[HN Gopher] VCR Virus Fake VHS Copy-Protection Warning Label (2016)
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VCR Virus Fake VHS Copy-Protection Warning Label (2016)
Author : gregmac
Score : 46 points
Date : 2022-04-23 13:52 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (whyimnotanartist.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (whyimnotanartist.net)
| svnpenn wrote:
| Something is wrong with that site, the entire page is a link for
| some reason.
| mdb31 wrote:
| Reminds me of the "danger, radiation!" warning sign a local
| laundry put on its doors.
|
| Probably pretty effective in dissuading intruders. But, they got
| shut down earlier this year with a "seized by the authorities"
| action typically reserved for drugs/arms dealers.
|
| So, as with this copy protection label, I guess the effectiveness
| greatly depends on your target audience...
|
| (Side-quest: would it have been possible to mount some kind of
| side-channel attack against VCRs? Over-driving the video/audio
| signals to blow up the CRT/speakers would be an obvious one, but
| would this also be possibly ONLY on copies and/or copier
| equipment?)
| kmeisthax wrote:
| So... do these tapes have Macrovision on them? I always thought
| this was just a weird way to brag that you had it. I imagine the
| wild video artifacts that Macrovision causes would look like your
| VCR was getting utterly destroyed by the tape.
| m348e912 wrote:
| What is Macrovision? Here's a good overview.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VqsU1VK3mU
| hilbert42 wrote:
| Better education hence better understanding of technology would
| ultimately stop this nonsense.
| userbinator wrote:
| The problem is that those in power _don 't_ want most people to
| have a better understanding of technology.
| danamit wrote:
| In mid 2000s when my father bought us a PC, we opened paint, I
| impressed him by drawing my country's flag in paint (cuz I saw a
| teacher in school do it).
|
| Then, it comes the moment to leave the paint program (gonna use
| the old terminology), and as you know it ask you if you wanna
| leave without saving: Yes, No, Cancel? and it does with a warning
| sign. My father and me were so sussed out with that warning sign,
| so we did not click yes, I didn't have much of an idea what the
| message was about because it was in a language I did not
| understand. I kept clicking no and cancel repeatedly.
|
| The store where my father bought the PC told him to not turn the
| PC using the turn off button either, so we kept trying with that
| message without clicking yes. In the end we just unplugged it.
|
| That was my first interaction with a PC, and it was a bit scary.
| sdflhasjd wrote:
| I recall some programs used to crash on Windows 95 with a big
| red "ILLEGAL OPERATION" error.
|
| As a child, I was frightened to death. I didn't tell anyone
| otherwise the authorities would whisk me away.
| iso1210 wrote:
| "In the real world, if a company knowingly created tapes that
| damaged playback equipment, lawsuits would go through the roof"
|
| Shortly after this, Sony deliberatly created and distributed a
| virus (some code that installed itself on a computer and hid
| itself from the owner) on millions of CDs (the code which
| breached copyright law too to rub salt in the wound)
|
| From what I can tell there was very little comeback for the
| people who did this other thna a "don't do it again"
| walrus01 wrote:
| I'm familiar with the history of that but I also 75% blame
| microsoft for having a windows default setting to execute as
| the current user, any .exe binary that's specified in the
| autorun.inf file in the root of a CD or DVD-ROM, when inserted
| into the computer (in the windows 98SE/millennium/2000 era).
|
| same issue that was still biting the US military in the ass 6,
| 7, 8 years later they learned that any usb flash drive inserted
| into a computer would autorun the binaries on it, and they
| resorted to putting hot glue into the USB ports of desktop PCs
| as a stopgap measure.
| ghoomketu wrote:
| Maybe this works for elder people but this would've had the exact
| opposite effect on teens i guess.
|
| I remember back in the day when we got our first 386, the person
| who installed it, told me specifically that I should never press
| the delete key or enter the CMOS.. no matter what.
|
| This was pre-internet so his word was it. He even made up a
| horror story about a guy locking his PC 'forever' due a lost
| password (maybe he didn't want to do unneeded maintenance due to
| a kid exploring the CMOS settings).
|
| Guess the first thing I did as soon as he left the house :D
| dm319 wrote:
| Interesting historical trivia! BTW is that website using the
| ubuntu font?
| danamit wrote:
| Yes it is using Ubuntu font...
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