new generic content schemes popping up everywhere...

[Andre Hedrick]

>From siliconvalley.com's GMSV column today:

   No one expects the Spanish Inquisition, "the white screen of
   death"" A small Texas venture with roots in the intelligence
   community has developed a digital copy protection scheme that
   it says is nearly unbeatable.  Infraworks' InTether utility
   can not only limit the number of times a recipient can view or
   play a file, it can determine how long that file can be viewed
   or played.  More intriguing still, InTether can make a file
   self-destruct if it's tampered with.  The utility is enabled
   with 11 layers of security defenses, all of which must be
   successfully navigated to disable the system.  These layers
   range from a series of forced reboots designed to thwart
   automated hacking tools to something called "the white screen
   of death" which destroys the software and all files stored
   inside it.  Infraworks CEO George Friedman says the
   application's system-level control is possible largely because
   it is firmly anchored into users' C drives during
   installation.  "We're fairly deep in the operating system,"
   Friedman told Inside.com, "so we see what's going on and we
   either permit or deny it from happening in relation ... to the
   files under our control."  While InTether has been dismissed
   by some -- most notably encryption expert Bruce Schneier -- as
   untenable, the technology has sparked the interest of some
   publishing concerns, among them Time Inc.and McGraw-Hill.

Se if these bozos get into the kernel anytime soon...

Andre Hedrick
Linux ATA Development