Remember the time Sony Music installed a rootkit on peoples' computers via commercially purchased CDs because hacking paying customers' computers seemed like a good way to combat piracy?
That schema was popular for a while. That weird format was probably Windows Media Audio (wma).The audio data was still there and was accessible with the right software/firmware combo. But sometimes those disks would auto run and inject malware. This was usually the Sony root kit. Sometimes that malware would disable your system’s ability to access the audio tracks. Because for way too long windows machines would autoplay anything that was plugged into it and EVERYTHING ran as administrator. Most CD drives back then had firmware that could play the CD audio directly from the drive to your speakers, bypassing the OS entirely, so most people would never notice a difference until they tried to rip the tracks themselves.
Some older games worked this way too, without the malware. The software would be on the data portion and instead of copying big wave file to your PC (because mp3s weren’t really a popular thing yet and drive speeds were slow), they would just play the audio from the audio track portion of the disk. You could sometimes pop those disks into a dumb CD player and listen to the audio directly as long as you skipped the data track at the beginning. You could burn your own disks like this around the same time. I remember making a few mixtapes on CD that stored a CD label/envelope tracklist as a PDF and mp3s of the CD tracks themselves on a data track at the end. Putting the data at the end allowed you to play it in a dumb CD player without having to skip the data track.
Sony BMG initially denied that the rootkits were harmful. It then released an uninstaller for one of the programs that merely made the program's files invisible while also installing additional software that could not be easily removed.
And then they just paid some settlements, recalled some CDs, and continued to operate as if nothing has happened. Bloody hell.
I remembered there was a Part II to the story that made it even worse, but did not remember those details. Should have read my own link! Thanks for highlighting that because it truly is the icing on the cake.
The worst part was the response from someone high up at Sony was “most of the people who [had the rootkit installed on their PC against their will] dont know what a rootkit is anyways, so why should I care?”
Really was the tip of the privacy era iceberg if you ask me.
I still miss my mini-disc player! I loved using it to record songs from the radio. I felt like I was truly living in the future, having such vast storage space (like, 50 low-quality songs, lol).
I always wanted one, but by the time my disposable income and the price of a player met, they were on their way out. Always seemed like a really cool bit of personal tech to me though.
I loved my minidisc player. My first was a Sharp but that was stolen in a robbery. So I replaced it with a Sony NetMD which I loved even more. Due to the new compression, depending on the length of the albums, you could fit 3 or 4 onto one disc. Also it docked with the PC, so labelling and ripping was really easy. I bought a compatible in line remote which had a backlit LCD display which I loved. The chewing gum stick battery lasted ages and if it did run out of power, I could screw on a little compartment that’s held a AA battery and keep me going.
I remember Sony forcing everyone to use their proprietary SonicStage software and proprietary ATRAC3 audio file format with their Mini Disc players. Nothing else would work on their products. Thank goodness big industries don’t influence governments worldwide, or we’d be heading into some kind of dystopia DRM-laden in every aspect of our lives. Oh wait…
I hate when you need to install different software for whatever camera, music player, whatever that you had. Luckily that is pretty rare that proprietary software is required nowadays.
I worked for a startup that had as main investor a company called InterTrust. Our office was inside their building.
InterTrust was a patent portfolio that belonged to Sony and Philips. All they did was sue people. One day they were able to sue Apple on some stupid patent, and there was much rejoicing at the office.
I mean it’d be a terrible shame if Frank Sinatra and Billy Holiday went broke and had to come out of retirement because of the internet archive’s actions, maybe the labels a have a point here…
No, I got the sarcasm, I wanted to note the fact that these music labels are most definitely doing this in their own interest rather than to benefit artists.
That’s not a good sign for Ukraine in what is an attrition war. Even their own military is making plans to smuggle their men out if the country because they don’t want to send them to the death trap that is the heavily reinforced WW1 like frontlines. And Zelensky’s response is just to fire and try replace the people doing that, instead of looking as to why that is happening. If the counter offensive tactics are so dire that your own military is doing corruption to avoid sending men to the front, maybe that needs reassessment.
Zelenskiy said a state investigation into centres across Ukraine had exposed abuses by officials ranging from illegal enrichment to transporting draft-eligible men across the border despite a wartime ban on them leaving the country.
I don’t think you’re necessarily wrong, and I’m certainly no expert. However, I do know that Ukraine has long struggled with corruption, and has been making slow progress over the past couple of decades. And they will always have (there are always, in any conflict) a certain level of partisanship in their own ranks.
I’ve been mildly concerned about what could happen after the invasion; assuming Ukraine is successful, Zelenskyy’s popularity could make it easy for him to transition into a dictatorship. However, so far I’ve seen little to indicate that he’s anything other than a sincere, effective, and passionate leader – I like the guy, and I’m inclined to trust his judgement. He’s done unexpectedly well so far, and Ukraine under his leadership has been acting up to the highest ethical ideals of the EU.
Maybe Ukraine leadership is making a mistake, but maybe they know something us armchair Generals don’t.
You don’t see his pandering to the EU as stumbling backwards into this whole situation in the first place?
I understand that it comes across as provocative, but from what I understand about his (attempted) maneuvering over the past couple years, he’s kind of a spineless and weak leader who trusted the wrong side and got his country embroiled in a massive conflict.
NATO and the US are not trustworthy allies, and they let him talk up "Ukraine joining NATO ", a very dangerous thing to do, but I don’t believe they had any intention of letting them in at any point. Zelensky should have understood this.
if you ukraine were to win the war (and they won’t) whatever remains of their economy is going to be crippled by its accumulating debts. a lot of the ‘aid’ they’ve received—from the ‘highly ethical’ EU among others—consists of loans that are to be paid back in full and with interest.
and we already know what the cost of these foreign ‘‘aid’’ packages are; privatization (already well under way—ukraine even has their own website); austerity; lower wages; poorer working condition; a crackdown on labor rights and organizing (like banning left-wing parties in your country, which zelensky has already done), etc.
their economy is going to be crippled by its accumulating debts.
But Zelenskyy told me that Ukraine was going to reach a 1 trillion GDP in 10 years by deregulating, selling off public assets, and reforming social programmes. Are you really suggesting he would lie like that?
GDP is just a measurement of money exchanging hands, so I don’t doubt that Zelensky, a man in the Pandora papers for money laundering could figure out a way to get their GDP to a trillion.
I agree, I don’t think it’s particularly noteworthy except for the fact it was all regional recruitment chiefs at once.
This suggests either a high level of corruption (I don’t think it would be more than other places in the conditions) or a power play between elites in the military.
Alternatively their allies have told them to do so.
Zelenskyy’s popularity could make it easy for him to transition into a dictatorship
Yes and no. His poll numbers surged from about 30% to 88% after the invasion but Ukrainians want a EU path and Dictator Zelenzkyy would be in the way of that. He could certainly win another term in a landslide and do a de Gaulle but I kinda doubt he’s even interested in that, he certainly wasn’t terribly ecstatic about it before the war and with how things are looking martial law is going to continue past the election date, that is, there’s going to be no elections. Meaning that at the end of it all there’s going to be a Zelenskyy who’s first going to take a vacation, and then do another season of servant of the people. Opening scene: Goloborodko wins the elections against the incumbent, a comedian who saved the nation from calamity due to sheer stupid luck (something about an asteroid if I remember my season 1 right). Finally, someone with proper qualifications in office again, a history teacher!
A question, do you truly think the Netherlands or Denmark would honestly let Ukraine join the EU? When they are already moaning about Romania and Bulgaria? Its a pipedream to sell Ukrainians on copium.
The people moaning about people from Romania and Bulgaria are neither the ones profiting from their cheap labour here nor are they who calls the shots on the matter
I don’t know. The EU has been having a bit of a crisis, with candidates from several member states floating the idea of their own Brexits, financial struggles, and bad faith actors. I would hope that if Ukraine met the conditions for membership, then yes. It had been doing pretty well, financially and rule-of-law -wise; maybe not perfect, but steadily improving.
I was surprised by Trump, by Brexit, by the political successes of far-right politicians (Rachele Mussolonis) across Europe. I have no idea which way any of these countries will break.
China’s only politician to be named in a sprawling investigation of millions of confidential financial documents known as the Pandora Papers is a female entrepreneur who the report says set up an offshore firm to trade U.S. stocks.
For a parallel the libs can understand: all other allegations aside, it’s extremely clear that Hunter Biden wouldn’t have been on the board of a Ukrainian gas company in the first place if his last name wasn’t Biden.
Are you comparing a fictional character in a fictional story to a person performing IRL? You’re judging his performance in this crisis by hia previous career? Which careers pass your “ok to be voted into presidency” test?
No. I am comparing an actor playing a part to an actor playing a part.
Which careers pass your “ok to be voted into presidency” test?
Career doesn’t matter. Its who holds their purse strings that matters. Same man who paid Zelensky the actor, paid for Zelensky the president’s campaign. (and also funded neo-nazi paramilitary groups) Same boss. Just a bigger billing. Same job different character.
Ukraine is fucked. As others have pointed out, western vultures are already carving it up via mass privatization (though they may be disappointed with what’s left when the war is over). The “counteroffensive” went nowhere and whether Russia marches all the way to Odessa is really just a question of if they want to at this point. The war was lost before it started and Ukraine will be lucky if it doesn’t get annexed to pieces by Poland et al in the coming months. Best case it keeps some manner of territorial integrity and limps along as a failed state. Not sure Zelensky deserves all the blame for this disaster, as the wheels were in motion at least as early as 2014, but they definitely bet on the wrong horse here.
Just something funny: First time I donated to archive.org my bank blocked my card due to being a “suspicious payment”.
I had to physically go to the bank because due to security reasons I couldn’t unblock it in internet banking.
The high security looked like this:
“Hello. You blocked my card due to suspicious payment.”
“OK, what’s your name”
“[name]”
“I see. Did you make that payment?”
“Yes.”
“OK, I’ll send an e-mail to management. It should be unblocked in a few hours. Have a nice day.”
“Bye.”
They didn’t want to see my ID card, not even the debit card. Nor sign anything. Just and only hear my name. “Security”.
I had my insurance company ask me for my phone number for security purposes. It was an old one I had since replaced and forgotten, so they read it out to me and asked me to confirm it.
This has happened to me with my own bank sometimes, though thankfully all I have to do is call them, report the blocked payment, and answer the same useless questions that don’t really prove anything security-wise, and that’s it. I’m not sure why they insist on doing this song and dance, but at least I don’t have to drive all the way to one of their locations to get it resolved, lol.
It would suck to see the Internet Archive disappear over a bunch of music labels suing them. How am I supposed to see what jcctv.net looked like back in 2011?
(Yes, jcctv.net is a real website. However it doesn’t do much today.)
The lawsuit said the recordings are all available on authorized streaming services and “face no danger of being lost, forgotten, or destroyed.”
Yeah right, they all are poorly done digital remasters, edited versions and/or re-recordings. Funny how the record labels are the ones whose destroying their own music.
Not every track in their original form is available on streaming services, like you can’t stream the original “Set Adrift on Memory Bliss” by P.M. Dawn because all you can get is a cheap re-recording with a different vocalist.
Yeah, there aren’t many Pumpkins fans left these days, but the Internet Archive still manages to have a collection that beats the Smashing Pumpkins Audio Archive from the early 2000s.
Yeah, there aren’t many Pumpkins fans left these days
Woah woah woah. There are plenty of Pumpkins fans left these days. Damn did that make me feel old. Give us another twenty years before you issue such statements please, Sir or Madam.
Yes, and please back up as much as possible while you’re there. If they take it from us, we build our own Internet Archive, with blackjack and hookers.
Thanks for sharing!
This source compiles with few modifications in Visual Studio .NET 2003 (MSVC 7.1)
see screens: i.imgur.com/PjEAFn5.png i.imgur.com/3obty91.jpeg
Game assets needed from version 1.33 (build 1.1.3.1395)
The labels’ lawsuit filed in a federal court in Manhattan said the Archive’s “Great 78 Project” functions as an “illegal record store” for songs by musicians including Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis and Billie Holiday.
Representatives for the Internet Archive did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the complaint.
The Internet Archive is already facing another federal lawsuit in Manhattan from leading book publishers who said its digital-book lending program launched in the pandemic violates their copyrights.
A judge ruled for the publishers in March, in a decision that the Archive plans to appeal.
The labels’ lawsuit said the project includes thousands of their copyright-protected recordings, including Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas,” Chuck Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven” and Duke Ellington’s “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)”.
The lawsuit said the recordings are all available on authorized streaming services and “face no danger of being lost, forgotten, or destroyed.”
reuters.com
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