One superb copy protection technology !!!

Software pirates who make illegal copies of a particular computer game are finding the games companies are coming up with a radical new anti-copying strategy.

Illegally copied games protected by the system work properly at first, but start to fall apart after the player has had just enough time to get hooked. As a result, the pirated discs actually encourage people to buy the genuine software, the developers say.

The new protection system, called Fade, is being introduced by Macrovision, a company in Santa Clara, California, that specialises in digital rights management, and the British games developer Codemasters, based in Leamington Spa. It makes unauthorised copies of games slowly degrade, so that cars no long steer, guns cannot be aimed and footballs fly away into space. But by that time the player has become addicted to the game.

Fade exploits the systems for error correction that computers use to cope with CD-ROMs or DVDs that have become scratched. Software protected by Fade contains fragments of "subversive" code designed to seem like scratches. The bogus scratches are arranged on the disc in a subtle pattern that the game's master program looks for. If it finds them, the game plays as usual.

When someone tries to copy the disc on a PC, however, the error-correcting routines built into the computer attempt to fix the bogus scratches. When the copied disc is played, the master program then cannot find the pattern it is looking for, so it knows the disc is a copy.

Similar technology is being planned for Dvds as well wherein the movie stops playing after a key plot.

ZDNet India : IE bug lets fake sites look real

Malicious hackers frequently lure victims to convincing replicas of e-commerce sites such as eBay, where they're tricked into handing over financial and other private information. The method is said to be a key tool in credit card and identity theft.

Click here for a demonstration.

ZDNet India : AMD, Intel put antivirus tech into chips: "Advanced Micro Devices and Intel plan to soon release technology that will allow processors to stop many attacks before they occur."

Mailblocks Debuts New Free Web-Based Email Service at CES; Adds Innovative Features to Premium Services

Jan. 8, 2004--Mailblocks, Inc. today launched a free version of its Web-based email service and announced a host of new features for both its free and premium services, furthering its goal to provide the best consumer email experience possible.
Mailblocks helps consumers manage, protect and consolidate their email. Among the service's signature features are:

-- 100% elimination of spam with no false positives via Challenge/Response 2.0.

-- Consolidation and management of existing Yahoo! Mail, AOL, MSN, Hotmail and POP3 accounts into one universal inbox.

-- Email access from a super-fast, application-like Web interface or through desktop email applications.

-- Largest storage and attachment allowances at best pricing for consumers.

ZDNet India : Almost half of Kazaa downloads 'threaten security':
Around 45 percent of the files downloaded from Kazaa contained planted viruses, back doors and Trojans...

ZDNet India : The duel of the dual-layer DVD formats

One side of the ongoing recordable DVD format battle is expected to be first with products that nearly double the amount of data held on one disc. But that victory may not put an end to the feud.

The skirmish began a few years ago, when a group of companies did not like the recordable DVD technologies developed by the DVD Forum standards body. The DVD Forum approved formats called DVD-RAM and DVD-R, for write-once recording. Later, the DVD Forum added the DVD-RW rewritable standard for the ability to record, erase and record again on the same disc.

The dissident companies formed the DVD+RW Alliance, which put out its own technology for write-once and rewritable recording. As a result, seemingly countless recordable drives and disc media types are on the market, creating potential confusion for consumers. For example, a DVD-R/-RW drive cannot record on +R or +RW discs. In theory, discs that are recorded using +R, +RW, -R and -RW media all can be read by DVD players. But a recent government study found that DVDs and DVD drives are compatible only 85 percent of the time.