Western Digital block customers from sharing files from WD network drives.

Oracle

From a BBC News article entitled 'Digital locks' future questioned. About Western Digital's decision to block their customers sharing files stored on Western Digital networked drives:

"One of the world's largest hard disk manufacturers has blocked its customers from sharing online their media files that are stored on networked drives. Western Digital says the decision to block sharing of music and audio files is an anti-piracy effort. The ban operates regardless of whether the files are copy-protected, or a user's own home-produced content."

"Western Digital has blocked users from sharing more than 30 different file types, if they are using the company's software, called Anywhere Access."

Western Digital are the makers of the MyBook, WD Passport and WD Elements external drives and the Caviar and Raptor brands of internal hard drives.
Just so you'll know what brands of hard drives to avoid in future. I'll be voting with my wallet anyway.

_Kaiser_

Oracle wrote: »

"Western Digital has blocked users from sharing more than 30 different file types, if they are using the company's software, called Anywhere Access."

But assuming you don't install this it'll work fine, no? Unless it's stored on ROM chips.

Can't see this move being popular in the business market either.

Oracle

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

But assuming you don't install this it'll work fine, no? Unless it's stored on ROM chips. Can't see this move being popular in the business market either.

You've made a very important point Kaiser2000, and it's probably the next step planned for DRM. That is to install it onto ROM chips within hardware. (As the Trusted Computing video link in my signature explains.) So then we won't have a choice of whether to use DRM or not. Right now we have the choice, as you've said, not to install the DRM software, even though that's really depriving some users of the added features of their hard drive. In the future the only way to remove DRM might be to flash the ROM. A risky procedure not for the faint-hearted or the amateur and one that, with one mistake, could make your device unusable. Not only that but finding alternative ROM flash images to use on any particular device is difficult.

I agree I can't see this move being popular in the business market either. It's strange but I can't find any additional information about this on the Western Digital web site. I wonder is the idea being floated on the BBC web site by Western Digital using a press release to test the water for reaction? It wouldn't surprise me as the BBC itself is a supporter and user of DRM:

"All downloaded video content from the BBC contains digital rights management (DRM) technology to prevent the programmes being copied and to ensure the content is only available for 30 days."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7047381.stm

In my opinion DRM is the most important security issue facing computer users today. But it's not just because it restricts the rights of computer users, it's also because it gives more rights to some groups, while taking it away from others. An example of those it gives extra power to is the major software and hardware corporations, computer security companies and the giant media corporations. Why should these organisations have the right to say what I or anyone else can do with their computer and what data they can hold or share? Who decides who these gatekeepers are? and who guards the gatekeepers?

mick.fr

DRM has already been broken so.

And ripping a DVD from the rental shop does not involve DRM at all and you can easily share this 700MB ripped AVI file, so DRM is very much useless.

Even online videos which are protected by DRM can be streamed and recorded with RealPlayer.

RIP DRM

aidan_walsh

mick.fr wrote:

ripping a DVD from the rental shop does not involve DRM at all

Region encoding and the fact that all the data on the disc is encrypted doesn't involve DRM?

Martyr

"Western Digital has blocked users from sharing more than 30 different file types, if they are using the company's software, called Anywhere Access."

30 different file types? and how exactly does it know what type a file is?
sounds just a lame file detector.

Oracle

Average Joe wrote: »

30 different file types? and how exactly does it know what type a file is? sounds just a lame file detector.

.... and yet another reason it's a bad idea for security. It gives a false sense of protection. For example, "I'll just leave those 1000+ mp3's on the network hard drive at work/home overnight. Sure with that WD DRM software no one will be able to access them." That's a bad idea because they represent a honeypot for any budding computer attacker. DRM is not a substitute for good IT security practices. Another example... "I won't bother using a firewall or malware scanner on those mp3s, with the DRM restrictions they can't access the internet anyway." Mp3s and other media files can easily contain hidden trojans that could allow an attacker to compromise your system and network.

mick.fr

aidan_walsh wrote: »

Region encoding and the fact that all the data on the disc is encrypted doesn't involve DRM?

Yes indeed

Martyr

aidan_walsh is pointing out that CSS is a method of DRM - it was cracked long ago.

Capt'n Midnight

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9051599

December 07, 2007 (IDG News Service) -- Concerned about piracy of multimedia files, Western Digital has disallowed the sharing of multimedia files on its 1T-byte network-attached storage drive, the WD My Book World Edition.

Due to "unverifiable media license authentication," the remote desktop software embedded on the NAS device does not share audio and video files, including MP3, MPEG, AVI and DivX files, according to WD's customer support site .

Access to multimedia files is allowed only by the primary user registered on WD Anywhere Access, the remote desktop client embedded on the NAS device, said Brian Miller, director of marketing at Western Digital
...
"Just wondering -- who needs a 1 Terabyte network-connected hard drive that is prohibited from serving most media files? Perhaps somebody with 220 million pages of .txt files they need to share?" Gary said in the post.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9052339

December 11, 2007 (Computerworld) -- A "very surprised" Western Digital Corp. (WD) may reconsider its decision to restrict certain types of file-sharing using its remote access software, a company spokesman said yesterday.

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1495&p_created=1168641440&p_sid=bLTfVJLi&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9NSw1JnBfcHJvZHM9MCZwX2NhdHM9MCZwX3B2PSZwX2N2PSZwX3NlYXJjaF90eXBlPWFuc3dlcnMuc2VhcmNoX2ZubCZwX3BhZ2U9MSZwX3NlYXJjaF90ZXh0PS5hdmk*&p_li=&p_topview=1

Due to unverifiable media license authentication, the following file types cannot be shared by different users using WD Anywhere Access.

If these file types are on a share on the WD My Book World Edition system and another user accesses the share, these file will not be displayed for sharing. Any other file types can be shared using WD Anywhere Access.

File Extension 	File Description
AAC 	Advanced Audio Coding
AIF 	Audio Interchange File
AIFC 	Audio Interchange File
AIFF 	Audio Interchange File Format
AMF 	DSMIA/Asylum Module File
ASF 	Advanced Streaming Format
ASX 	Advanced Stream Redirector
AVI 	Audio Video Interleave
CDA 	CD Audio
DVI 	DivX AVI
DIVX 	DivX AVI
FAR 	Farandoyle Tracker Music Module
IT 	Impulse Tracker
ITZ 	Impulse Tracker
KAR 	Karaoke MIDI
MDZ 	Cubic Player/Cross-View Music Module Description
MOV 	QuickTime Video
MP1 	MPEG Layer 1 (Audio)
MP2 	MPEG Layer 2 (Audio)
MP3 	MPEG Layer 3 (Audio)
MP4 	MPEG Layer 4 (Video)
MPA 	MPEG Audio Stream, Layer I, II or III
MPE 	MPEG Video
MPEG 	MPEG Video
MPG 	MPEG Video
MPGA 	MPEG Layer 3 (Audio Stream)
MPV2 	MPEG Audio Stream, Layer II
OGG 	OGG Bitstream
OKT 	Oktalyzer Tracker Module
PTM 	PTM - Poly Tracker Module (Audio)
QT 	QuickTime Video
QT1 	QuickTime Video
VOB 	Video Object (DVD Video)
VOC 	Creative Labs Sound
WM 	Windows Media Audio or Video
WMA 	Windows Media Audio
WMV 	Windows Media Video

Capt'n Midnight

One big gripe I have with DRM is that it probably breaks copyright law.

Copyright law says that when term expires the work is released into the public domain, but I'm not aware of any DRM scheme that will auto expire nor of any place where mass market material is kept in escrow.

We are back in the bad old days of Hollywood back when classic films have been lost forever because backups weren't kept after the first run in the cinemas. this is perhaps the most famous one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra_%281917_film%29 but there were many many others.

Offalycool

Just rename the file type tag at the end to .fud and kiss this crap goodbye.