A few young Germans have the world's biggest record companies at their knees. After hacking into the computers of famous recording artists and their managers, they have placed unreleased songs by the likes of Lady Gaga and Shakira on the Internet. Two have been caught, but the others are still at work.. It's 9 a.m. in the western German city of Wesel, where Christian M. is still in bed, dozing in his room in the basement. It's a morning like every other, when getting out of bed doesn't seem worth the effort. There isn't anyone waiting for him in the outside world, where no one is interested in a young man who dropped out of vocational school and, at 22, is now unemployed and spends hours in front of his computer. No one. Except Lady Gaga, Mariah Carey and Leona Lewis, that is. It's August 26, 2010, in a residential area of red-brick duplexes in this city on the lower Rhine River, when the basement door opens and in bursts Lady Gaga, together with Mariah Carey and Leona Lewis. Actually, it's the police who are now standing in front of his bed, after Christian's sister let them into the house. Christian blinks as an officer shines a flashlight into his face. Then a male voice says: "You know why we're here." The link for this article located at Spiegel is no longer available. . It's 9 a.m. in the western German city of Wesel, where Christian M. is still in bed, dozing in his r. young, germans, world's, biggest, record, companies, their, knees, hacking. . LinuxSecurity.com Team
As part of an industry competition to test the security of a digital music copyright protection system developed by a group of entertainment and technology companies, Professor Felten was part of a group that says it successfully disabled the system. But . . . . As part of an industry competition to test the security of a digital music copyright protection system developed by a group of entertainment and technology companies, Professor Felten was part of a group that says it successfully disabled the system. But he said he was reluctant to make public the details of how it was done because the 1998 law made it a crime to manufacture or "offer to the public" a way to gain unauthorized access to any copyright-protected work that has been secured by a technology like encryption. "It is not clear the extent to which we're allowed to publish our results or discuss them in public," Dr. Felten told about 400 people at Georgetown University last week at a two- day conference sponsored by the Coalition for the Future of Music. Professor Felten's dilemma traces back to last fall, when he and colleagues at Rice University and the Xerox PARC research organization participated in a challenge sponsored by a group of entertainment and technology companies that calls itself the Secure Digital Music Initiative. The industry group is trying to design a so-called digital watermarking standard that would allow music to be distributed over the Internet while preventing it from being freely copied. To gauge the effectiveness of four proposed technologies, the group offered a $10,000 reward to be divided among participants who could remove the watermarks from the music files without compromising the quality of the sound. Free Registration may be required The link for this article located at NY Times is no longer available. . An electronic melody ownership safeguarding framework underwent trials in a contest showcasing vulnerabilities. Discover additional insights!. Digital Copyright Protection, MusicDRM, Watermark Security, Security Flaws, Music Industry Technology. . LinuxSecurity.com Team
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