[Infowarrior] - A spy in your CD?

[Richard Forno]

A spy in your CD?
http://www.newscientisttech.com/article.ns?id=dn9728&print=true

09:00 12 August 2006

A patent filed by Sony last week suggests it may once again be considering
preventing consumers making "too many" back-up copies of its CDs.

Such a move would be controversial. In November 2005 Sony was forced to
withdraw anti-piracy software it had placed on its CDs to restrict the
number of copies a buyer could make because it introduced security
vulnerabilities to Windows operating systems.

Sony's latest idea is to place a piece of monitoring hardware inside the CD.
Its patent suggests embedding a radio-frequency ID chip that could be
interrogated wirelessly by a PC or CD player. The chip would record the
number of times the disc was copied and prevent further recordings once it
reached the limit. The device could also be fitted to DVDs. Whether Sony
will turn the patent idea into reality remains to be seen.