Google media player hacked
Why did Google limit its new media player to play only files on its own video site?
Norwegian hacker Jon Lech Johansen, 21, didn't wait around for an answer, and hacked the player within a day of its release, according to PC Magazine.
The patch, released on Johansen's 'So Sue Me' blog, effectively disables a modification Google made to the VideoLAN code to prevent users from playing videos that are not hosted on Google's servers.
Johansen said the patch, which requires the .Net run-time framework, will remove Google's restriction and allow the playback of video files that aren't on the video.google.com server.
Via Techdirt
The jail uniform "criminal" graphic is probably not really appropriate here. Johansen, who has been accused of criminal conduct before and acquitted, is exercising his tights to reverse engineer. Such rights are protected by law for good reasons. Many modern license agreements, including Google's, explicitly permit such reverse engineering. As much as the people whose software has been reverse engineered might not like to admit it, the practice is legal and essential.
As your local public library the kind of hoops they must jump through to make backup copies of expensive modern digital media. Libraries effectively might not even be able to make archival copies of digital media were it not for the work of Mr. Johansen and his colleagues.
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