Music Man Cracks DRM Schemes
John "Alex" Halderman, a computer science researcher at Princeton, has made digital rights management (DRM) an interest of his, playing a role in the Sony rootkit scandal. His interest in DRM began in 2003 when he examined SunComm's MediaMax DRM, discovering that it installs itself and modifies the system kernel without users' permission, but the installation can be aborted by holding the shift key. This prompted SunComm to threaten a $10 million suit under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act but back off after public outcry. The Sony rootkit lead Halderman to re-examine the revised MediaMax and find that it installs itself even when the user declines the license agreement. Halderman's advisor, Professor Ed Felten, says Halderman likes to apply his computer science skills to issue that affect the general public.
Wired