New DVD chips 'to kill illegal copying'

didnt they make it legal to make a personal backup of a dvd and isnt it aganist our rights for the fact of privicy and wouldnt that be called spyware it wont be kibg before some comes up with a crack of some sort

of course there will be cracks. but having a dvd from the wrong region... these idiots are making it out to be a big deal that there are loads of people buying dvd from the wrong regions. WELL maybe 10 years ago! (tho africa maybe different) I cant see how a radio transmitter would work because im sure it would need some kind of battery/energy... and i wrong. i have a thing called a MOBILE and this has one of those! ;-.

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I cant see how a radio transmitter would work because im sure it would need some kind of battery/energy..

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IPICO claims that its RFID tags can be read a minimum six metres away, and at a rate of thousands of tags per minute. The chips will not require a battery, as they'll be powered by the energy in radio waves from the RFID reader.

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So, the DVDs have a chip in them, and then when your dvd player reads the dvd, it figures out if anything 'illegal' has ever been done with this dvd. Won't some generic elctronics brand just bring out a player that doesn't read the chips? Seems to me an easy way around.

i doubt very much that this technology wil become mainstream. people wil just refuse to buy the new dvd players until a manufacture realeases one without. the chips wil become ready availble on the internet soon after and we can fit them our selfs. or just buy blank media with them already in place.

I guess everybody will have to mod there dvd players.

Why don't they just have done with it, come right out and just tell us we owe them money, no matter what.

Somehow this intrusive authoritarian corporate/capitalist insanity doesn't seem so much different from Stalins best day-dreams.....if only he'd had their tech, eh?

What next! tatoos on our a***ses when we hire or buy dvds this really does beggar belief! as ive said before ask questions before you buy stuff that way they cant sell you these improved players, and if the worse comes to the worse REFUSE to buy them! It really does make you wonder where these idiots get off, pity they havent got better things to do , the average joe makes an odd copy their efforts wpould be better aimed at mass pirates ie professionals not the average guy that makes a backup,seems like they are all joining the lets nobble the consumer bandwagon just like microsft and wga etc. I dont like the way things are going , I can on one hand understand the desire to prevent major piracy but these companies are taking things to extremes, ie i bought several cds full price and legit from a store but I wont put them in my pc NO WAY! reading the samll print on one i winced when i read will instal quicktime! what if i dont want another player! on the proverbial bike! I shall use old fashione stuff and remove the offending stuff i didnt ask for I paid for the music I shall play my music, minus any little `Gifts¬ such as players i dont want or rootkits to ruin my pc aka SONY etc Growl Its about time we all ganged up on thse s**ds! anyone agree

First of im not worry about this making its way on the U.S. market because this is a Invasion of Privacy.This will be shot down before they can put this junk on the market.If it do make it i will be the first to take the damm chip on my player if i pay my money its none of there biz what i do in my home.

Ritek must sell billions of discs to be used as 'backup media', are they really willing to kill that market .. ??

I thought this had been discussed. The [red]RED[/red]DVDs have had an embedded chip for a while, which allows Blockbuster to track them. LMAO

Kill piracy by making retail products prices reasonable and release worldwide at the same time. The pirate market are making money on the staged greed of film houses and record companys. There will always be people will shove one up theres because they can. If a company as big as Microsoft cannot stop it what chance do they have. Spend money on making it cheaper for everyone. I can only watch some programs by down loading, because programs are not aired in UK or available for purchase. I would not object to being delivered by P2P and paying a reasonable fee, they would have no distribution cost and would just collect the money. UK has a habit of splitting series into 2 and charging double as well as editing all the good bits out. at the end of the day, a program/content is there to be watched therefore one way or another it can be decoded legaly or illegaly.

why does the term big brother keep popping in my mind when i read this article. chips in dvd players that keep track?? isnt that overkill by them??

wouldnt this be easy to get around with a firmware crack on the dvd player? (they should think things through before they decide to manufacture them)

How about my personal movie I made at the park. It wont have a chip in it but will my dvd player say no unable to recognize the disc. If so then many people who make there weddings etc will be very angry at this technology. That should not be allowed. If they want this to stop a dvd should be given to us as we leave the movie theatre, that will slow down backups and piracy.

They always forget if they make an output we'll make an input. 24/7 they try to stop us, 24/7 we unstop um. They gave up on tapes, just another war we'll win

Actually guys, a lot of products in the United States have a similair type of technology. Major corporations insert this chip into their products in order to track the demographics. This is usually done for marketing purposes, I do agree with all you, this will be more of a nuisance than a real problem. However, if you're looking to back up hd-dvds better grab that player pretty soon, for Blu-ray, I don't see Sony adding this technology to its PS3 simply because it would cost to much more money

just put the disc in the microwave oven for 10 seconds. This fries the RFID tranmitters and they die.

It will be interesting to see if this flies in America. TiVO lost a lawsuit when they were proposing to have their units upload user viewing data to their home office for statistical analysis - and that was going to be anonymous tracking (ie merely identifying what is being watched by how many - not what a particular individual may be watching). Besides, what happens when you buy one of those new DVDs on Ebay or at a garage sale? If the prior owner copied it before selling it, it's your system that will send you to jail.

This doesnt sound like a realistic solution to piracy to me. I wonder how much it would cost them to add the chips and if this would raise the price of dvds even further. The system would probably contribute to MORE copying. At least it would be fun modding dvd players and cracking discs. :)

One thing, how are the dvd players gonna be able to send the information over radio waves if you need at least some kind of atenna. Did they ever think some radiowaves arent transmitted x # of miles away from a TOWER. Ya they need to build more radio towers then too, wouldn't they? cus were i live only certain stuff comes in on certain bandwidths, they didn't think very well did they?

wow this is so dumb..... they cant stop people from playing these new discs on old DVD players, which everyone has, no one is gonna adpot and this peice of shat is gonna be a waste. lol

This is funny as hell!! hahahaha I cant do anything less than laughing at their faces. Numero Uno: The Dvd players will always be able to play homemade videos right? because they sell the software, they sell the media, they even sell the cameras to do it right??? So, if just one person cracks the chip, uploaded to the net, and the in just make a dvd out of the video, the software doesnt know what the video is, so i can still play a copied movie in my dvd player, ok, maybe its going to be harder to copy for us insignificant users wich only want to backup our media, but for people who makes a business out of this wont be any harder.

Hmm! In Lithuania it is LEGAL to make a backup copy of any media you have purchased legally. This includes dvd films. This chip would not allow this so could not be sold here. Also, the chips can be read 6 metres away. What radio wave are they using? Most countries have strict regulations over radio waves - what freq? I'd just block the radio wave. Can do it with gsm so can do it with this. At the end of the day, I've bought the disc. It is mine. What next? Not allowing me to disasssemble my car or lend it to a mate?

we need to kill these F4$kers now! NOBODY BUY A DVD ANYMORE. download them for free and make sure these @ss wipes go out of business. I will get everyone i know to use torrents and p2p to show that their methods ARE NOT WORKING! whatever it takes!

Now my comments and opinions on this topic: okay first there has to be some law against tracking the dvds, as someone I'm sure will say they feel they are being trackedand so on... that's pretty self explanitory. next issue I have is their wasting their time once again as PS2 and x box kinda have a system like this in their game consols and All I need to use is a swap magic disk. I'm sure some computer / electronic guru will figure out a similar system for tricking the dvd player that it's a store bought dvd. another thing these companies don't get(mainly because people need jobs) is that computer programing and trickery is almost limitless. People will always find a way around something if they want it bad enough. then that person will pass on their knowledge to their friends who will then somewhere down the line post it on the net for people like me, lol... The reason I think they keep trying to do this (DRM) copy protection is that their are these people who need to put food on their tables and keep a roof over their families head, so intern they tell these big business people (who know nothing about the underground world) that they can make their movies copy protected. and most of the time they are right...for about a week..maybe 2 weeks before someone figures out a way around it. what a waste of money...

I know alot of you really like Ritek's (blank media) but now that this has happened... I would rather buy a fuc**ng CMC MAG... please people.. this demands a total boycott of any and all of Ritek's media... maybe they win the corporate money.. but please don't let these bastards have yours!

Stop buying Ritek DVDs and see how long they continue to develop this.

XD Guess we'll all be chipping or flashing alternative firmwares to DVD players as well. Pretty ironic how Ritek is manufacturing the discs when they're blank media is so widely used.

YES!!! thats the part that gets me.. WTF! is Ritek thinking??? They are cutting there own throats.. so let em' just don't invest in them.. not the casual buyer nor the stock investor... because I see this running them into the ground personally

just my 2 cents.......... this new disks won't be doing anything to the chip in my old player! or in my computer...... what's all the fuss about? Let them make those new disks....... they have to be backward compatible so it will play in my player..... coping back up purposes won't affect the old players just the new ones that don't have the chip! Isn't it funny...... that a manufacturer will make these new chip disks...... they can circumvent it by making the blnak disks with chips in them, too! hahahahah that would be funny!

Yeah. I'll still play em in my old dvd and will find a way to copy em. One thing though. How much do these chips weigh and where are they mounted on the disc?. Won't this lead to readability probs or are they going to put a counterweight or something? I mean if they bung a chip on the disc then it isn't going to spin true, er, right or am I totally wrong.

ok first of all, this sounds like hogwash they are getting mad that everyone is using thier media so openly; that they are willing to try single handedly to force everyone to upgrade. Unless the upgrades are free they'll never happen, and even if they are something that catches on ill just be the first one to buy lik 800 oldschool media discks b4 they dissapear. If these do catch on in about 4days there will be over 20 ways to ignore/bypass the system ill have all the major firmware/software upgrades that they just lose money by making a chip that only works in buisness offeses. After they notice that the chips are doing nothing and see howmuch they loss they will cancell the chips and try to think of a new way to be out big brother and microsoft will get mad cuz we all already know he wants to be the only bigbrother on the market. ok my point is we will all rant and rave about this but the point is even if it does go threw we will have this site to help and teach everyone what we should be doing to flash/or download to keep our privacy. with everything i read here we are already in the process of whats been started by the mediastorm that this either wont make it or will just be another of those "hey you remember when we had chips in our dvds wasn't that crazy HA!HA!" Nghtpunisher signing out what you just read was my first rant please stay tuned for more .

Whats funny is,What if i was backing up one of my Blu-ray disc i bought from the store you mean to tell me the Feds can come knocking on my door.

This whole this is just another thing they are trying to do. I think they are goin overboard.

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The companies behind the new advance say living room DVD players will eventually be able to check on the chip embedded in a disc, and reject any discs which have been copied or played in the 'wrong' geographical region.

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I just Cancelled my order of Ritek blank DVD-R(300 of them). Hello Verbatim. Touch'e Ritek, your new idea is already paying off.

Never heard of u-tech or ritek. Don't sem to sell em here. Verbatim or acme re the main biggies in the baltics. If I do see the disks in the shop I'll remember to boycott them though :)

sssharp
I have been saying it all along they want to threw in jail people that video their wedings and kids themselfs if its not done by a lenienced pro you are going to jail.

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Another question is how lealge is this?
they cant hack and track people on the net legally how can they do this?

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I just Cancelled my order of Ritek blank DVD-R(300 of them). Hello Verbatim. Touch'e Ritek, your new idea is already paying off.

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There's so many ways to fry an rfid that this plan will surely be dumped, but in the meanwhile i'll stop using Ritek all the same.

This idea came from a corporate office executive that has no idea how the real world operates. People need blank discs to pirate/backup their media/music/movies. On paper, this sounds like a good idea for the business world, but in the real world everybody will just start buying from another company.

What a great way to lose busuness. First of all, this cannot and will not apply to DVDs. Due to the fact that it is a hardware based protection the solution is simple, avoid that hardware. Their sales will be low, and eventually the tactic dies, yay capitalism. Not only this, but Ritek is one of the top distributors of DVD-Recordable discs, apparently they manufacture stupidity too because it was dumb for them to put their names on this product. Millions of backer upers around the world just read that they are putting chpips in discs. Judging by all your thoughts already I can see there is some confustion as to if it applies to DVD-R discs, it doesnt, however, those customers that are confused will avoid ritek in the future. Way to go guys, you just alienated your customers. Ludi

this will be noo problem with an AnyDVD update

well, i'm scared, but couldn't u just fri the chip?

You know, if enough people boycott Ritek starting now, maybe they will go bankrupt before they get the chip to market and save us all some headaches.

I remember when I used to joke about the BlockBuster chip!

Funny!!!! 1st Radio - Mostly cramming junk down ya. No Longer Listen to radio. 2nd CD's - Come buy our junk, filled with more junk(rootkits). Haven't bought a CD In 2 years. 3rd Movies - Overcharged Box Office Crap. Not many good ones anymore and the price of tickets. Please. Haven't gone out to see a movie in years. Rather spend that on DVD's. Can get 3 or 4 for the price of going out and seeing one movie. Now DVD's. Have allready re-purchased more than 300 movies that were once on VHS. (which many VHS had to be replaced because they would wear out.) Had to replace a few DVD's because of scratches and so on. Before starting to back my originals up. (kids) Now with HD-DVD and Blue-Ray. They want me to buy more crap. And no way of safely keeping them. Im very carefull, but things happen. I guess soon I won't be doing DVD movies either. Maybe they can get a law passed to have a DVD Tax added to my check stub. So they will get there grubby little hands on my money. Maybe I can entertain myself by doing shadow puppets. Better be carfull with that too. Soon the SPAA (Shadow Puppets Ass. Of America) will be after me for not paying royalties.

Buga the maffia is constantly one uping themselves in oder to protect their IPs when the reason people skip going thru them is because of qauilty and price. when they start bothering to lower their prices I wil unplug my ears right now they and the software companies are like a 4 year old that doesn't know the word no and whines all the damn time..

if there is a will,there will be a way !

You can buy a USB gigabyte flash drive for $100. When the powers that be read this, the wet their pants...the poor babies! http://www.internetnews.com/storage/article.php/3565251 How many 700 megabyte flicks can you stuff in that 1 gig flash drive? Then hide it in your pocket? "Who me? I didn't swipe a thing..."

...and it doesn't stop there. Be prepared to have RFID tags implanted in everything you own... http://www.spychips.com/

Jesus Christ with a cheese burger!

This is all so utterly foolish ...... I will never never never never never never never never never never never never never never never never never never never NEVER-EVER-EVER purchase a disc (whether pre-recorded or blank) with a f-----g "tracking" chip embedded within it. That sort of shit was started by Hewlett-Packard with their ink-jet cartridges. They *too* carry an embedded chip. I would refill the stupid things (I buy ink by the pint bottle), and once I put the refilled cartridges back into the printer, I STILL got an error message saying the cartridge was "empty". I guess I don't have to tell you what I did with that printer, eh? :-) I have therefore thoroughly boycotted ALL HP devices, and God Help any (extremely Stooopid hardware manufacturer) who is anal-retentive-enough to risk Public Outrage by installing mandatory-compliance with these f-----g chips into any future dvd playback device. They already realize software-based DRM is futile. Now they're going for hardware-based "solutions". (Which will also be bypassed by hackers). What will be next? Will there be an identification- socket in the back of my new Bluray player for me to stick my d--- into, to make sure it's really ME who is attempting to play back a new movie? F--- 'Em. I'll go back to VHS tape first.

Well thats done it I will now, to quote klingon, "never never never never never never never never never never never never never never never never never never never NEVER-EVER-EVER purchase a disc" at all now. The only time i even bother purchasing DVD/CD is if its actually gunna be worth it, the amount of crap cd's and movies coming out today is why there is an increase in piracy. Its just not worth forking out $20 of my hard earned cash on maybe 2 good songs per CD. Hopefully everyone now stops buying anything Ritek, i sure as hell wont. If they see a stewp enough incline in sales and are smart enough to work out why, they will can this before it really starts. I thought there would be some kind of law against this kind of tracking chip, whether it be Privacy related or something else.

Do any DVD's come with rootkits?

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What will be next? Will there be an identification- socket in the back of my new Bluray player for me to stick my d--- into, to make sure it's really ME who is attempting to play back a new movie?

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Carefull Klingon...you might get 'D.V.D.' by doin' that!

Question: How many Ritek executives does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Answer: Two - one to be dominant and one to be submissive.

That lightbulb will come with a rootkit of course...LOL! Or it will be installed in a nonstandard reciever.

Great! Now dvd prices (new releases) will jump from $22.99 to $27.99!!!!

Will never buy the drmed dvd, besides another twenty more tiny ritek mini dvdrs I need for my game cube, will never buy there brand again. Unfortunately for the gamecube there tiny 1.4gb disks work unbeleivable well without having to mess with the POT of the laser. It is greedy and odious to make a tracking device on a consumer dvd. I am sure a work around will come into place, anyway, I am more than happy with a standard regular dvds I have now. I may buy a hd tv some day but be more than content to watch upconverted 1080i of my existing extensive dvd collection. Blue ray and hd dvd may be better, but at the price involved and all the DRM load, I just wont buy in. I am happy enough as I am sure many other out there with the existing picture quality. the toshiba players among others upconvert the existing signal. I enjoy DivX played on a standard 36 inch tv. All the extra cash they want and force DRM down your throat and for what, a picture quality that indeed is better but subjectively, is it that much better to merit the cost and harrasment. No I'd rather divert that cash toward speakers, an lcd tv, remote control helicopter, I can think of more enjoyable things that do not come with such strings attach and deep intrusion into my privacy.

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Maybe I can entertain myself by doing shadow puppets. Better be carfull with that too. Soon the SPAA (Shadow Puppets Ass. Of America) will be after me for not paying royalties.

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Jesus Christ with a cheese burger!

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Damn Klingy, we've sure as hell missed your comments on the news in here :-)

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Digital life management, as usual. It's only going to be a few years before we get chips in our brains to stop us thinking that copying DVDs/whatever is a good idea. Invasion of privacy? Nah, if the MPAA think it's good, it must be, right?

Complete control freaks..

Really? LOL

Just unbelievabel... I suppose in the future we're all going to need firewalls in our houses to prevent our neighbours to hack into our dvd-collections and wardrobes to keep our porn stashes and leather tongs as our own private busines.

So can I still back up my home videos from my camcorder on to DVD anymore?

Lol yep, but you won't be able to make a backup of your home movies, because that's breaking your own copyright! LOL

LOL!! What about playin one of these things in a old player??

Everytime companies bring out new ways to protect their products from piracy, we will find a way to overcome it. It's the classic cat and mouse game. Think of Tom and Jerry. Tom's bigger and meaner, but Jerry always finds a way to overcome him? Am i right or am I right. Because the market's sole priority is making profits, other companies will find programs to over ride any chip device/protection to profit and gain a share in the market.It's elligal to copy copy protected images and media, but the same companies sell us the hardware and software to do so. Dvd writers, Nero burning rom etc. Even software packages like Nero burning rom the biggest copying software package worldwide is protected by copyright! See the irony? It's the classic "DO AS I SAY, BUT NOT AS I DO!

The underhands are always one step ahead, as soon as the legal rights groups come up with a new way to stop piracy, people get busy working to crack it. By the time the technology's actually released, so is the over-ride for it, and the work is undone. It's like any security method, there has to be a way to legitimately get in, and the solution is emulating that. Sod picking the lock, cut yourself a key!

well this is as insitefull as they can get, man lets start with that old p2, you were going to throw away or recycle to so charity ( to save the despoil cost)so now instead wouldn't it be a great machine that will sit in the back room (so no-one knows its there) and lets install the latest dual layer dvd burner that money can buy.... add a os even windows 89 will do xp would be beter but then you need to register it. then unplug the machine from the web pull the nic card trash the modem (what ever works for you) now burn you cd why will this work and it cant call sony thats because its not on line ... this trick is an example of what could be done if one had a criminal mind so ... dont do this at home as they say... this was only an example of how dumb they think we are.... those who want to back up their own (as in what you paid for ) should be alowed to do so as far as the ones selling boot leg software and music hang them high if ya want just dont treat all of us as if we are dumb.........

also another issue what about those who rent from netflicks or blockbuster or even your local video shop will that be the end of renting...or will they track it to your house and in the mail back and forth ... man they beter have a massive machine to keep track of that data... they were doing beter with the buy it for $5 and having the disk only play once then its dead... othe rthen the land filles that was an idea that had merrot. and you'd think that they whould just write a blind eye code into the disk so if you scanned it to read it it whouldnt show you anything but who are they kidding if someone wants in to your house then then they will break in if someone wants so silly movie no mater what you do they will find a way ... why not make them cheaper so its more exspencive to burn them illegally? isnt the media for the dvd supper cheap so if sony bought a million to burn their latest movie and sold it to everyone for $5 then they would have something that was cheaper to own then to burn and they would sell more units..... and everyone is happy.. Imagine that.......

Wow a whole new hacking industry will now be created. As we will now see mod-chips being developed for DVD players and Blu-ray players etc. ............and by the way WTF are Ritek thinking of????????? If ever piracy was eliminated, then who would be buying their main product BLANK DVD MEDIA......idiots.

These companies have the misguided (although perhaps truthful) opinion that most blank media isn't sold to aid piracy.

The chip will be vulnerable to extreme magnetism, whileas the data on the disc is un-affected. May sound a little sci-fi, but giving the dvd-chip an electric shock will also render the chip obsolete, leaving all the data on the disc intact.

Yeah I'll go with that.

Yea, I've got one of those old electric "Magnetic Tape Erasers" they made back in the early days of "Home Recording". I'd bet that you swipe one across that, it'll kill "The Chip"!!! And what about the scanners at the store where they swipe your goods to "Deactivate" your good to take home? Won't that have something to do with their "Chips"? LOL!!!

Anybody here work at Wal-Mart or Target? They use RFID for inventory. Ever try to fry a chip? Maybe you can try some different tricks and post here what works and what doesn't.

A well grounded copy enclosure, a mini screen room, should should any rf waves at the computer, or better yet, at an external dvd writer. Also, similar frequencies at the writer can confuse the transmitted signals from the source.

Seems to me that the signal from the disk is going to have to be tied into the data on the disk to identify it as copyrighted material. My guess is even if you take out the chip signal the data in the disk will not let you play the movie because it can't read the chip signal to verify it as legit. It may have to be a two step process to kill the chip and block the data info. This is only if you have a DVD with the new hardware imbedded in it of course.

I still have a head demagnetizer for tape recorder heads. I wonder what that would do to the chip.

So you just need to kill the chip and then rip the contents of the disc to you computer and edit the data manually to override the protection. On DVD-Video disc this is pretty basic stuff, just like taking out the nag-screens

these execs that are making these rules I am sure are guilty too. I would like to walk into one of there homes and see what they have illegally copied whether it be a family video, or there sons soccer game etc..I bet these execs are just as guilty and I would love if someone was able to prove that. That means that you can't even have your own backups..this is getting to be out of control, and I am getting pissed!! I buy dvds and if I want to back the movie up then I should be able too. I truly see alot of americans going overseas to buy dvd's from manufactures that will sell new blank dvd's with these chips, because those companies will know that that is going to be an untapped resource, and oppurtunity to make money.

I was thinking the M.a.f.i.a. could try and could pull a vister and make it were all non Copy right inspectable media is denied play...but then what a sad world that would be...

There may not be an Enable signal transmitted. Look at the mess we have getting any distance or through walls with wireless networks, or even cell phones. If they require an Enable signal, people working in their cellars or in buildings with lots of steel will be very unhappy users of original disks.

so i guess blockbuster and netflix are just gonna be lost in this?...i mean don't they make money off of renting movies..this would kill their business...

evnflow If this becomes the norm the online rental places will have to log thier RFID and mabye make them skip the RFID trackign persay but its just to much of a mess

Here's an idea. Sell the DVD for 1 or 2 years then release it as a shareware version. The real fans that want the movie and all the nifty packaging can buy it when it is still popular, and those who want it but don't want to pay for it can get it for free after a couple years in a no-frills packet (remember some of the Warcraft sharewares?). We agree not to copy the first couple year's release, they allow us to dub the shareware version without legal restraint.

Just wait till someone figures out how to attach a virus to kill your dvd player or that computer some of us have spent a lot of time and money getting just right. There is sonething to think about .....

Hmm, my page seems to have become a bit corrupted...

you mean this http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/8296/corruptionwg6.png second time on this thread, wonder if its happening elsewhere?

That's exactly what I mean, I'm glad I'm not the only one.

SlySoft will get rid of it. I'm sure of it.

At what point will these idiots wake up and see that it costs more then it is worth to protect your product. With this method of protection the cost of discs will increase significantly and what is the failure rate with this process? We don't have enough info on this but you got to believe that someone will find an easy way to circumvent this protection scheme. The chip has to be a cmos type or better to run at low level voltages so some type of wiping out the chip might work however they have had to think of that from the get go. If that is true then you will need to have an active chip on all of your discs in order for them to play, unless the CSS keys are part of the chip protection scheme. Then you would not be able to play your old discs or even home made videos. In summation it doesn't really seem to be a viable protection scheme if you look at all of the issues which I've only touched on. They should get back to pricing products to sell and not gouging us. If the price is reasonable most people will be buy products legitimately, why pirate then. A little common sense goes a long way but in this day and age there is less then a little common sense.

Mr-Movies becuse its cheaper to enslave the artists to turn out crap than it is to stay light and biz savay and actuly pay them.

As if artists make the quality of their work proportional to how much they earn... Dream on!

The software to bamboozle the chips will be plenty I would think, I shouldn't think hardware would be required.

http://mixonline.com/news/audio_copyproof_cds_cracked_2/index.html why do I have a feeling that this to can be fixed in a low tech way like getting a 4$ magnet from your local hardware shop...or just leavening it your 400watt stereo speakers or something else simple and everyday.

I'm sure they'll be more intelligent than that. What if the default is that if the chip fails, the disc data is hidden?

Epson has a chip in their print cartridges, so they can monopolize the sale or their ink replacements. Third party vendors considerably underprice Epson and I don't believe their is a chip in their refills, but not sure about that. I agree that the addition of a chip on a blank dvd HAS TO increase its cost. I hope the other manufacturers of players will not follow suit on this folly by IPICO. Perhaps if we don't buy Ritek, their declining sales will send them a message.

SCAMPER I wonder how easy it is to bypass the chip i the printer ? *L* I just wouldn't buy the fing thing, I refuse to buy a printer that has more than 30 worht of carts or more than 2 carts... sammorris Sony was not and they thought they were the shit and well they were but thats another thing. they could they could also never sale another movie again.

Get The Canon Pixma printers that use 6 cartidges of the #6 variety. Abacus ink sell the carts for $1.59 each, 6 cost less than one real Canon and no chips!

Dont need to I am happy with my HP Office jet G85 sure it bulky but it moms.....was moms...*sigh* anyway trying to fix a epson stylus 880 the the head or mobo is dead it wont print but wil pass paper,its my uncles silly thing was desperate for a replacement and got a epson r220,its 6 cart monster and can do CDs/DVD have half a mind to get him a normal 2 cart printer and trade *L* I wouldnt use it for nomral printing mind you but it would be nce for some dvd projects *rolls eyes*

Get The Canon Pixma printers that use 6 cartidges of the #6 variety. Abacus ink sell the carts for $1.59 each, 6 cost less than one real Canon and no chips! What is the model #?

My 32 month old £30 (at time of purchase) P706 is still going strong, now it has a new colour cartridge (which at £19 for an official colour one wasn't too bad). Occasionally needs a helping hand loading paper, but it certainly hasn't had a drive sensor failure like my old Epson stylus 670 did. The RACKET that used to make!!! Picture the bar the print head slides along, and picture the head not noticing when it had got to the end and trying to carry on going, not a nice sight or noise. The previous Epson (640) I had (that lasted a whole 368 days! Nice out-of-warranty £70 repair bill, I don't think so!) had a power failure. Worked for a while if you hit it, then that stopped working. And it leaked once, a lot. And the 670 had a the-kettle-plug-socket-doesnt-fit-properly issue so it kept cutting off due to you needing to hold the power plug in. I haven't bought or recommended any Epsons since these two. Wow is this off topic!

Why do they bother? Every time the companies come up with bright idea to stop piracy, there'll always be a programmer who can do better and make a program that can get around it!

Have they really thought this through? If they modify the DVD Players to look for this chip, how will people play home movies they author themselves? And what about people who purchase new movies and put them in their older DVD players.. will they play? There has never been a copy-protection scheme that couldn't be beat. Sounds to me like a couple of executives got together on a golf course and said "Lets see how we can drum up some business and make some more money and make consumers foot the cost.." So Ritek make money making the new "smart" discs.. and the DVD player manufacturers make some money selling new upgraded DVD Players... and the computer software companies make money selling software to break the copy protection.. and in the end it the consumers who have to pay more for their blank DVDs, buy new players, buy new burners, and pay more for their movies.... I think Ralph Nater should look into this issue! Where is our consumer rights advocate?

@craftyzan I have the canon Pixma IP6000D. It won't do discs but it sure uses cheap ink with no difference from the real thing.

You'd think a news item like this would be headline news,yet cnet,pc world,techrepublic,info packets,pc mechanic etc don't even mention it so me thinks this article is an April fools come early,i'll believe it when i see it.

If they follow through it will be news. But right now it could be Bugs R Us...

* deleted two posts which appeared to be messing up the page. all seems fine now * :-)

JDRinTNT its simple there will be a pic and low low qauilty DVD player that will paly..umm pic disks and home moives on DVD in low low qauilty...proble solved and they make more money right??right??? morons >>

Any manufacturer will welcome updates that obsolete present equipment so he can sell new equipment. Just ask Microsoft. Congress will go along, they passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998 with no problem.

I don't use a DVD player, I just play things on my computer which is subject to MY software. I let the hack community fix the bugs the MPAA create.

craftyzan your going to love vista if its not copy protected it wont play!

[qoute]craftyzan your going to love vista if its not copy protected it wont play!

Vista can kiss my a$$! I'm going Linux!

MS Media player won't play some DVD's cuz it doesn't like the protections they use even on MX. I use VLC media player. It's open source and it'll play a hot dog.

what a load of codswallop that is, what if you are like me,a tight arse git,and dont intend on changing my dvd player?,will they still work? this kind of anti-piracy will never work piracy is worth too much money to pirates and nothing can stop it as for the comments about epsom cartridges having chips in,there is a smal gadget you can buy for about £5,which resets them,its only there i believe to say when its empty,and a rip off the cartridegs are anyways,after reseting them,there is approx another 15-20% more ink left

Man what a joke. Creating a new technology and requiring people to upgrade is a joke. They can dream on. People drive 20 year old cars, so why are they more inclined to run out and buy a new encrypted DVD player.

All this will do is create huge headaches for the Best Buys / Circuit Citys of the world when their customer service line is out the door with your average joe "my old DVDs don't work" / "my home movie won't play" / "My DVD player says I'm a criminal"...

My brother was using Windows 98 up until a week ago...

Just dilusional fear-mongering. Once someone wakes up and smells the coffee, this idea will die faster than it was conceived.

Thonor
I started useing XP a year or so after it was released....I just came across it *rolls eyes*

I first got XP in January 2004. Late enough?

sammorris I have a feeling you were a NT/2K user before you got XP :P If not 9x is evil ,great but evil!

No, I'm afraid I was evil, 98SE. I tried Me once, but went back to 98.

sammorris *L* I kinda liked some of the futures in ME but SE was more stable 0-o stupid MS to fck with the start up disc.....

Imho ME took all the bad bits of XP (compatibility) and all the bad bits of 98 (stability) and none of the good bits.

I would use any other OS than ME. It is the wost OS Microsodt has come out with ever. even windows 3.1 is better. Anyone using ME should move to 95 and above, bypassing ME.

Yes, quite. I'd agree with that, I only used it for two months. Bong! Bong! Crash this, error that.... ugh.

well if the dvd player would reject the disc thenpeople are going to make mod chips for dvd players *sigh* bacically any protection for anythink will always be ruined evenchally all it takes is a bit of time ;) and also this would meanno custom dvds of your own :'( wow protection is really tight at the moemnt but if they did find a way to stop piracy fullstop then the prices of games anddvds would go up even more :O

andrew that picture dosnet work follo wwhat the instructions are on it

http://blogpost.imageshack.us/blogpost/postblog.php?id=img90/903/imageshackgq6.gif

And there we have another wrong link.

what andrew 691 ment is http://www.tburke.net/fun_stuff/pictures/computers/windows-cement.jpg and strangly enough i can now see it because i have it in my temp internet files :O magic anyways there is quite a few funny pics on that page : http://www.tburke.net/fun_stuff/pictures/computers/

And I can't. That site's pretty lol though!

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* deleted two posts which appeared to be messing up the page. all seems fine now *

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Lol very flattering! Those images are hilarious by the way!

I love that pic andrew that is priceless :)

These pics are so good I'm downloading them to send to a bud with out Internet access LOL

so how will these players decipher a blank DVD with a home movie on it? I make home moves and burn them to disk and play them on DVD to the TV... surely you could download any movie via bit torrent - encode it and play it on a DVD disk with a chip in it or not... cos they can't stop u making your own disks can they.... or else u can't make DVD home movies... Might be scaremongering, but sooner or later it’ll be cracked!

[qoute]DVDs will soon be embedded with radio transmitter chips which will allow the major movie studios to remotely track individual discs as they travel from factories to retail shelves and to consumers' homes. 'Big Brother' becomes big business CNN | April 7, 2005 Paul Eden loves his job. It takes him into people's homes and offices and allows him to film their daily lives. Eden heads Ogilvy Field Brand Investigation (FBI), a division of Ogilvy & Mather, one of the world's largest advertising agencies. He's commissioned by companies to provide video research of consumers, providing vital insights into their likes and dislikes. Since launching the research unit in London five years ago, Eden says interest among big corporations has spiraled. "The real bonus for clients is that they can eyeball the people who are important to them," Eden told CNN. "This is the way we can invite the consumer into the boardroom. These natural social environments are natural brand environments. Respondents are more willing to talk truthfully about themselves and we're offered the opportunity of seeing them interact with brands and play with brands too which is of course enormously appealing." There's nothing underhand about Eden's work. All his interviewees are willing participants who have given their consent to be filmed. But that's a legal requirement that is being pushed to the limit by new technologies. A retail outlet in Belgium recently became the first company in Europe to run a pilot system developed by Sony which uses in-store cameras to film customers for consumer analysis. The surveillance system allows observers to keep track of how many people are in the store, but also follow their routes, check what they're looking at and what they're ignoring. Together that information would help retailers identify "hot spots" and "cold spots," giving them vital information for maximizing revenue potential. As with existing CCTV security systems, stores are obliged to put up clearly displayed notices informing customers that they are being watched. But marketing analyst Alysen Stewart-Allen of International Marketing Partners said companies using surveillance technology still risked alienating their customers. "One of the things that any brand needs to consider when they're using this kind of market research tool is how is the consumer going to respond if they are told they are being videoed," said Stewart-Allen. "If you're a retailer and you're using video taping and they learn somehow that you're filming them and many other people, they could be put off from ever visiting your store again." But in a culture of CCTV, speed cameras and reality television shows, perhaps it's the case that we're all now more comfortable with the idea of being watched -- something that marketing executives are only now waking up to. "I think reality television has had an impact in as much as people have become more and more accustomed to cameras in their lives," said Eden. "And they've also become more and more accustomed to the fact that people are watched for entertainment and for commercial purposes. It's become part of the fabric of our existence."

In a store (some one else's domain) is one thing, at home (your domain) is another!

doesn't look like anyone has mentioned convergence. with apple getting into the game, microsoft getting better at it and the market moving in the direction of "all in one entertainment", downloading HD rips will null this entire protection scheme no? more people will be connecting computers to their home theaters. this leads to the obvious, all disc formats will be obsolete within a decade. physical copy protection is then impossible. THANK YOU JESUS FOR HACKERDOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, here's the problem with this scenario: Some idiot who rents a DVD from the movie store goes home, and doesn't realize it has this new chip in it, and tries to copy it. It sets off the chip, he brings the movie back. I now rent the film, and bring it home and try to play it in my new DVD player, and it won't work because it's been "f**ked with", now I've wasted how much time out of my day because I gotta go all the way back to X movie store only to get another copy which might have the same problem. This is going to be a big waste of time and a HUGE pain the ass for just about every citizen. This is one of those situations where the payoff isn't worth the problem. just my 0.02 Jeff

There's all kinds of perals for chips in the snail mail process as well for folks at Netflix to consider as well.

It's a bird, it's a plane, no it sounds like a job for the ACLU, and the EFF!! Talk about invasion of privacy!! Is this just another way for big money to sneak into your home? Sounds that way to me. Should you live in the U.S.A. find out where your Senators and Congressmen/Congresswomen stand on this *New* home invasion technique, and get them to put a stop to it, or, vote them out of office in this falls elections.

History has it that everytime a person or group tries to completely control something, the more out-of-control it really gets...or else it simply strangles itself with its controls and dies. Either way, I don't see much of a future for this chip on a disc technology.

SOUNDS LIKE GEORGE ORWELL'S "BIG BROTHER" AT WORK AGAIN...ALONG WITH "WARANTLESS SEARCHES"...IF WE ARE NOT CAREFULL IN THE VERY NEAR FUTURE, WE WILL BE "GIVING AWAY THE FARM" TO MONEY AND POWER..PERSONALLY. I WON'T HAVE A "TRACKING DEVICE" IN MY HOME IF AT ALL POSSIBLE...BESIDES AS OTHER HAVE ALREADY SAID, AN ACTION BY THE BIG COMPANIES WITH SPUR A NEW SOLUTION AND MEANS...HISTORY PROVES ITSELF!!

When this crapolla comes out Do Not Buy Or Rent It.They only understand the almighty dollar.

Time to stock up on those "old" DVD players. You know, the ones without the RFID cow chip....

You are correct sir.Buy up the cheap dvd players and keep a stock of radio chipless dvd's.When this new invasion of privacy crap comes out,let it grow old on the shelves of retailers.

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Ok, here's the problem with this scenario: Some idiot who rents a DVD from the movie store goes home, and doesn't realize it has this new chip in it, and tries to copy it. It sets off the chip, he brings the movie back. I now rent the film, and bring it home and try to play it in my new DVD player, and it won't work because it's been "f**ked with", now I've wasted how much time out of my day because I gotta go all the way back to X movie store only to get another copy which might have the same problem. This is going to be a big waste of time and a HUGE pain the ass for just about every citizen. This is one of those situations where the payoff isn't worth the problem. just my 0.02 Jeff

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it really will NOT be a hardware issue guys. even IF the tech is deployed, it will surely fail as everything is moving toward network storage devices. physical media is obsolete already, big money is just figuring out how to make money circa 21st century.

Hey, have you ever fried a chip by accident? Heh Heh Heh. Theres more than one way to fry a chip.

If copying/piracy of DVD's is so bad why are the actors and studios still making multimillions of dollars? Seems to me they're wasting more money on antipiracy technology then what they're losing by letting some people watch it for free.

IT HAD TO HAPPEN ONE DAY AS WITH VHS ,Came Mariovision,AND NOW THE CHIP FOR DVDS. But I think we will always be able to download things Expect with the Extra features of movies,You will Have to Buy it Or Rent it.

Or we could use a screen capturing prog such as SnagIt or use an ATI Capture Card. Believe it or not, DVD Players can be hooked up to a computer.

Is this some kind of wind up lol, excuse me if im wrong but what exactly is the difference between the laser in my pc reading the disk to watch on my pc and the laser reading my disk to copy it?, is this chip so advanced that is knows what I am doing with the disk :D. Also does this mean that multi region dvd players will not be made for the blu ray etc marked?as wouldnt this really screw thier plans up haha.

What a crock of sh*t, some boffin with thick glasses will just figure out how to hack/chip the blu ray disc player so it reads copies. LMAO

Most definetly will not work, and anything that is put on the net and for that matter in the world will eventually be hacked.

Like the new dual layer DVD standards, the new technology will cause so much confusion and conflicting standards, buyers will just stay away. Less money from more greed.

Just hack it Baby

I wonder how these chips would react to a nice magnetic field

Lets see.... 1. Hook wire A (computer) to jack B (TIVO BOX) 2. Push "play DVD" on PC. 3. Push "record" on TIVO box. 4. Transfer recorded movie from TIVO Back to PC. 5. Use filter process to eliminate and anti-copying protection from ripped DVD. 6. Burn movie to DVD. If process Fails, See alternate method. Alternate method (lowtech) 1. Hook wire A (PC) to jack B (VCR) yeah I know, I said low tech. 2. Push "play DVD" on PC. 3. Push "record" on VCR. 4. Transfer recorded movie from VCR back to PC. (this is a lengthy process). 5. Convert recorded movie to proper DVD format. 6. Burn DVD.

This is the most idiot thing that these people are thinking or they are taking us by IDIOTS (Mamaos). The thirst thing is that they can't track what you do because of the privacy act. Second if the Patriot Act or what else is name is active then this is the end of the rigths of the US of America people.

So...Ritek is willingly shooting itself in the foot? Idiots. So instead of buying spools of DVDs, I'll just be saying, "Hello, Western Digital, NEC, Sony, Maxtor!" and buying more and bigger hard drives. I'm getting annoyed with so many DVDs around anyway. I have a HTPC, running GBPVR, and MediaMVPs on every other TV in the house. There, done, problem solved before it even becomes a problem.

The more money companies spend trying to tighten their grip, the more people will spend their free time working on ways to defeat the system. People do not like to be told they CAN'T do something. I don't see this happening. The movie industry makes billions of dollars every year. I don't see how they could be losing that much to piracy! Money makes the world go round! Once you get some, most want more!

what I do with whatever I rent or buy is my business, and calling this an invasion of privacy is just the beginning. Who is going to force the disc makers to comply

Ok how about did thety forget RFID stuff is hackable? What if someone figures out how to Deactivate the RFID chip by doing a Google search on it! If I live out in the country and I luive like 20 miles from the nearest city the thing only works Six Meters Away. Get or make a Radio Wave Shield Device with stuff from Radio Shack thus still allowing Illegal Copying! Order it on On-Demand PPV and use a DVD recorder then still Illegally copy it! They still make VHS Tapes of Movies stilll they have to Tag those too. Ok I RFID the IPICO's President Car and only allow his cr to be used once and do the same to Hollywood.

Start the boycott now! Don't buy any more Ritek products. Consumers should not reward a company that exhibits unfriendly behavior to them. Buy only from your friends! Have Fun!

I am going to have to mode chip my DVD player...LOL

i don't think it will ever get off the ground. as soon as they start loosing money because nobody is buying the movies, things will be right back where they are now. i know i wont buy them. besides you will be able to download the movies on the net anyway.there is always a way around anything. this battle has been going on for years and will continue for years to come.

I stopped using Ritek a while back, newer products were complete crap ! One suggestion; pop the new DVDs, equipped with the Superman secret decoder ring, into the microwave for a few seconds. This should lay waste to any resident electronic circuits without damaging the media. When enough disks are returned to rental outlets, that will be the end of this game! Personally, I've seen a lot of music and video media changes over the years but I've never seen a current technology re-released. Retailers will have a lot to say about this abortion ! What ever happened to the Time-Out Self Destruction disk that Disney was working on ? Another ultimate fix that never made it to the store ! I have to agree with an earlier poster that the current DVD technology is in it's final stages and network downloads will be the ultimate fix for Hollywood Studios and distributors. It's one of the reasons why the US Government has been pushing for full deployment of high speed DSL technology. However, someone will evenually crack this scheme also!

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mufin_man (Junior Member) 22 September 2006 21:32 Send private message to this user I stopped using Ritek a while back, newer products were complete crap ! One suggestion; pop the new DVDs, equipped with the Superman secret decoder ring, into the microwave for a few seconds. This should lay waste to any resident electronic circuits without damaging the media. When enough disks are returned to rental outlets, that will be the end of this game! Personally, I've seen a lot of music and video media changes over the years but I've never seen a current technology re-released. Retailers will have a lot to say about this abortion ! What ever happened to the Time-Out Self Destruction disk that Disney was working on ? Another ultimate fix that never made it to the store ! I have to agree with an earlier poster that the current DVD technology is in it's final stages and network downloads will be the ultimate fix for Hollywood Studios and distributors. It's one of the reasons why the US Government has been pushing for full deployment of high speed DSL technology. However, someone will evenually crack this scheme also!

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Ballpyhon wouldn't putting it on below defrost help any with that? you need the right aoumnt of radio waves to kill it without frying the DVD for launch...mmmmm

The lengths that Sony etc go to deal dirty...the more that the likes of disrupting /bypassing this latest feature will take hold..and ya the almight has always had the last word...."da da da da dat's all folks.." Ped

NOW THAT PEOPLE ARE VENTING THEIR FRUSTRATION AND ANGER, THE MEDIA GIANTS CAN READ WHAT SORT OF BYPASS METHODS ARE BEING THOUGHT OF. THIS WILL SURELY HELP THE INDUSTRY FIGURE OUT WHAT OTHER FEATURES THEY NEED TO INCLUDE TO PERFECT THEIR PROJECT. LIKE THE DRM GUYS AND INDUSTRY EGGHEADS DON'T READ THIS WEBSITE'S BLOGS??? KEEP IT UP. MAYBE THESE ARE THE GUYS TRYING TO GET EVERYONE TO GIVE THEM THEIR IDEAS SINCE THEY AREN'T TOO FORWARD THINKING THEMSELVES. HOW ABOUT THAT ONE FOR PARANOID THINKING??

Maybe with these chips embedded in our DVD's, someone may get the technology to blow up or overheat the DVD's causing millions of fires all over the country. How's that for a conspiracy theory???

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I wonder how these chips would react to a nice magnetic field ...

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Hackers love a challange, and this is cheese cake on a plate...

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Hackers love a challange, and this is cheese cake on a plate...

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A_Klingon and its not the normal street crack its the platinum gold thats 10 grand a ounce how else do thos CEOs spend miloins a year on them selfs!

The DVD devils are at it again Anyone who has ever lived outside of North America knows what a nuissance DVD region codes are to the average person just trying to watch legitimate DVD movies. Worse yet, outside of North America the problem is so bad that most DVD players sold are multi-region and defeat the region codes anyways. Now the movie studios are going to try it again. Who was it that said "Trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity." ? The new idea is to implant RFID chips into DVD's. These are cheap and can easily be embedded with unique serial numbers. One part of the idea is not so bad. The first stated purpose is so that individual disks can be tracked as they move from factories to stores to homes and many products not just DVD's are moving towards this. Most products however are putting the RFID chips in the product packaging, not the product itself. It is the second application that has worrisome effects. The movie industry now plans to have DVD players upgraded to check the RFID chip as part of the play cycle and if regions do not match up, the DVD will not play. The hope is that while the data might be copiable, the RFID chip will not be. Privacy Concerns "IPICO (largest manufacturer of DVD's and inventors of this technique) claims that its RFID tags can be read a minimum six meters away, and at a rate of thousands of tags per minute." Has anyone even bothered to think about privacy implications? I can think of a few. You know those racy videos you picked up on your last International trip? Well guess what, now your neighbors can find out what you are watching. If you live in a city or apartment building that could be quite a few neighbors. Even in America, someone could drive by most houses and read what DVD's you have. I am not sure why anyone would want to do that, but there are certainly countries with governments who would, and have done similar things. For you Americans - better be careful about that Fahrenheit 911 video - I am pretty sure there is some provision with enough wiggle room in the Patriot act to get you in trouble. But enough of home invasion, let me propose something that is very likely. Every buy DVD's abroad? Did you know in many countries there are strict import restrictions on movies and other media? And I do not just mean countries like Iraq. Singapore, China and others are lesser known, but even many European and other countries have weird laws. Coming back from Europe with a non region 1 DVD? What could you possibly want with that in America? Now customs can read every DVD in your checked or hand bags, and even know not just the region but each and every title. Maybe you have have too many videos of a certain type? Consumer Problems The next inevitable step is that these new DVD's will slowly evolve and refuse to play in DVD players that cannot read and verify the RFID chip. This will force all of us to prematurely replace our DVD players as well as DVD drives in our computers. Of course Blu-ray and HD DVD will do this anyways, but I expect that costs factors will keep normal DVD players around for a bit as well as production cycles and the fact that for many users they do not need something better. Their local video rental place has all normal DVD's - why should they want to upgrade their player? Remember how long VHS took to go away? In fact I was bicycling the other day and passed a video rental club that specialized in only VHS titles. Piracy Problems The dirty secret is that this new technique will have no or little effect on piracy in the long term. It will only have an effect in the short term until pirates can adapt. There are several easy ways to bypass this scheme. Modify a legitimate DVD player to fake the chip read and modify region codes. This will surely happen. Sure the makers believe they have encoded enough info in there, but RFID chips are limited in how much data they contain. It will not take hackers long to find a way to mimic work around this. We saw several rounds of this with DVD region codes. DVD makers updated DVD's to check to ensure that DVD players were not region free, so DVD players were updated to see what the DVD wanted and report back that it was a single region player of that type, or allow the user to preset it and change it at will. Other formats will emerge and copies will go into these formats. ratDVD, DivX, VideoCD have all proven this. In fact this new scheme will only increase the demand for a new format and once it is commonplace home DVD players will be updated to play the new formats as well. Most DVD players today already play MP4 and DivX. Factory copying - This new scheme totally overlooks that a large number of pirate DVD's come directly from the factories themselves. Most factories are in Asia and other places where piracy is rampant. They produce legitimate DVD's by day, and pirate ones by night. When I lived in Russia pirate DVD's used to come from China, until a major DVD fabrication plant came online in Russia. Now the variety is even larger and cheaper. The Real Problem DVD movies are too expensive. In the US movies average about $20, in Europe about $30. However any movie can be easily rented and copied for about $3 in most countries, or a pirate copy bought for around $4. The production cost of a DVD is far below $1. If the movie companies were smart, they would start selling movies for $5. At $5 they would cut out the rental business very quickly. After will who would rent for $3 when you can buy for $5? Sure rental prices would then plummet to maybe $1. But even then the amount of sales would more than quadruple easily increasing profits, and radically reducing piracy. ( Reposting from http://tinyurl.com/mxkcy )

CZhower and others have brought up many good points. One point missed is that it should be relatively easy to find the unique serial number loaded onto the DVD's RFID chip and then program another chip with the same serial number...assuming they are really unique. If they aren't unique it would even be easier. You wouldn't even have to put you newly programmed RFID chip near on the DVD...it can be up to 6 meters away. If RFID ever really comes into the main stream handheld readers and writers would be every where. I use a version at work that would do the job nicely. My boss might not agree, but it could easily be done.

The way I see it is that using a craft technique to disable the chip, microwaves, magnets etc. Is only going to render the disc "unreadable" from the region perspective. As I see it now, current DVD players would probably be immune to the chips, only new players that can read the chips will be vulnerable. In the case of these, disabling the chip would just make the DVD unreadable on any *new* DVD player. The solution might be to make a copy of the DVD on an old unit or PC, then put the new chipless copy in, but that wouldn't work because there's no chip. The idea has too many flaws, what about home movies?

I was thinking, wasn't it the last week or two that AfterDawn had an artical on how the copyright laws are loosening up, Now this? Who starts these stories here ? I got one, Shanysonic is creating a moon based headquarters to track every DVD produced. Each disc will have a little alien racing around the disc and if it finds that you are coping the disc it takes off and reports back to Sharnysonic moon based headquarters and what happens next is just to graphic for this forum.

So you don't believe that this will happen? I think that's a little naive.

Dont assume old DVD players will be safe - see this quote from my post: "The next inevitable step is that these new DVD's will slowly evolve and refuse to play in DVD players that cannot read and verify the RFID chip."

That is very true, but there'd be outrage at that. It's one thing a service provider forcing you to upgrade your equipment, but a media type? I don't think that's unlikely either to be honest. It's what I thought, but forgot to write!

RFID is here to stay. They (Ritek) are just a pawn being tested in uncharted waters. The outcome is logical, more people working to make money. This hopeless world is hacked but a true hacker knows world peace is un-hackable. RFID is an easy hack!! Regards, wvaughan "Be for the true hack" "Hack World Peace!" "But are you that smart?"

Hmm, well.... "General, I demand you end this war!" <connection reset by peer>

Tis all balderdash

"That is very true, but there'd be outrage at that." Won't matter. Most consumers will not know or care. Especially the American market - what happens outside of their borders is often of little concern to them. There was "outrage" about region codes, and look how much good that did.

there would be no way to stop current dvd players from playing the discs, the player will just completely ignore anything the chip does unless they build it into the actual data part of the disc not the very centre near the BCA. This technology is so completely flawed it makes you think whether Ritek even know what the hell a RFID chip is/does. Even if it is incorporated into discs within hours, maybe even minutes of release there will be a work around. But its more than likely that these will never be used, im not really to worried about it. Just means i might have to upgrade my internet connection speed, LOL.

I have not doubts there will be workarounds. But DVD's are able to allow some executable portions on the disc that allow things like the region code checks they added later for multi region DVD players etc - they can do the same.

It seems there might be an easy way to get around this anyway. From my understanding, the DVD's will have the RFID chips in them and wont play in new DVD players if the chip cannot be read......Why not make a "Backup" copy of the DVD so it has no RFID serial and play it in an old player which isn't programmed to check RFID serials??

I might be a bit slow on the uptake here but I feel the simple solution to this "piracy" issue is make the prices competitive and therefore consumers will buy the product. Also if the movie studios were genuine surely the companies like Sony & Ritek would stop manufacturing recordable media. All these companies are crapping on about piracy but they all manufacture the tools and means to be able to do it. SONY winge their butt off about piracy of PS2 games but they sell the discs and equipment to be able to do it, does that make sense ??? I for one will not pay $100 a game just to find that I can purchase the same game for $10 at a local market, even if it is a copy.

Personally, I will upgrade my players and media only when I feel damn good and ready, and no company, manufacturer, movie studio, agency, or governmental entity is going to dictate otherwise with some stupid, intruding idea like this fiasco. I'm sure 99.9% of America feels this same way. This is a worthless topic because it will never happen. Honestly, I won't stop buying Ritek media because of something like this -- instead, I will stop buying Ritek media because they are obviously a very stupid company with no vision in the real world. The fact that Ritek is willing to waste millions of dollars on an idea that is already flawed and failing before it reaches the consumer market makes me want to avoid Ritek. I'd rather know my money is going to pay for the CEO's kids to go to college or buy yet another mansion in Beverly Hills or even to build 500 more sweatshops in a tiny Asian country.

If the discs are readable in the PC drive, then why not just shove it straight into an old player?

I actually feel that this is more "Area 51 Technology" to listen in on what's happening in the American home, it has nothing to do with DVD's at all. They really want Mama's secret biscuit recipe. The truth is this, somebody will do a work around in a matter of weeks and off we go again. This is merely a challenge from the manufacturers to us the public users and we will accept it and beat it and go on with our busy lives. Hiddy Ho.

How many people think this will coincide with the increase of the prices of DVD's? This will be cracked just like anything else, no matter what Top Dollar comes up with someone will always break it.

I would call it an invasion of privacy. BIG BROTHER is watching and all that. I don't think it should be allowed. If this is allowed, what will others try next !!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, all you have to do is buy a used dvd from a reseller to keep from being hunted down.

Lol I see good ebaying to be had here. "Non-RFID disc" - suddenly that disc you thought was worthless becomes valuable!

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ZIppyDSM
Senior Member
_ 22. September 2006 @ 23:23 _ Link to this message Report an offensive post Send private message to this user
Ballpyhon
wouldn't putting it on below defrost help any with that?
you need the right
aoumnt of radio waves to kill it without frying the DVD for launch...mmmmm

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I agree that it probably won't happen, but if it does it should be easy to work around. I personally see it as a waste of time. In 5 years, the majority of movies are going to be available for direct download online. It's already happening. And I know that you can burn them, but they fade out in a certain time. Somebody already probably hacked that too.

But then they might put starforce drivers in them! <shudders>

starforce drivers?

Starforce = wont run for shit

I see a huge legal battle a brewing here

Ritek = The new Sony LOL

Yeah, well. Do you know how much rootkit pales in comparison to SF? Computer viruses don't destroy hardware. SF does.

as i have said before, if we stop buying their products, they will not make any money. therefor we hold all the power. the corporate machine cannot survive without us consumers.

can't we just remove the chip, or is it to small, or could we use some outside source of radiation to fry a chip, or an electrical charge, maybe battery acid?

I think you will find that Company`s in OZ lost a court battle to keep regional codes on ANY equipment that stopped a person buying a disk/tape abroad from playing it on equipment in OZ. Can`t see the Government changing it`s mind!!!

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could we use some outside source of radiation to fry a chip, or an electrical charge, maybe battery acid?

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Now if we can just keep the MPAA's pooches from sniffing my disks on a plane, train, or mail I'll be happy LOL. http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=31635

just speculating in case it happens and in case it takes a while to hack, or if it's hacked the changes will be sent to the company and they will change it back and have you arested for tampering with their anti whatever chips.

One simple way to overcome the RFID would be to buy the hardware that's sure to hit the market that won't look for the RFID. That approach cost the satellite people a bundle.

Well well, i think this kind of technology is just enough to stop a few "low-tech" dummies but for the vast majority is just a matter of time before an appz/crack comes along and cracks whatever protection this discs may have. And, as far as "the chip" ... thats just a load of bull@#$, if the privacy act cant be enforced then people will enforce it by themselves .... this technology is not unbeatable ... and KNOCK KNOCK!.... what happens if someone purchases one of those discs and decides to make a copy of it so the original disc wont suffer any damages?...this is new technology (blue ray- hd dvd) and as such high prices are guaranteed ... we have the right to make copies of the discs we purchase .... i wish them good luck trying to include all of these self-destructive gizmos to discs .... Just imagine renting "chip protected" blue ray discs from Netflix... their buisness mail charges will most likely go up the roof by including some extra weight to the envelopes they send. Yeap is a lose-lose situation.

This is by far the stupidest thing I ever heard come out of the entertainment industries loud mouth. I thought it was a joke when I first read it; I'm stil not so sure it isn't. Great stock tip! Short U-Tech and IPICO. You think the Sony dibacle was bad. This ridiculous scheme makes that look like a group of nuns collecting for UNICEF. It will NEVER happen

I guess is is time to buy a spare DVD player!

I forgot to add the radio tracking device is not plausable. What is going to power this devices, a nuculear power cell? They would have to put big bucks into tracking the where abouts of evey disk that has even been sold for its life time! How stupid do they think the public is. They must think we a less savvy tan their management that came up with this idea! Are they a bunch of losers or what!

They dont need batteries to be read any more than the DVD does. Do an internet search on "passive RFID tags".

If this nonsense s implemented, they had better mark the disc as so, for I will not purchase a single one of them. If I live to the ripe ole age of 80 years old, I will still be using my DVD player from 2006 if it comes to it.

Talk is tough - but we've all been here before with region codes. Yet how many of us are even hanging on to VHS? Or laser disc? We're all geeks and will want the new HD stuff...

It always amazes me how these companies who are always crying wolf regarding profits being down due to piracy can spend so much developing new technogies that will be eventually cracked.

The question I would ask a disk is how would it know it was being 'read by a mear player or copy software like Scansoft?

Okay guys, I have read this article about chips being put on DVDs. Do I have it right? Will the movie people be able to know if I have their products in my home? If this is part of their strategy, I have a real problem with this. No government or corporation is allowed to know anything about me or my home. This is an invasion of privacy. When it comes to backing up my DVD's for anti kid protection of the originals, (You parents know what I mean) will my current DVD player/recorder be able to play the copy? If I use the Chip embedded DVD, Will I be able to use my current recorder to record my favorite shows? I am not an expert on these things, so please will someone simplify it for me. Thanks, RMZ

If they didn't learn their lesson with DRM, they never will. This isn't about anti-piracy, because as any fool will tell you, just like all the "anti-piracy" technology before it was beaten, so will this. This is about 'anti-privacy'.

I don't think they care if the movies are copied, so long as they won't play on conventional dvd players. They can not be tracked if they don't play. If the movie is being copied, it could tracked if the computer is logged on to the internet during the copy process, by tracking the Enable handshake signals.

These tags are going to do away with barcodes in the forseeable future - a lot of shops are using them already. i.e. Pc World, Comet etc. Some facts: - The tag functions without a battery; these tags have a useful life of twenty years or more. The tag is typically much less expensive to manufacture The tag is much smaller (some tags are the size of a grain of rice). These tags have almost unlimited applications in consumer goods and other areas. And the statement in the article says:- "DVDs will soon be embedded with radio transmitter chips which will allow the major movie studios to remotely track individual discs as they travel from factories to retail shelves and to consumers' homes. The studios hope the technology, which can be used for Blu-ray and HD DVD discs as well as normal DVDs, will prevent unlawful copying and pirating of their films." Rubbish - what kind of transmitters and receivers will they require to track this disk - it will have to be satelite based and cost a fortune. Tracking my arse. "The companies behind the new advance say living room DVD players will eventually be able to check on the chip embedded in a disc, and reject any discs which have been copied or played in the 'wrong' geographical region. Ritek Corp., parent company of U-tech Media, which will manufacture the discs, is currently the world's largest DVD maker. But are we to assume that if we don't have a dvd player that "READS" these tags or chips then we won't be able to watch it. I'll give the hackers about 1 hour and they'll crack it. Because all it does is transmits a signal which the tag receives and sends one back saying "hello i'm not a pirate copy." or "Aha this is a copy, quick, self destuct this dvd player" And because it's a radio signal it can be intercepted and told that's ok play it. I'm sure.

A false radio transmitter in a DVD player? Easily done. Like I say, don't pick the lock, make yourself a key.

Or click off or unplug the g-damned modem! Then the f-cker can't phone home!

Aye but there clever buggers they'll check for the connection first then say "don't play here's a crafty one here"

From what you guys are implying is that what is going to happen is that the new DVD players wont play a DVD without this tag. So the hundreds of dollars I've spent over the years buying DVDs wont play on those cuz there is no way for the DVD player to tell if it is legit or a copy. And also that the chipped DVDs wont play on my old DVD player because there isnt something to read the chip. Sounds to me like these companies want everyone to rebuy their DVD collection and buy a $700 DVD player to play them on. Seeing how I refuse to do that, #$%^ them. I'll just wait for all the movies to come out on STARS and and not spend anymore of my money on that bull#$&*.

U-Tech Australia, where the project will undergo a large scale trial, did not reply today to vnunet.com's request for comment on the new embedded RFID chip process and the precise schedule for its rollout. Press relations staff at U-Tech's office in Taiwan refused to provide more information about the technology. That's because they really have'nt got a F*****G clue!!! And if it does happen,don't buy the discs,That'll F**K 'EM.

Just thought of something else, Think playstation/xbox???? Mod-chipped DVD players....toooo easy. Send a false signal to the receiver and watch the movie. Burn to a blank disc,insert movie,send false signal/generate boot sequence.The modchip developers would love to see this!!!

I've come across these RFID tags through my work and they are very impressive. They can now be sewn into the label of clothes at the factory to decrease costs! Anyway, with regards to this application, the chip will be inside the layer of the disk; you will not be able to remove it. Some RFID tags, however, are susceptable to intense Radio signals which can disable them. Its the same principle as the anti theft tags in shops - they either get removed completely or they get 'blasted' so that they don't set off the alarm once you've paid for the item. For those people who backup legitimate disks in order to preserve them, all you'll need to do is have the original disk near the player and the RFID tag will be read and the backup disk will play anyway. But as most people have already said, it won't take long for someone to either crack individual players, or more likely, you'll be able to buy a device which you position next to the player and it pretends to be a valid RFID tag and therefore the copied disk will play without any problems.

I fully 'buy' a passivly read tag and expect to see something like that in the next generation of DVDs. However, the article stated "DVDs will soon be embedded with radio transmitter chips which will allow the major movie studios to remotely track individual discs as they travel from factories to retail shelves and to consumers' homes". This is rubbish! I am sure copy protection of DVDs is going to the next level. I am just as sure there will be ways to circumvent them but the good old days with little or no copy protection are a thing of the past. Only the most ardent pirates will go to the next level. I also suspect the readers will not 'expect' the old style disks to contain the chips. A reader that can not read a current style disk would be returned too often to be profitable.

One of the saddest and most infuriating thing about this whole mess is that the Studios are so sneaky about their embedded DRM - in whatever form it may take. You will be very fortunate if *anywhere* on the packaging it states that you have purchased a partially-crippled disc. Legislation NEEDS to be passed requiring software producers to clearly MARK their movie discs as being DRM-Compliant, AND to clearly identify what type of DRM is being used. The ommission of this information is what the Studios are hoping Joe Public won't notice until it's too late, and the discs have flooded into the marketplace. Nope ........ it's still WAY too early to start making major investments in Hi-Def technology. And KEEP on reading The Forums for information !!

A_Klingon
haven't they been sneaking stuff onto DVDs since day one? don't forget the horror story's of the WB players and software that kills a PC if you et it install ff a movie DVD its like installed a meaner version of star force !

MMmmm Hi Def is to early to buy into just yet

reason 1 the TVs are not up to snuff yet and if you are a average person your just buring your moeny right there.however if you know what you are getting and see it worth the the money then thats up to you...


reason 2 picky picky fickle formats pick one and hoe its not a pickle you are better off waiting till a winner is named and theres a 50/50 chance there wont be one for 5 years....

reason 3 if you can see ALOT of a diffrance in Hi def and "normal" video then you are a better man than I ,I see about a 30% diffrance not enough to make me pee in my pants..

I would like to know at what point when do I own the dvd/movie.I pay for it but the will keep tabs on me and it,maybe I will just stop buying them and see what gos from there.

Zapping the RFID tag chip with an EMP and frying it may not be the best since the chip may contain an encryption key to allow the player to decode the content. This would then render the disc useless thus your buying another disc and falling into their scam anyway. Just my .02 Starcruiser

As many have said, this technology may work for a while, but we will crack it. Also, do you think that the production studio's will actually save enough money on preventing us from copying to warrant the increased cost in using the new tech. I don't know about all of us, but most of us have a lot of movies that we copied that we would have never bought; rent to watch and keep a copy, probably to never watch again. The movies I REALLY want to add to my collection I buy because I want the case and all. Does anyone remember BETA? Great technology, but not worth the increase in cost to have SONY, and SONY alone produce it. This looks to be another adventure in expensive FAILURE to me. Word of advice: DON'T invest money into RITEK Corp. any time in the near future, unless you like throwing money away!!

rrmk37 they need to know how better to sale thgns to you,like the wolf needed to see red..come closer dear so I can eat you...and all.....and while the corporations are spying on you the government can jump in on it to and say we are just protecting you from yourself!

The senator from Alaska heads the committe that reccomends internet and digital entertainment laws to Congress. He's pushing hard for built in protection electronics in electronic hardware. From what I've read, he doesn't know much, but appears to be taking his leads from the communication and entertainment industry. He yields a lot of power.

SCAMPER aint he the same idiot pushing for a bridge to nowhere? or should I say a bridge to nowhere on tax payers money so big biz can build stuf on the other side of the pound and then charge normal people and the government an arm and a leg for thier land they bought? ><

Yes, he's a great politician for the state. He got funds to build a bridge to nowhere. Maybe he'll move to California.

SCAMPER A great politician gets money for a state and sues that money for the states people..not for the 2% of it or in this case probably outsiders...I mean why else would he do it if not for kickbacks.....if there was a plan to really overhaul the area then the bridge to nowhere would be in a planed development not a "hidden" one... this might sound dim but I wouldn't mind them taxing the net if they could get free dsl (128-512KBdown) everywhere in the lower 48.. Mmm I think hawai would be eraser to wire for DSL than some more rural areas of the lower 48 LOL but at least then I could see a tax beign reasonable but sicne they are letting all the corporations not do all the work...

Every resident of Alaska gets a kick back now from oil revenues, the Bridge to knowhere was a great ball to kick around. How about this, rent movie from Sat, record on pc, then burn to disc, or play from pc to TV, wireless transmitters are way down in price now.. Dont forrget to by a few extra 30 dollar DVD players before they change them for replacements, I already have 3 or 4. I wont live long enough to wear um out.

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craftyzan (Junior Member) 24 September 2006 18:02 Send private message to this user Or click off or unplug the g-damned modem! Then the f-cker can't phone home! Awcomon (Newbie) 24 September 2006 18:05 Send private message to this user Aye but there clever buggers they'll check for the connection first then say "don't play here's a crafty one here"

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also another thought just came to mind. If they implement this ridiculous type of copy protection, are they going to stop using the software protection that already doing a piss poor job? unless they force us to buy new equipment to play these "copy proof" DVDs they will not win the battle. there is always going to be a work around, or an alternative to getting the things we want. just think of it this way, if we cannot figure out how to crack a new DVD protection (which we will), who's to say we wont start going out and physically stealing the DVDs? I mean how hard is it to grab a DVD and run your ass off? Not very hard at all.

Ballpyhon, wouldn't advise it; not worth it.

hehe "you wouldn't steal a car, so don't steal movies" - I wouldn't steal what? LOL

SCAMPER's a pussy.

You signed up just to say that?

If he continues this way he wont last long.

borhan9 as apt as corperations are at spending biloins on projects that never see the light of day I have this feeling they will try to get this thing goign then it wil die after it...but whos knows it might take off...then just have to wait till a china like contry spams us with cheap RFID killers *L* Mmm is it me or over the last 2 or 4 years china no longer makes NEW neat little gadgets it once did?

A_Klingon Not sure legislation would help us since they are owned by these scum. The most we can hope for is a label stating minimum system requirements and some obscure language pointing to an RFID and such. But as long as we are dreaming that they have customers in mind, I have this novel idea. If the f@@k#! don't work they give us our money back.

I will agree that politicians are one of the lowest life forms on earth. Old Reagan joked that it was the second oldest profession and was not very much different than the first. I wish to give you all a great success story. Our local government like most are owned by the developers. 22 of our 24 officials would do anythiong for the developers. We have interstates planned to criss-cross through parklands with every sort of developement along the way. One of the routs will need to go throuhg a town displacing thousands of residents just so the new intersection to 95 would be on a certain developers land. The guy had ammass square miles of property where he wants the road to go. He bought our entire state off. Any way NONE of the 22 rats survived the primary. You all need to vote out your rats!

Mez I plan on voteing 3rd party from today and beyond,you waste your vote for the lesser evil so why fing pick the lesser evil....

Hey guys don't argue with stupid people (mkezele66). They don't contribute to the subject, if there is something constructive to add, great.

I think hitting Ritek financially will break some of there enthusiasm and soften there goals. Verbatim is on sale at Best Buy, 50 blanks for $12.95 after a $17 instant rebate. I've had better burns with Verbatim and haven't bought Ritek in since switching over.

People are also voting with downloads...workarounds...P2P...quite a $%^$ you to Corporate America... note the Pirate Bay. The 'Rats' may control Washington and be controlled by MPAA & RIAA but all the power is not theirs.

He's not the only one out there, just ignore them, don't even dignify them with acknowledgement. On that matter, I've so far had 100% success with all of TDK, Verbatim and Imation, and even Bulkpaq.

sammorris' comment on DVD's reminded me about a question someone asked about the TDK's on sale at Costco. I am almost through with their 100 pack, and had only one coaster (that may have been my fault).

Yeah, despite what others say, they seem good.

$9.95 for Imations 50 Pk @ Office Depot, Limited time So hurry.

sammorris sometimes the medium and lower brands burn fine but start flaking only after a year 0-o or if you have a moist house they will grow mold 0-o

ZIppyDSM I am too jaded to even want to save the world. I will be content my just slowing the decay down. I have not seen third parties do much except Nader did help to get Bush elected. I still think you have to do what you think is right and who am I to tell you differently. I fully believe getting rid of someone that wants to run a highway through my house IS the getting rid of the greater evil. I can't afford to vote for someone that can't win. That is nice to vote for a point but things are really bad here. Apparently there was a universal effort to get those rats out of office. It would be nice to get someone that listens but I will settle for even a new rat over the old rat. The new rats saw what happened to the old ones so they will not be so blaitant. Anyway this is not really the place for politics. This is the place that can make make some things run right for certain.

Are Imations any good? I have more coasters sitting around than any of you would believe. They are good for backing up data.

Mez meh you still wastering your vote the sooner we remove the 2 party system the better of coarse it wont change the nature of the snake just make them show more of what they are....thus making it somewhat easier to chose a better head....why oh why do I have images of a hydra in my head..no matter witch head is still the same crummy beast ><

I know their CDs are good, have only limited use of their dvds. Haven't notice any aging effects on the dvds after a year or so. Rather spend $3 more per 50 and get Verbatim, I use a higher copy speed with Verbatim.

basically it's all up to the corporations in the USA. the corporates grease the politicians to write the laws they need passed. then the corporations implement their evil doings. when consumers don't follow suit, the MPAA RIAA and all the other corporate police come into play. this country is run by corporate America and there is nothing anyone can do about it, unless we stop buying their products. then they have no money to payoff the politicians.

Now, now ladies and gentlemen it's insulting to snakes, rats & hydras to use their names to describe these b4574rds. Poor snakies, raties and hydras, I'll never use you to decribe a politician or a corporate greedy fxxxer. Corporations are running the whole damn show, it all comes down to money!

gamelover I dunno snakes can be pretty damn evil look at Orochimaru on naruto :P

If they keep releasing the straight-to-dvd B movie awful junk as they have for the past few years, they won't have to worry about putting little nano critters in DVD's. Cause no one will be left to buy em.

Ballpyhon, I'll take it one step further. Until money and power cease to be the driving force of humanity, little to nothing will change. If you look back 2000 years, aside from the obvious technilogical advances, we have changed very little. I suspect in the distant future our generation will be referred to as the Extreme Greed period.

The movie studios are stoned with greed, that they can't see beyond their own noses, and realize that if you press too hard the soap, it will slip from your hands...

They should have realized by know what a nuissance DVD region codes have been, to the point of releasing multiregional dvd players, because consumers living in North America get more movies and tv series released on DVD, than the consumers living outside of North America, which have refused to purchase barebones subquality DVD releases (compared to region 1 releases) specially when they price them at equal prices than region 1 releases.

Consumers don't like to be told what they should do or don't do with the things they buy and own, but even worse... people don't like their privacy to be invaded, simple as that... one thing is placing a RFID chip in the product packaging, which you can throw away if you wish so, other thing is placing it on the product itself.

This may seem like a problem that applies only to DVD consumers, but the reality is that eventually will affect all equaly, because this will lead to similar situations with other products... imagine the same to spy phone calls, computers, etc... that's why it's important that you should comment this to everybody, not only DVD consumers.

There's still a long way for Blue-Ray and HD-DVD to kick in, mainly because the ongoing battle of these two formats, also consumers are content with the present DVD format's quality, the advantages in higher quality aren't enough to upgrade your DVD player, double-dip your current DVD collection, but the implications of such invasion of privacy with the RFID chip, not only will obscure the future of HD technology, but current DVD sales itself.

This will not only affect sales of DVD movie and tv series, but DVD players, burners and media as well, because nobody is fond of the idea of somebody watching over your shoulder, and knowing that are you watching, how often you do so, and if you made or not a personal use only backup, of your purchased legally DVD.

In the other hand, didn't the courts ruled that it's illegal to place spyware in optical discs? Regardless if it's software like in the case of Sony music CDs, or hardware like a RFID chip, it's still spyware, and it's against the law and your civil rights.

It's absurd that the movie industry now plans to have consumers upgraded their DVD players to check the RFID chip as part of the play cycle and if regions do not match up, their DVD will not play... again it didn't work with current DVD regions, and consumers don't like to be told what they can or can't do, specially in their own homes.

That's why we should all express our discontent for such violation, specially those who live in North America, because if this worldwide action should start somewhere, no doubt will be there, therefore you should make the best efford to stop it.

The biggest problem that affects the movie industry, is people preffer staying at home and watch weekly an innovative, interesting and appealing tv show for free, than spending money on a mediocre movie, even worse remakes or sequels that had no reason to be made in the first place. The movie industry would do better than blaming completely on piracy their losses.

Even so their efforts would be better aimed at mass pirates and professionals, those are the ones who are making a profit, who release thousands of copies into the streets, not the average guy that makes a personal use only backup of a dvd purchased legally.

DVD movies are too expensive, they should have noticed by now that, this is clearly the impediment in achieving fast high sales when released in stores (no doubt doesn't help that mediocre movies don't justify paying current prices) and in the past years DVD manufacturing costs have reduced, but consumers price have increased.

DVD movies current price has an average of US$20-30, renting for about US$3 in most countries, and a pirate copy should cost the same... the production cost of a DVD is around US$1, the problem is all the people that are involved in releasing a DVD, movie studios, producers, manufracturers, distributors, stores, all want a large piece of the profit.

Greed blinds them from understanding that the solution to beat piracy, is not RFID chips or regional codes on DVDs, but DVD movies prices reasonable and appealing, release them worldwide at the same time, and no more barebones subquality DVD releases, consumers around the world deserve, specially for the price they're paying, exactly the same product for those living in North America, with tons of extras and goodies.

Most of us have several legally purchased DVD movies and tv series, even large collections of DVDs, because we always preffered buying the original stuff, and most of the time we purchased them at discount prices, but they should realize that going the extra mile is really the solution to beat the problem.

If they were smart, they would start selling DVD movies at half of the current price, an average of US$15 and even better if stores eventually offer discounts as they have been doing, this will be more appealing not only for those of us how purchase dvds legally, but also for those how didn't do so in the past; the amount of sales would more than quadruple easily increasing profits, the dvd movies will not keep collecting dust on the racks, and radically reducing piracy.

To all the folks whining about "Corporate America", quit your scapegoating - the only reason why you have a DVD player or TV is because of Corporate America. The only reason why aren't listening to propaganda tapes of the Communist Manifesto day in and day out is because of Corporate America.

If you want someone to blame for all these ridiculous intrusions? Go look in the f--king mirror. It's YOU who buys DVDs. It's YOU who buys DVD players. It's YOU who's probably going to run out an buy a HD-DVD player or Blu-ray once they come down in price. It's YOU who probably fails to tell your friends not to buy the latest gadget. It's YOU who doesn't have the f--king self-control to boycott the sleazy, scuzzy entertainment industry. It's YOU who probably don't write your Congressman and Senator every month and ask them to repeal the DMCA or enact consumer-protection legislation. It's YOU who does not go to politician's town-hall meetings and get on their cases. It's YOU who did not write a letter-to-the-editor of your newspaper expressing outrage or outlining the abuses of our civil liberties committed by the entertainment industry.

To be sure, there are ways you can - at least to some degree - have your cake and eat it too, especially if you buy an upconverting DVD player and Just Say No to hi-def, no matter how much they come down in price. And you can borrow DVDs from friends or Blockbuster, rather than buying your own.

But until consumers can stop acting like freakin sheep, you will be treated like them.

Well said, although an upconverting DVD player isn't quite the same as a high definition DVD player! :-)

Movie makers are planning to begin to use RFID tags embedded within media to prevent playing of pirated disks, as i mentioned before this is spyware and was ruled illegal in courts... i'll explain this... As i understand, the player will read the ID tag to ensure the disk is authentic, which will require the player to be able to read RFID tags, and to be able to connect to some database or online network, similar to the EPCglobal Network, to retrieve valid ID tags. Therefore not only if you don't have a RFID-enabled DVD player, the tag would essentially lock the disc, and you would not be able to play it, but every time you play a tagged DVD, somebody will be spying on you. Again, one thing is placing a RFID chip in the product packaging, which you can desactive once you leave the store where you purchased it, or throw away if you wish so, other thing is placing it on the product itself, under constant eye-watch. Additionally, if these measures come into effect, people with older systems that do not have the RFID capability will be forced to upgrade in order to view the new releases, and no one should be obligated to do such thing. The entertaiment industry wishes to implement this technology to DVD’s, HD-DVD’s and Blu-ray disks. Therefore it's possible that if you purchase a high definition DVD player, you'll be upconverting DVD player with RFID tag, even without your knowlegde, because there's still no regulation that forces the industry, to inform the consumer that you're purchasing a tagged product. It's ridiculous to expect consumers to purchase a new device to incorporate new anti-piracy spyware technology that likely will not be effective, but will violate their privacy constantly, and if DVD movies are too expensive today, this implementation will surely increase the price even more, since all of this is going to be, of course, at the consumer’s expense. Getting to the point of absurdity, a group of researchers at UCLA, lead by engineering professor Rajit Gadh, started developing the technological infrastructure behind RFID-enabled DVD players, have proposed that at the store, someone buying a new DVD may have to provide a password or some kind of biometric data, like a fingerprint or iris scan, which would be added to the DVD's RFID tag. Ed Felten, a computer science professor at Princeton University, called the proposal the "limit of restrictiveness." "I think people would find it creepy to give their fingerprint every time they wanted to play a DVD," Felten said. "It's hard to think that would be acceptable to customers. It seems unlikely that people would buy new DVD players with RFID readers in order to purchase DVDs that are less functional. Then, when the DVD was popped into a specially equipped DVD player, the viewer would be required to re-enter his or her password or fingerprint." Will this stop illegal copying? I don't think so... first of all, pirates will undoubtedly find the way to rip and re-burn the video into some generic form that will not require the player to scan the RFID. Otherwise, it will make millions of recording home movies and original pre-RFID DVD releases inoperable, so it doesn't totally rid the potential of pirated media, and remember the sales repercutions for those companies who currenty sell DVD recorders and media. The real problem are those who distribute thousands of pirate copies into the streets. I won't say that such ridiculous intrusion is our fault because we bought legally DVD movies and players in the past, but certanly this is not the way to maintain us as consumers. Seth Schoen, staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said it's unlikely this DRM plan will be any more effective than others preceding it. "It only requires one person to break it," Schoen said, "this is the 'smart cow problem': Once one of the cows opens the gate, the others will follow." Finally is up to us all to send the message that no one can invade your privacy, express your discontent to groups such as CASPIAN, even to your local newspaper, radio and tv station, of this violation of your privacy rights and the abuses of your civil liberties, committed by the entertainment industry, and don't stop there... Avoid buying DVD tagged products and tell your friends and relatives to do the same, otherwise you'll supporting these ridiculous meassures, and write your goverment to enact consumer-protection legislation. I insist that the easiest way to beat piracy, is not RFID chips or regional codes on DVDs, but DVD movies prices reasonable and appealing, and the amount of sales would more than quadruple easily, increasing drastically the amount of consumers owning legit DVDs.

surely ritek are cutting there own throat by all this new detecting techno crap as what will happen to all their sale of blank dvds,etc have thought of all their own software that they will have to scrap.they are driven by pure greed they are already a multi million dollar company

Put my fingerprint on a $15 item, but anyone can drive away with my car. Am I missing something? Hello, politicians are you out their? Who's making the rules?

Has anyone considered that the pre-RFID tag dvd players may be able to play the post-RFID dvd's? And if so, would this cause a run on pre-RFID dvd players when the new-RFID enabled dvd players go on sale? Coments anyone?

Well then old style DVD players will fetch a fortune!

The plan might be to use the RFID chip on High Def only. It would be cheaper for them to write off the old stuff and make this apply only to the new standards. In that case, older dvd players are a "don't care" situation for them.

That's an interesting idea, I don't like it, but it sounds plausible.

One more reason NOT TO BOTHER WITH HI-DEF.

This has privacy issues written all over it. Transmitters can be picked up for all different kinds of purposes besides it's intended use. I will not buy any product that will emit a ID signal 1 inch past my fingers. EFF should have a nice time with this.

No doubt consumers biggest concern is privacy, and that has been addressed here, but the next biggest concern is DVD format compatibility and past investment... The industry had expressed that HD-DVD and Blue-Ray DVD players do play standart DVD movies, so consumers who wished to upgrade to HD, could do so with no worries... but if they implement RFID chips on HD-DVD and Blue-Ray DVD players and movies, nobody will be interested in using this new technology. But this is a different situation, the industry is pretending to force you to upgrade your standart DVD player for one identical with RFID tag, and be under constant surveillance every time you intent to play a movie. The reality is that the average consumer has a couple dosens of standart DVD movies, others have a large collection of hundreds of DVD movies, all purchased legally, and all at least has some home made DVD recordings (weedings, birthdays, vacations, etc.) And that's not all, the average consumer has more than one standart DVD player at home, one player at the office, and one player on their computer, others even have one portable player and one player on their car... if you add to this all your DVD movies, that's a huge investment... what will be their solution for all DVD consumers? The best scenario is that RDIF tag DVD players should play pre-RFID DVDs, therefore consumers will not be affected by upgrading, will still enjoy their pre-RFID DVD collection, which you have purchased in the past years, but consumers still need to invest in new RFID DVD players, and the outcome is that will do nothing to prevent piracy, therefore there's no point in implementing this. The worse scenario would be that RFID DVD players will not play pre-RFID DVD movies, if that the case then everybody owning a current DVD player and has pre-RFID DVD movies will be affected. The industry should realize that is not the proper way to keep their consumers, nobody is pleased of being forced to repurchase DVD movies they already own (double-dip) and making things worse, with RFID tags which will invade their privacy, the only outcome will be total rejection to purchase RFID tagged DVDs. Will the pre-RFID tag DVD players be able to play the post-RFID DVD's?... i don't think so, since they have expressed that the DVD player has to validate the ID tag, otherwise the DVD movie will not play. In conclusion, RFID tagged DVD is more a problem than a solution, specially for millions of consumers worldwide, because nobody wishes to spend again hundreds, even thousands of dollars for DVD movies they already own.

ematrix, well said. However, there is a group that wants to see mucho bucks spent on upgrading, the studios and those who will profit immensely. Built in obsolesence.

That's why it's important that we as consumers send a message that we'll not accept this, and the best way to do so, is not to buy their products, simple as that. DVD was introduced almost a decade ago, it offered VHS and Laser-Disc consumers, an upgrade to enjoy movies with digital quality of image and sound, on a disc the size of a CD, filled with extras, goodies, trailers, doscumentaries, etc... all this became a great incentive to consumers, who slowly upgraded from analog to digital media, because it was a huge improvement from previous formats. It took 4-5 years before DVDs became popular, when players and movies where accesible, and the movie library on DVD became larger. Hi-Def DVD has years to wait before it kicks in as standart DVD did, if that ever happens with this ungoing HD-DVD and Blue-Ray battle, and now the RFID tags. Upgrading to RFID tagged DVD players and movies, offers no improvement or benefits to consumers, nothing at all, actually is more an impediment, and as Dunker said, until consumers stop acting like sheep, you will be treated like them.

i can't see this ever happing . we will see

ROFL this has me wondering how many people have turned (or will turn) from buying DVDs to BitTorrent due to this!

MICROSOFT THEMSELVE STAND TO LOSE MILLIONS AS THET THEMSELVES SELL THE SOFTWARE TO COPY YOUR FAVOURITE DVDS USING THEIR OWN PRODUCT DVD COPY EXRESS WHICH ALLOWS YOU TO COPY ALL YOUR FAVORITE FILMS ONTO A BLANK DVD, WHICH NOT WORK ON THE NEW CHIPPED DVDS THAT THEY PLAN TO SELL.WHERE IS THEIR LOGIC EXEPT TO CON THE CONSUMERS YET AGAIN.TO MAKE THEM SEDLVES RICHER

Well quite, but there's no need to shout.

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ROFL this has me wondering how many people have turned (or will turn) from buying DVDs to BitTorrent due to this!

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Neither did I actually.

I WILL NOT invest in a DVD player. I upgrade my CD/DVD writers-players when they bust ONLY. MicroSnot and ChipSnot will not force me to do sh##.

The copy protection is put on the movie to make them more money, I think this will backfire, big time.

They'll hear the PFFFT on Mars!

Yes ematrix I've carried the same sediment for years, when I made my first chip to defeat the High Low Output designed into the Macrovision Technolgy for the VHS format I was happy until my collection began to melt away. ( At that point they got me ) along with my legaly purchased originals. I thought, man, what a cleverly thought out plan to bring back the Sheeple to the feeding plains.(DVD) What was it? $10.00 to 12 and as high as 20 for a destined to EXPIRE movie and the like. For now it is what it is...... a Profit plan. I plan to purchase one so I can reverse engineer it, sneek up behind and Slautterback it. Thats my catch phrase for the DEED. If you ask me I can't wait, I've been getting bord with chipping XBOX's And PS2s I don't think theres much of a difference with 360 Except the Graphics, so I'm more Interested in this movie project because its more wide scale. Then again, I'm piss off at how much they charge for video games, I understand the devolopers are Highly Educated, this shouldn't put you in the life saving catigory, same with sports Figures, way over payed. But thats my opinion Only, not to ofend fans. In short, and I know thats too late.... DVDs and Video Games are way over priced for what they are worth. Both are time sensitive, after the first time, the value is no longer there. Bring down the prices, distribute region free, and don't leave out anything, That Would Pissoff any one. Forceing is slavery, Not Good, Then Now Or Ever. You Want Consumer Loyaliy Make it possible. Like the Old Days.

That's a good sentiment, especially about sports players. That's not to say that all of them abuse it, though. Video games have been overpriced. If anything, I think PC games less so than console games, because PC games can often be had for about £25 when they're released, expensive, but not TOO bad. Console games however are difficult to get hold of for less than £40 when they come out, sometimes more. I can understand with cartridges, but not DVDs, not even BR-DVDs, not for £50 anyway, especially when the consoles themselves are a fair slap, remember to include their share of the console's price. If you only ever buy 10 games for an xbox 360 for example, and it cost £280 with the two controllers and whatever else, that makes the games what they cost plus another £28 on their value. Gaming is an expensive habit, and who's fault is that?

Man this is daft

They are just going too far. I buy a lot of movies. I back them up. My 3 year old grandson broke 2 so far... (not mine-he doesn't handle them here). I won't buy a movie I can't back up. It's that simple.

I agree with "Moviegram". I have over 700+ original DVD movies. I will not allow my son to use any originals. He only gets copies because of the way he treats them! Not only that, I am considering copying all of my own since my Law & Order (3rd yr) series has worn out and is unplayable. Now I have to buy the series again??? If I had copied the series and played the backup copy, then I would've had the original to backup again once I wore the other copy. Why spend a crap-load of $$ on movies that I cannot backup (and play)? I am only talking about backing up copies I already own.

Like I said before, if you feel so strongly about this, then write your Congressman, Senator, and state reps and politely let them know you want them to draft a "consumer's bill of rights" to permit legal copying and DRM circumvention, and that you will base your vote on whether they act and how they vote. You'd be surprised how effective it is, especially if you get other people to write as well. One letter represents 500-1000 constituents (note I didn't say email, but a letter: congresspeople don't give a sh!t about emails and online petitions), so get busy.

And In Any Shape Or Form, Take Back What Your Grandparents, Parents, and you That Never Had Protection From The Corp, Greed Who's Families Are Well Set For Generations. Think About It There Is No Real Buyers Protection. Try Taking Back That CD That Is Painful To Listen To ETC. Don't Be Sheeple Out There, Lets Geterdone Dham it.

If you are going to write your congressman, ask why copywrite laws are 100 years and patents are only 17. Since the patents cost hundreds of times more money to develope than a idea for a copywrite why do they get so much more time to pay back the investment? By that patent guideline they should only get 5 years.

Well, that's an excellent argument to use.

why are they going all Big Brother on us? and how much do you think this will up the price of the dvd? cause i mean, SOMEONE has to be watching all those pirates out there. ridiculous.

and haha, can you imagine? america's most wanted candidate A is bored one day and decides to buy a DVD using the stolen credit card of one of his victims and gets caught cause he wanted to watch Season 1 of Jackass? hah.

and wow, i'm jealous of those of you with extensive dvd collections AND backups. i have my own "extensive" dvd collection (somewhere between 200-300 titles), and i consider at most, 10 of them to be fantastic enough to bother backing up. which i don't cause i've seen them so much i don't wanna see them anymore. is it possible to sue companies for false advertisement? they made the movie *look* great, but anyway.../rant

and ematrix, you're awesome.

Originally posted by aone:

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why are they going all Big Brother on us? and how much do you think this will up the price of the dvd? cause i mean, SOMEONE has to be watching all those pirates out there. ridiculous.

and haha, can you imagine? america's most wanted candidate A is bored one day and decides to buy a DVD using the stolen credit card of one of his victims and gets caught cause he wanted to watch Season 1 of Jackass? hah.

and wow, i'm jealous of those of you with extensive dvd collections AND backups. i have my own "extensive" dvd collection (somewhere between 200-300 titles), and i consider at most, 10 of them to be fantastic enough to bother backing up. which i don't cause i've seen them so much i don't wanna see them anymore. is it possible to sue companies for false advertisement? they made the movie *look* great, but anyway.../rant

and ematrix, you're awesome.

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It's sad you believe what big brother says. I happened to not buy a DVD. So sue me. That's not to say I got it illegally, I just didn't want it. There are many films people have been ecstatic about seeing, which I've just responded with "meh". Every once in a while, there's a really good film. A lot of the time, however, it's a bit too much like Deja vu, and I'm not a regular cinema-goer, far from it, and yet it's claimed piracy is an enormous cause of lost income in the movie industry. I can't help but wonder whether an IQ of <100 is a condition of employment for the MPAA/RIAA. Oh no wait, it effectively is, because nobody with half a brain would work for such a stupid organisation.

sammorris
I so loved "I'm a emo sipder I cut myself" 3......not......
2nd to worse venom had a man voice not a demonic one.......

there comes a point when you wonder what they are doing...tweens will see anythign thus the watering down effect is not needed...at least not at the potency they mix them at......

Originally posted by ZIppyDSM:

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Because Big brother can sit by you hold your hand make sure you behave while fondling you and telling you what to buy.....

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Thats easy someone with enough electronic knowledge can just remove the RFID reader from the player. I once had problem with macrovision in my tv dvd-recorder, I just got the macrovision wiring removed, I can copy anything now HAHA.

This move will only encourge people to get movies via illegal methods. It certainly has done that to me.

Its illegal to backup your own movies, then why cant you get a replacement disc if your disc is destroyed. Remember your paying for a movie not a plastic disc.

Down with microsh$t, long live piracy, its only fair to share.

Have a feeling this great new thing will fall on its arse like everything ele....all sounds good in theory...but putting the money in to R&D and getting a workable version in the market that doesn't cost too much......plus I fuarantee before the product is even released its already been cracked.......I just dont know why they bother ......theres always someone with some spare time thats 10 times smarter than those that design the product.....I for one will be just downloading if thats the way its gonna go .....They can go fuck themselves thas what they get for being so greedy !!!

What will happen if I play these dvds in a media centre or on my PC? does it mean that each DVD driver mounted in new PCs in the future will have the capability to read this chipped DVDs? I do not think so...then the best is to hang on my modded PS2 or my "old" dvd player or get a new one multiregion before they implement this measure...for sure hackers will come up with a way to circumvent even this technology ahaha

Originally posted by aralerm:

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What will happen if I play these dvds in a media centre or on my PC? does it mean that each DVD driver mounted in new PCs in the future will have the capability to read this chipped DVDs? I do not think so...then the best is to hang on my modded PS2 or my "old" dvd player or get a new one multiregion before they implement this measure...for sure hackers will come up with a way to circumvent even this technology ahaha

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They would lean toward making old discs incompatible. That would result in more sales of dvd players, and eliminate CSS copy protection on new releases.

Originally posted by SCAMPER:

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They would lean toward making old discs incompatible. That would result in more sales of dvd players, and eliminate CSS copy protection on new releases.

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Did you mean Obsolescence? lol

Originally posted by sammorris:

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Did you mean Obsolescence? lol

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bc_grl you say! (I am considering copying all of my own since my Law & Order (3rd yr) series has worn out and is unplayable. did this happen from playing this dvd to much? if so i have never seen or heard of it, because there is nothing touching the dvd but the lazer.so there can be no ware

wow just wow, so then recordable media will be deemed useless and all the camcorders dvd playback rendered void, and studios able to track the disc through the credit card purchase. big brother is the media corporations, and that's who controls the american government, but i cant see this taking off around the globe due to privacy advocates and stricter laws on human monitoring outside the free and just usa.

so when all citezens of the usa are fitted with their rfid tags at birth and credits replace dollars the ruling elite will have all their bills passed to watch the world though the fear of piracy and terrorism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urmtozaslsc&mode=related&search=

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?doci...earch&plindex=0

It's a game, like everything else to do with computers and technology. Someone tries to block something and someone else develops a crack. This scenario keeps repeating itself ad infinitum.
This is just like the neverending story and will continue until Big Brother decides to take everyone who is copying music, movies, books, etc. to court and sue their butts off.
There are not enough courts in the world to ever accomplish this.
Beatles' song: "Say You Want A Revolution"

These people are retards. Someone develops something like this, and within a couple of days a way around it is found and its passed through the net. This happens for all this sort of shit. Their just idiots.

furchtlos,
Your reply is short and to the point. I agree totally!

Yes they are just wasting there time.. They should just allow backup of of audio and video. Because i bought a cd and i wanted to load it onto my itunes then to my ipod and i did but it wouldn't play because the DRM fucked it all up.. Which really pissed me off because i bought the CD! They get so wound up on how to stop copying and never fix the problem they are making with the copy prevention software.. Just stop ... You making this country look like its full of communist!!

Releasing new protection technology in my opinion only effects one type of person. The legitimate, law-abiding user who isn't too clued up on the whole backup/transferring scene and poor Joe Bloggs who purchased a CD for his wife but would also like to listen to it on his iPod gets screwed over.

The pirates, the hackers, who exploit media such as DVDs and CDs won't be stopped. They just Google forums to see what they need to do to bypass it and the piracy continues.

Piracy will always be around, ALWAYS. It's unfortunate but it always will be, like car theft, like screening a movie to friends, it'll always be.

The only people who are effected by stupid copyright protection rubbish is the honest paying customer.

Read this http://www.spychips.com/faqs.html
for more rfid info. I don't get why they would advertise this ahead of production. Rfid's are already in some credit cards and in the future I could see big retail stores and car lots having rfid readers so that the salesman knows if your a compulsive spender or not. All in the name of consumer convenience. Welcome to corporate America.

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Marketers, criminals, and government agents will find the information on RFID tags to be a tempting target for exploitation and abuse.

Marketers will use RFID to identify people at a distance and determine their tastes and spending habits through the items they wear and carry.

Today, billions of dollars are spent annually to collect and share consumer "intelligence." In-store tracking technologies like floor sensors, heat sensors, hidden cameras, hidden microphones, GPS-enabled grocery carts, and phony shoppers are all used to gather information. RFID will greatly simplify the task of collecting such consumer data – particularly if consumers can be automatically identified while walking in the door.

RFID-based consumer tracking products are already available in the marketplace. For example, IBM offers a bank application called "Margaret" that would use RFID tags embedded in checkbooks, savings passbooks, and ATM cards to identify customers as they enter a bank lobby. According to IBM's description, a reader device would scan the tags and communicate the customer's bank balance to employees, allowing them to give preferential treatment to more valuable clients.

Texas Instruments is promoting an RFID-enabled loyalty card product that could be read right through a shopper's purse as she enters the store. Their website explains how "a consumer with a TI-RFid tag in their purse, pocket, or wallet can be detected by reader systems at doorways. Readout antennas can also be in counters, walls, and in floors." It also details how "the technology can tell retailers exactly who's in their store at any given moment, while offering full purchase histories for each shopper. In addition, stores will know what the customer bought at their last visit, and what they might need for accessories."

Criminals will also take a keen interest in RFID information. Thieves could use handheld RFID readers to determine the contents of suitcases or shopping bags and to identify "easy marks." Voyeurs and stalkers could scan the contents of women's purses or capture details about the style and color of their undergarments right through their clothes.

Perhaps most worrisome, government agencies and law enforcement officials could use the technology to violate the Fourth Amendment. The federal government has repeatedly expressed a desire to consolidate transaction information from commercial databases into a single, centralized database under its control. Once such transaction data includes unique EPC serial numbers linked to the identity of purchasers, RFID tags could be scanned at strategic locations and used to identify people that pass by as well as surreptitiously scan their belongings.

A rogue federal agency could use RFID to create dossiers on citizens engaged in peaceful, First-Amendment-protected activities. Depending on one's politics, this might be a union meeting, a gun show, a peace march, or a talk by a prominent Muslim cleric. By walking through the crowd with an RFID reader device hidden in a briefcase, agents could capture information from RFID tags on objects carried by people attending the event. That data could be cross referenced with records in commercial databases to determine who was present.

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Last year Gillette and Wal-Mart were implicated in a scheme to take close-up photographs of consumers' faces as they picked up RFID-tagged Gillette razor packages in a U.S. Wal-Mart store. Gillette has hinted at the continued use of these "smart shelves" elsewhere in the U.S. and abroad, but has refused to directly answer consumer queries on the subject.

In a similar case, RFID tags were hidden in Procter & Gamble Lipfinity lipstick on shelves in an Oklahoma Wal-Mart store last year. Customers interacted with the lipsticks, not knowing that Procter & Gamble executives had trained a webcam on the display to observe them from their offices 750 miles away.

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