting). They took days. 2 days minimum assuming the initial problem wasn't reported to SunnComm until the 6th and they issued the 1st patch that same day. But I was only being very generous to Sting by saying that SunnComm didn't get the problem until the 6th. I would think that Sony-BMG (and that is my opinion) reported it to SunnComm when they were informed by the EFF at the end of November. So we are most likely talking about 8 or 9 days to fix the problem correctly. We know when the problem was discovered (11/29) and when it was fixed correctly (12/8). These are the facts.
What Macrovision and Microsoft do is irrelevant. We are talking about one specific problem and how long it took to be fixed. I am not saying that they do it better than us. I am simply stating that based on the facts available, we took days to fix it, not hours, not overnight and not a day.
Ooops, sorry didn't realize that I was replying to Stehvestor, not Sting.
Sting...
At any rate hour/days makes little difference
So why did you state that SunnComm fixes problems in hours not days. And Alj said they are fixed overnight. And Peter told Danny they are fixed in a day while MVSN takes longer.
Sony was notified but when was Sunncomm notified. Remember Sony was using First4.
Actually I should have said Sony-BMG were notified, as there is no Sony anymore in regards to music, just Sony-BMG. Sony-BMG uses F4I and MediaMax. BTW, are you suggesting that Sony-BMG didn't respond immediately when they were informed of the problem? The EFF thanked them for their quick response, so were the EFF wrong to do that?
Wwe just speculate at the dates/hours etc
If that was the case, then you should have clearly stated that. I didn't see an IMO next to that statement. I didn't speculate as I researched what I was saying. And even if there was some uncertainty on when the information got to SunnComm, we know that they knew by the 6th, which was when they released the 1st patch, but it was the 8th by the time they got it right. So on that evidence alone, it was a minimum of 2 days, which is days not hours and longer than overnight.
Stingray,
Actually I think some of the people who have shown some negativity here are far more objective than the many who do not realise the prediciment of the situation.
Are there flaws, yes there are and each has been addressed and fixed without a delay in hours not days!
I think your calculation may be wrong here. The EFF first informed Sony about the security risk with the library at the end of November. SunnComm's first patch to fix the problem was released December 6th. That too had faults. The replacement patch was December 8th.
The error according to the company that tested it with SunnComm was not an uncommon error and could be EASILY fixed by applying a patch.
I don't know where you get the "fixed in hours" not days from.
The last paragraph in this article more or less states what I had been writing earlier. Will the labels take the risk?
Sony BMG Issues New Security Patch for Audio CD Software Problem Robin Arnfield, newsfactor.com
Thu Dec 8, 4:09 PM ET
New York-based record company Sony (NYSE: SNE - news) BMG has suffered major embarrassment after having to admit, for the second time in two months, that copyright-protection software contained in its audio CDs can create a backdoor that makes users' PCs susceptible to intrusion from hackers.
The program, which gets automatically installed when audiophiles play a Sony music CD on their computers, is intended to stop illegal copies of songs from being made.
Sony BMG issued a patch to correct potential problems caused by the antipiracy program on December 6 after the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a U.S.-based Internet freedom advocacy group, said the software "could allow malicious third parties ... to gain control over a consumer's computer running the Windows operating system."
Problems with patch
The patch is designed to prevent a vulnerability caused by the MediaMax Version 5 content-protection software, which was developed by SunComm. The vulnerability was discovered by U.S. security firm iSEC Partners after the EFF asked iSEC to exame the SunnComm software.
But the day after the patch was released, Princeton University Professor Ed Felten and one of his students, Alex Halderman, warned that the patch itself can cause security problems.
The EFF then warned computer users in a new statement that it did not recommend using the patch.
Major Embarrassment
"This has been a PR disaster for Sony," said Gartner (NYSE: IT - news) vice president Van Baker. "It clearly has some damage control to do around this and it will need to think twice about copy protection going forward. That said, if an artist that consumers like is on the Sony BMG label, they are likely to continue to buy the music."
Forrester Research analyst Ted Schadler said that consumers will reject copy protection on CDs because they wrongly think they are entitled to make physical copies of music. The solution, according to Schadler, is for record companies to focus more strongly on digital music because of the copyright protection built into it.
"The latest challenge is just round two," Schadler said. "It's virtually impossible to take something away from consumers without making them mad. Any copy protection on CDs takes something away."
Million-CD Recall
Last month, Sony had to withdraw millions of CDs from record stores after programmer Mark Russinovich discovered the record label was unintentionally infecting users' computers with a different type of spyware.
The problem in this case was caused by a different copyright-protection program, called XCP. This program sent information back to Sony BMG about the user's listening habits, but also made their computers insecure, Russinovich said.
"Awful as this Sony BMG situation seems, the fact that the public disclosure of the problem forced a recall of more than six million offending products is actually a good sign," said Forrester analyst Laura Koetzle.
"Two or three years ago, no one would've paid any attention to the two security trade magazine articles that tried to publicize a similar issue," she said.
New patch
On Thursday, Sony BMG issued a new patch for the MediaMax copyright-protection software. "We asked our security advisors NSG Software in London to check out the new patch," said Thomas Hesser, president of Sony BMG's global digital marketing. "As a music company, we take Internet security very seriously."
"The problem caused by MediaMax was privilege escalation," Robert Horton, a director at NSG Software, said. "Basically, this means that on a computer with multiple levels of user privileges, a less privileged user would be able to overwrite files that only a higher privileged user had access to."
Kurt Opsahl, an attorney with the EFF, said that independent security experts are currently evaluating the candidate patch. "At this time, we do not know whether the patch is properly fixed," he said.
"However, we do agree with the position taken today in Ed Felten's blog - 'Experience teaches that where there is one bug, there are probably others.' That's doubly true where the basic design of the product is risky. I'd be surprised if there aren't more security bugs lurking in MediaMax."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20051208/tc_nf/40029
From what I remember, MediaMax for DVD is similar in design to MediaMax for CD. I think both install a (hidden) driver on to the PC that intercepts access to the CDROM or DVDROM, only allowing the CD or DVD to be used according to the DRM rules.
So long as there is a question mark hanging over the use of MediaMax for CD, why would the studios want to get themselves into the same mess using a product with the same core design?
That is another reason for Clement to make some statement of where we are and where we are going.
Stingray
I do not dispute what you say, but ultimately I think it is economics that will decide the issue
I agree.
On one side of the equation is the loss from piracy and on the other is the loss from customers who refuse to buy protected CDs for whatever reason. That is probably measurable by the labels.
But the great unknown that makes all calculations meaningless at the moment is the lawsuits. They go beyond just technical defects but also address other issues such as installing when EULA declined, the EULA itself etc.
Some of the lawsuits are demanded $10K per CD compensation and if successful, would make using protection almost suicidal for the company.
Until those lawsuits are resolved and some principals established, there is no way IMO that the labels are going to release more copy protected CDs. That would simply be compounding their litigation risk.
Would you release a new CD with copy protection that could eventually cost you $10K per individual CD, even if the risk of that happening is small?
Gregg99
IF the problem is fixable, and found to be flawless by the goon squad hoping to put an end to DRM
At best "the goon squad" will say that a fix appears to fix the current problem. You are never going to get a statement from them (or even from SunnComm for that matter) that no other problems will surface in the future.
Will the labels take the risk is the million dollar question.
There is a 3rd possibility. That is that there is a fix that rectifies the problem for released and all future CDs, but the labels decide not to use CD copy protection anyway.
Any s/w product is defect free only until the next defect is found. Who could possibly guarantee that a new defect will not surface in the future. Remember it is only 2 weeks ago that many here were laughing at F4I and oh so confident that our product was beyond reproach. Felten has even stated that he thinks the MediaMax problems are worse than XCP.
Are the labels willing to risk a repeat of the last few weeks again some time in the future.
I believe that the labels will continue to advocate copy protection. But this will be token support only, just to make a statement that they have a right to copy protect CDs. I doubt that they will continue to deploy copy protected CDs in the current environment, fix or no fix, at least until all the litigation has been sorted out.
That's nice. So are you saying your remark about the financing and S4 was based on a complete misunderstanding of some post I made, since I have only ever asked others to substantiate their claims in respect to this matter and have never made any claims myself in regards to it?
t d j
I also heard part of the money was in and we are just waiting for the next installment before filing the S-4.
I also heard it too. I heard from Stingray earlier today and now I have heard it from you. But that hardly constitutes reliable information, if everyone is just hearing it from everyone else.
What is the source of your information.
Stingray,
Commented on by whom? One or two have made similar suggestions on this board, but when asked for a link couldn't provide.
We have received a large payment from the financing with the balance due by 12/15/05
What is the source of that information. Someone in SunnComm or a post on this board?
This is not going to go away so easily. We need a statement from Clement counteracting these claims below or stating our plans to fix them. Take a look at this from EFF's release on this MediaMax problem. A lot of journalists will be looking at this web page tomorrow.
http://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/Sony-BMG/mediamaxfaq.php
SunnComm MediaMax Security Vulnerability FAQ
...
Are there any more security issues with SunnComm's MediaMax software?
We don't know. We have identified one security issue, but there may be others. Even before this vulnerability came to light, security researcher Ed Felten noted "the MediaMax software will still erode security, for reasons stemming from the basic design of the software." See Freedom to Tinker for more. We urge Sony BMG to undertake rigorous security testing on all of its software, and we will continue to look into this issue.
......
Does the patch resolve all the issues with CDs with SunnComm MediaMax software?
No. There are other severe problems with MediaMax discs, including: undisclosed communications with servers Sony controls whenever a consumer plays a MediaMax CD; undisclosed installation of over 18 MB of software regardless of whether the user agrees to the End User License Agreement; and failure to include an uninstaller with the CD. EFF will continue to raise these issues with Sony BMG.
zstevek
This is not necessary IMO, you can use a MediaMax CD without an internet connection, this bascially proves that information does not need to be sent.
That's good and bad news. Its good because it means we can drop the sending of information with no impact on the product's function. It's bad because it begs the question why we are sending information to begin with, if that information is not necessary.
Could this be why we haven't being able to get Spyware Free certification yet?
Since it seems a simple fix with no impact on function, we should fix it asap IMO
Gregg99
There are two parts to the file installation, one which should be easy to resolve, the other I am not sure.
When the CD is inserted as far as I know the driver is immediately installed and activated (even though the user has yet to respond to the EULA questions). I think this is necessary to stop the CD being accessed by a ripper while it is just sitting there in the drive. I don't think that can be easily changed and IMO shouldn't be an issue since we clearly say on the label that a file will be installed. The EFF might argue that installing the file before the EULA is responded to is wrong, but I don't think that argument holds much weight.
If the user declines the EULA, then we should remove the driver immediately and eject the CD. We don't do that, but I would think that would be easy to fix. I think the EFF is right that we should remove the driver if the EULA is declined.
I do not know why we need to send information to SunnComm. If necessary for technical issues, then we should clearly explain what we are doing and why we are doing it. It should only be done obviously if the EULA is accepted. Fixing the "spyware" issue may not be a program change, just some clear explanations of what is going on.
SharonB
I didn't think MediaMax permanently installed any files on a computers hard drive?
It does. One of the complaints is that not only does it install a file on the computer (which is necessary to effect copy protection), but it installs the file even if the user declines the EULA. We need to fix that asap, if not already done.
Is that enough to be referred to as spyware?
No
Does spyware have to report outside the affectted computer to be classified as spyware?
Yes. There are claims that Mediamax reports back to SunnComm with some information relating to the CD and to the computer. This leaves us open to being called spyware. IMO we should disclose what we are sending back and why we need to do it to allay those concerns. We should also seek Spyware Free certification, which we are pursuing.
It seems to me utilizing a temp file and deleting it after usage would not be spyware.
I agree, but that is not what we do.
tdj
You see, a company has to promote itself to investors to get them to fund the financing and once the S-4 is filed, they have to stop that promoting.
Granite are the intermediary arranging the finance. They can tell potential investors what they like as long as it is on the public record. If it is not on the public record, it would be illegal for Granite to have been told it in the first place (Reg FD).
New potential investors are not able to access any information that is not available to every other investor out there. Are you suggesting that they are been provided information that we humble investors have no access to?
What happened to our application to be certified Spyware Safe? Someone said about 2 weeks ago that we had applied for it.
"The 4th quarter numbers are not whats most relevant at this point in time..."
Where did you get that idea? 4th quarter numbers are crucial if you are a company living on the brink. How do salaries and expenses get paid?
All year we were being told about how everything would be OK because 4th Q was THE important quarter. Now we are being sold the line that Q4 numbers aren't relevant. That to me is a not too subtle way of saying "expect Q4 to be a miserable quarter, like the rest".
The new emphasis on DVD is also a subtle way of saying that 2006 is not going to be good for CDs either, so we need something to divert attention from CDs.
All we have in the DVD market is a PR.
This is interesting
d. We lost zero business because all the Christmas release business has already been released and on the shelves. The high shopping season has arrived. Re-prints based on demand will occur. Thus the reason why berg has not annouced new stuff.
I understand what you are saying is that there is a pullback (hopefully temporarily) by the labels because of the lawsuits, but it isn't effecting us as bad as it could because the Christmas bump up in sales has already gone through manufacturing. But our revenue is based on the time of manufacturing, not on time of sale.
So much of what is on the shelves would have been produced in late Q3 and early Q4. So our miserable $68K for Q3 includes some of the peak year-end production, which makes that figure far worse than it seems at face value.
Additionally, our bump up for Q4 will be limited to just the manufacture from early Q4 (up to mid November). Late Q4 production is going to be down due to the effects of the lawsuit.
zstevek
Halderman's findings on the "shift key" work around made national news, Felten’s findings that Macrovision's software doesn't work with some programs went mostly unpublicized
But the reason has nothing to do with bias. Halderman/Felten were not the cause of the 'shift key' making national and international news. That lay squarely at the feet of SunnComm IMO.
A few weeks before Halderman's report, SunnComm issued a PR on how effective MediaMax was (the Belgian test center results). That is like showing a red rag to a bull. Then as soon as Halderman issued the report, we had SunnComm threatening to sue him and later backing down. It was these later events IMO that pushed the shift key issue into the spotlight.
As far as I know, Macrovision didn't make any comments on Felten's report into their product, so the issue simply died. Maybe that's a lesson we can learn. (Although I do believe we should point out errors in the reports when there are errors, but we should do it professionally, not with animosity)
Another factor in relation to CDS-300 is that there are no known CDS-300 CDs in the US. Halderman/Felten's main focus isn't evaluating copy protection systems, so they are unlikely to go out of their way to evaluate a product that isn't even for sale here.
They did evaluate an older version of CDS (100, 200?) in the past, so they are unlikely to revisit CDS until they get their hands on the latest product.
Kenco, I don't think the company should respond to message board or blog posts. What could they say that would prove the post wrong? It would just be a matter of who believes who.
You then run into the problem of having to counter every post that makes accusations of that sort. Not to do so would raise the allegation of the post being right.
Do what the military does. Neither confirm or deny anything.
Trouble is anyone can say anything on blogs and message boards. Who speaks the truth?
That is why I think posts should be substantiated where possible. This "I heard" thing doesn't do anything for me and I usually assume the opposite to what such posters post.
Flydoc,
I agree. If we do collect what Halderman claims - OS level, Version of Media Player etc. - I am sure it is to make the listening experience better. But that can be misconstrued by those who want to misconstrue.
They want to make us look bad.
We should drop collecting anything that is not absolutely necessary and clearly explain the rest. We might even have to make the product a little bit worse, if it means we can completely drop the spyware tag.
My guess is that it only sees weaknesses in the Ripguard product but not security or spyware exposures. It is the security and spyware exposures in MediaMax, rightly or wrongly, that has made the headlines for us. Although our product does seem to collect some minor data regarding the user, I don't believe we use it for nefarious purposes. But when people are distrustful, the simple act of collecting information can seem suspicious.
But the fact that it is critical of Ripguard sure makes those who suggested that they never criticise Macrovision products because of some alumni relationship look like idiots. Such comments make SunnComm look bad. The best way, IMO, to counter what Freedon-to-Tinker says, is to prove them wrong where they are wrong and to fix our product where they are right. Attacking their integrity like those who pushed the Alumni argument did, just reflects badly on SunnComm.
"If memory serves they announced that financing was arranged contingent upon certain things happening"
Cannot see that anywhere in the filings....
SunnComm has an agreement with Granite Associates, Inc., a
registered broker-dealer, to sell 56,000,000 of the registered shares in two
unit offerings by December 15,2005.
Offering I involves the offer of up to 14 million units, each of which includes
two registered shares of MediaMax common stock offered under the prospectus, one
Class A Warrant to purchase a restricted common share of MediaMax at an exercise
price of $.05, and one Class B Warrant to purchase a restricted common share of
MediaMax at an exercise price of $.10. The purchase price per unit is $.075.
None of the Warrants, the shares purchasable thereunder, nor the units
themselves are being offered under the registration statement. Only the
registered shares of MediaMax common stock owned by SunnComm which comprise a
portion of the units are being offered under the prospectus.
Offering II involves the offer of up to 14 million units, each of which includes
two registered shares of MediaMax common stock offered under the prospectus, one
restricted share of SunnComm common stock, one Class A Warrant to purchase a
restricted common share of MediaMax at an exercise price of $.05, and one Class
B Warrant to purchase a restricted common share of MediaMax at an exercise price
of $.10. The purchase price per unit is $.105. None of the Warrants, the shares
purchasable thereunder, the SunnComm restricted common stock, nor the units
themselves are being offered under the prospectus. Only the registered shares of
MediaMax common stock owned by SunnComm which comprise a portion of the units
are being offered under the prospectus.
It looks like Granite have until Dec 15th to arrange the finance. If not secured by then, the company can look elsewhere.
In addition, on November 2, 2005 the Company and SunnComm amended their
Consulting Agreement with Granite Associates, Inc. whereby from November 2, 2005
until December 15, 2005, the Company and SunnComm agreed that they will not
directly or indirectly, solicit, entertain proposals from, hold discussions or
negotiations with, provide information to or otherwise cooperate in any way with
any person or entity other than Granite Associates, Inc. concerning financings.
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1057024/000119983505000619/mediamax_10qsb-09302005.txt
I suspect that they haven't yet.
Remember, twice in the past they issued PRs saying they had received finance when the hadn't.
If it were a done deal, I would think they would have a PR out the door in no time.
IMO no finance will be forthcoming until the Sony lawsuit is successfuly defended.
stehvestor
I think it was 2.7 and that is what was needed and that is what they received
I do not know where you got your information from, but the recent filings did not state that finance had been received. Additionally, Granite are not the ones that will provide the finance. Their contract is to act as intermediaries, seeking investors willing to provide the finance.
Perhaps our programmers were so busy diagnosing what was wrong with F4I's code, they didn't have time to check their own?
Wow, its been some weekend!
I've read through Halderman's report and I'm not so despondent as some here are. The best case scenario is that he is wrong on all three points he makes and if he is wrong, lets just prove him wrong.
The worst case scenario is that he is right on all 3 points and I suspect that is the case, to a degree. But assuming he is right, what do we do.
From what I can tell, when it comes to what SunnComm needs to do to copy protect CDs and to deliver the extras, these 3 issues are not fundamental to the software.
1. MediaMax installs without meaningful consent or notification
This is suggesting that MediaMax doesn't correctly inform you of what is going to be installed, including how long it is going to be there for, and also installs even if the EULA is not accepted.
Solution. Fix it. Be clearer in the EULA of what is going to happen (They will eventually find out through the likes of Halderman what is happening anyway, so why try to hide our intent). Remove all software if the EULU isn't accepted.
2. MediaMax discs include either no uninstaller or an uninstaller that fails to remove major components of the software
Solution. Fix it. There is no reason why we cannot include an uninstaller to remove MediaMax if ever the user wants to remove it. If we need MediaMax to be on the PC to control the tracks already downloaded, then we let the user know that by running the uninstaller, all tracks downloaded will have to be deleted too. That is entirely within the rights of the label.
3. MediaMax transmits information about you to SunnComm without notification or consent
If we need to transmit some information, perhaps CD identifier, to obtain the license to download or whatever, then be forthright about it. State that "a, b and c is being uploaded to SunnComm or the label for the following reason" Being open, the user can chose whether to go ahead or not.
Doing the above would make Halderman's complaints obsolete or at least mitigate them if the user is clearly informed beforehand about what will happen and still choses to go ahead. These changes are all in the periphery of the product and would be minor in nature.
That IMO is the worst case scenario and is not difficult to fix.
We should act courteously to Halderman, thank him for highlighting issues that escaped our radar and let the world know we are going to rectify those small issues (re-iterating how we always strive to make the user experience more enjoyable). Try and turn it into a positive.
What not to do is make a personal attack on Halderman. Suggesting that he is "connected" to Macrovision and doing all this at their behest because someone in Macrovision once graduated from Princeton is too dumb to contemplate and will make us look just that, dumb.
The other thing we should do as I suggested last week and it seems it is now underway, is apply for Spyware Free Certification.
This will blow over quickly if we handle it right. Getting our backs up and calling everyone liars is not the way to go. If the issues are genuine, thank him for highlighing them, fix them and move on.
BMG's Hesse did a great disservice last week when he downplayed rootkits. He is the one now with egg on his face.