Irony Overload: WB Pirates Antipirate Tech

Truth is stranger than fiction, much to the chagrin of fiction writers. And you must look no further than Warner Brothers entertainment for proof. Who knew that piracy laws allowed recursion?

German firm Medien Patent Verwaltung claims that in 2003, it revealed a new kind of anti-piracy technology to Warner Bros. that marks films with specific codes so pirated copies can be traced back to their theaters of origin. But like a great, hilariously-ironic DRM Ouroborus, the company claims that Warner began using the system throughout Europe in 2004 but hasn't actually paid a dime for it.

Air and Rope to Defend Against Pirates

BCB has created the Buccaneer, a ship-based device that uses compressed air and a rope or net to stop pirates in their tracks. The Buccanner is fires and when the prop of the pirates' boat runs over it, it becomes entangled and the boat stops. As a commenter mentions, it probably won't do anything for jet ski type craft. A good idea, but how long until the pirates add jet skis to their fleets

When Piracy Goes Wall Street

The Somali pirates have implemented a plan that is pure genius. They have set up a stock exchange where anyone can invest in one of (currently) 72 "companies". If a company you have invested in gets ransom money, you profit. Not only does this help fund the pirate activities, but it gives the local people a reason to support the pirates. On top of this, the pirates share the ransom money to help pay for items such as hospitals and schools. While I don't condone the actions of the Somali pirates, I understand that they are trying to prevent further destruction of their waters and get reparation for the damage already done.

Reason #1013 not to Pirate software

There are many reasons NOT to pirate software: ethics, legal issues, inevitable corrupted files, lack of tech support, denying developers the money they need to continue the software, etc. But we have a reminder of perhaps the best reason not to download software off of the internet: it is very likely to be infected with a virus or trojan horse. A pirated version of iWork is infecting naive and unethical users with a back door into their Macs.

Security firm Intego identified the trojan in question late yesterday. Dubbed "OSX.Trojan.iServices.A," the trojan is hidden as an extra package—iWorkServices.pkg—in an otherwise fully-functional iWork '09 installer. Once you authenticate with your password to install the software, the trojan installs as a startup item in /System/Library/StartupItems/iWorkServices, an area normally reserved for Apple-only files, giving it read, write, and execute permissions as root. It then connects to a remote server, essentially creating a wide open back door for malicious attackers to do just about anything they want.

Very Interesting Video Sharing Site

I know a few of our regular Mod-Blog readers are big believers in video sharing sites like YouTube as an alternative to television and DVDs. There is a new one out there, called Video Hybrid. Essentially, it is NOT a sharing site, per se, as it stores no videos. Instead, you can post requets for movies or TV shows. Then members "hunt down" the videos already existing on other Filesharing sites, and post links onto this site, including an embedded version for immediate viewing.

The quality varies widely, but I was able to quickly find THE SIMPSONS MOVIE, TRANSFORMERS, and KNOCKED UP.