DRM Hole Sets Patch Speed Record For Microsoft

puppetman writes "Wired columnist Bruce Schneier has an article up called 'Quickest Patch Ever', about a patch that was issued within three days to fix a vulnerability in Windows Digital Rights Management (DRM)." From the article: "Now, this isn't a 'vulnerability' in the normal sense of the word: digital rights management is not a feature that users want. Being able to remove copy protection is a good thing for some users, and completely irrelevant for everyone else. No user is ever going to say: 'Oh no. I can now play the music I bought for my PC on my Mac. I must install a patch so I can't do that anymore.' But to Microsoft, this vulnerability is a big deal. It affects the company's relationship with major record labels. It affects the company's product offerings. It affects the company's bottom line. Fixing this 'vulnerability' is in the company's best interest; never mind the customer."

Re:Kinda blows their excuse

[Stripsurge]

Easy. They used up all their overtime hours already.

What day is it?

[hansamurai]

For a second there, I thought it was Tuesday.

Oh, I know!

[rice_burners_suck]

I have an idea. Let's embrace and extend DRM in Windows. From now on, the operating system will not allow anything to read any information from anywhere. Your own files on your hard drive? Sorry, you can't access them, because you might accidently pirate your English class essay that you wrote last night, and Windows, being much, much, much smarter than you could ever dream of being in your wildest dreams, is therefore charged with the duty of making sure you don't do something illegal like that.

I care!

[Sensible Clod]

I mean, think of it. I can now play the music I bought for my PC on my Mac. I must install a patch so I can't do that anymore.

Good thing MS was on the ball with this one. Can you imagine how many billions would be lost if they waited, say, six months [zdnet.co.uk] to fix that? They probably saved the entire econo--er, recording industry single-handedly!

</sarcasm>

Like WGA

[doodlebumm]

I can just see it now -

In order to serve you better, updates to your Windows OS require that you have this DRM patch installed on your system. In fact we're going to turn off your system soon if you don't update it with this patch. And if you find a way around this patch, we'll come back and serve you with a law suit, courtesy of the RIAA.

Re:Critical, or not?

[Carewolf]

Pirates just are better. Get used to it, ninja!

Re:Critical, or not?

[Analogy Man]

And if we could just figure out a way to get a couple million pirates of the "Aargh! Treasure" variety we could kiss global warming goodbye!

Re:Kinda blows their excuse

[skaap]

I wonder if they'll introduce clippy to this:

Clippy: It looks like you're trying to pirate some music, do you want me to:

1. Send your details to the RIAA
2. Delete your files
3. Ruin the files by overlaying Cliff Richard music into it?

Re:Kinda blows their excuse

[marcello_dl]

What's their excuse going to be the next time a user vulnerability...

Windows has no users. It has hostages.

Re:Critical, or not?

[clem]

And if we could just figure out a way to get a couple million pirates of the "Aargh! Treasure" variety we could kiss global warming goodbye!

Wouldn't a pirate be more likely to say, "Ah! Treasure!" or "How nice! Treasure!"? Unless, of course, he dropped the chest on his own foot.

Re:Critical, or not?

[Cederic]

Oh no, "Aaaaaarghhhhh!" is very pirate like. The full drawn out heavily accented version of 'ah' spoken at barely louder than standard volume helps establish the credibility and persona of the pirate, helping differentiate him from the Royal Navy captain ("Oh, I say!"), the unretrievably insane ("Twip Feeble Snarf!") and the common or garden ninja ("").