According to the EFF, the following CDs contain the DRM in question

Just a short one today, cause for some reason my computer is being a bitch and taking 30 seconds to type one letter; LOL! Anyway, I’m up to Chapter 5 of Scott Sigler’s 2nd Podcast novel, Ancestor, and it’s really good so far. He’s only recorded up to chapter 9, so I’m only a little bit behind, hehe.
Um… what else is there. I’m still completely broke thanks to the taxman wanting, like $3200 or something shit like that – BASTARD is all I can say to the ATO right about now. I will not be able to meet the deadline for the next payment, and I’ll be3 or 4 days late on my rent, BUT if anyone winges to complain, well – go call the ATO – it’s really not my problem; they’re the ones taking my money so go take it up with them. John Howard is a bit of a knob. Why would you vote for him anyway?

Speaking of stupidity, a big “sucked in” goes to Sony / BMG right now, who have been caught out installing rootkit’s on users computers. Well, it’s not exactly a rootkit, but it works almost the same way. A rootkit is installed by hackers to, in some way, disable or interfere with parts of your computer’s software or operating system. Sony has been using special software on some of it’s more recent CD’s and digital downloads that launches when you insert a Sony music CD into your PC.
The software requires that you use their music player (which is installed from the CD) to play the songs (this has no effect on music CD players, btw – just computers). So if you try to play it in another program, it doesn’t work. But when you install this software to play their Cds on your PC, it also installs some copy-protection software that hides itself on your PC and informs other applications that it’s important system files, so that it won’t get removed by adware programs, anti-virus programs, and so on.
What makes it worse, is that there is no mention of this program anywhere on the CD or in the EULA (End User License Agreement) which you need to ‘agree to’ when you install it. Worse still, it hides itself and you can’t uninstall it. If you do try to remove it manually, your PC won’t boot into Windows! Since all of this crap started, Sony released a program to “unhide it”, but it does not remove it from the computer. To get this “unhiding” program from Sony, you had to visit their website and complete a form requesting personal information (phone, address, email, name of CD, where you bought it, etc) to get it… as you can imagine, this caused even more uproar, so they have since made the “unhiding” program publicly available to everyone. But still – its the whole point of the thing. Hiding a program on your computer, without the users knowledge, making it non-’uninstallable’, and then going as far as rendering the computer useless if you do manage to get it uninstalled is just not on.
Needless to say, several class-action lawsuits have sprung up (I say good on them), and I hope Sony / BMG get in a lot of trouble for this. Corporations just can’t go around doing this kinda thing to people’s personal computers without telling them! My instinct tells me they will. Since this all started, a virus has come out which uses the Sony copy-protection software’s “hiding” capability to hide itself on a user’s computer system. So in other words, Sony’s very own copy protection program with it’s advanced “I’m going to hide deep inside your computer so no one can find me” abilities, has allowed virus-writers to hide their viruses on a computer in the same way! Hahaha – I love it! Sony will get into even more trouble over this! Serves them right for doing this to user’s computers without their knowledge! What goes around comes around, my dear.
According to the EFF, the following CDs contain the DRM in question:
€¢ Trey Anastasio, Shine (Columbia)
€¢ Celine Dion, On ne Change Pas (Epic)
€¢ Neil Diamond, 12 Songs (Columbia)
€¢ Our Lady Peace, Healthy in Paranoid Times (Columbia)
€¢ Chris Botti, To Love Again (Columbia)
€¢ Van Zant, Get Right with the Man (Columbia)
€¢ Switchfoot, Nothing is Sound (Columbia)
€¢ The Coral, The Invisible Invasion (Columbia)
€¢ Acceptance, Phantoms (Columbia)
€¢ Susie Suh, Susie Suh (Epic)
€¢ Amerie, Touch (Columbia)
€¢ Life of Agony, Broken Valley (Epic)
€¢ Horace Silver Quintet, Silver’s Blue (Epic Legacy)
€¢ Gerry Mulligan, Jeru (Columbia Legacy)
€¢ Dexter Gordon, Manhattan Symphonie (Columbia Legacy)
€¢ The Bad Plus, Suspicious Activity (Columbia)
€¢ The Dead 60s, The Dead 60s (Epic)
€¢ Dion, The Essential Dion (Columbia Legacy)
€¢ Natasha Bedingfield, Unwritten (Epic)
You can read more here. This page contains a really good FAQ.

Alright, back to reality. My brother has a new car… which is very cool. I mean, I haven’t seen it IRL yet – just photos, but it looks really good. You can see a pic of it, plus some other new random storm photos & a storm video over in Misc Stuff. You may also like this link; Death by Caffeine.
You may also like to mark your location on my Frappr. Frappr is a service that lets you plot your location (don’t worry, it doesn’t go deeper than ‘city’ level) on a Google map under my Frappr ‘group’. This way, I know what parts of the world you’re in, plus you guys can also see the location of other readers, and so on. Click here to sign my Frappr (free).
In other news, I was recently approached by the manager of a Brisbane radio station, asking if my mixes could be played on the radio! Very exciting stuff!! But more on that when I know what’s going on
…until then – be good; love to you all.