Technology that limits CD copies easily bypassed

System's maker knew of wrinkle

By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff, 10/7/2003

A new technology that's supposed to help music companies fend off illegal file swappers can be defeated literally by the touch of a button, according to a Princeton University researcher.

SunnComm Technologies Inc. of Phoenix created the MediaMax CD-3 system to prevent CD buyers from distributing music free over the Internet. The system is supposed to let users make a few copies for personal use, but forbid the production of many copies. Last month BMG, the music subsidiary of the giant German media firm Bertelsmann AG, released its first MediaMax disk in the United States, "Comin' From Where I'm From," by R&B artist Anthony Hamilton.

But John Alexander Halderman, a Princeton graduate student in computer science who obtained a copy of the Hamilton CD, said it's easy to bypass all the limitations imposed by the MediaMax system. The technology is designed to work only with computers using Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating systems. Users of Apple Macintosh or Linux computers can copy the disks without restriction.

And so can Windows users, if they disable a standard feature of Windows called "autorun." This feature causes a disk to start up as soon as it's inserted into the computer's CD-ROM drive. The MediaMax software is installed when that happens. If autorun is switched off, MediaMax will not be activated. If users want to leave autorun switched on, they can bypass it when running a MediaMax disk simply by holding down the shift key for a few seconds after inserting it. This prevents the MediaMax software from loading.

"I can't believe they didn't think someone would discover this right away," Halderman said. "Their engineers must know that this can be disabled. This isn't any deep secret of computer science. It's Windows 101."

Indeed, officials at SunnComm and BMG say they know the system can be bypassed.

"We were fully aware of this," said BMG spokesman Nathaniel Brown, who said setting technical limits on CD copying would have little impact on hard-core file swappers. "We look at copy management as a speed bump," he said.

"There's nothing in his report that's surprising," said SunnComm president Bill Whitmore. "There's nothing in the report that I'm concerned about." Whitmore said his company's system is simply supposed to give honest music lovers a legal way to make copies for personal use, not to stop large-scale piracy.

Whitmore also said the current MediaMax system is a first-generation product. Future versions will be harder to defeat because they'll interact with the computer's operating system software to prevent efforts to bypass the system. "The deployment for that mechanism will be throughout all operating systems," said Whitmore, who said he's in discussions with key software firms about this advanced version of the product.

Microsoft, meanwhile, is working on a project called Next Generation Secure Computing, in which future versions of Windows could set limits on the activities of computer users. Such a system could be used to prevent unauthorized file copying.

Still, Halderman remains skeptical that any antipiracy solution will work. "I think that it's going to prove impossible to make a disk that you can't copy with a computer but you can actually play in any CD player," he said.

Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.