[LINK] Old code defeats new CD anti-ripping technologies

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

Old code defeats new CD anti-ripping technologies
By Tony Smith
Posted: 10/08/2001 at 14:06 GMT
The Register
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/20947.html

Macrovision's SafeAudio and Midbar's Cactus - both new technologies
designed to prevent CDs from being copied successfully - may have been
defeated by software released over two years ago.

CloneCD, from German developer Elaborate Bytes, was written to duplicate
discs bit by bit. The code requires a CD-R or CD-RW drive that supports RAW
mode, which, according to EB, almost all currently available models do.

Essentially, RAW mode allows data to be read and written as pure binary
data rather than files (as a CD drive does) or music tracks (the way a CD
player works). CloneCD generates a perfect copy of the data on the source
CD - including all the noise and other modifications to music and control
data made by the likes of Cactus and SafeAudio.

Of course, that also includes any other copy protection system. As EB's own
Web site points out, "CloneCD does not disable the boot protection found on
console CDs... CloneCD does not modify the data it reads or writes in any
way".

Both SafeAudio and Cactus are designed to prevent file copies.
Theoretically, then, CloneCD copies are not affected, though duplicating a
CloneCD copy in the usual way will be blocked by those two technologies. We
understand that CloneCD has been used to successfully bypass SafeAudio, but
as yet we've seen no corroboration for that claim.

EB is smart enough to loudly proclaim that CloneCD is not licensed to be
used to copy discs for which the user lacks permission to do so. It's a
moot point whether that's enough to protect the authors from the strictures
of the US' Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which renders any attempt to
bypass a copy protection mechanism illegal, but we'd caution them not to
make a fuss if they're ever visiting the States - Dimitri Sklyarov is proof
of that.

EB notes that not all CD writers support RAW mode, and we suspect that over
time fewer and fewer will as the music industry attempts to plug this
particular hole in their anti-piracy wall.

-- 
A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.
--Mario Puzo, The Godfather

Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Canberra Australia
brd@dynamite.com.au
brd@austarmetro.com.au