Adware for Windows Media Player spreading by P2P

[Bill Stewart]

http://www.theregister.com/2004/12/31/p2p_adware_threat/

According to an article in The Register, Overpeer is spreading
adware-infected Windows Media Audio and Windows Media Video files via P2P.
PC World Magazine did some research, ran Etherpeek, and found that
the adware was going to Overpeer, which is owned by Loudeye,
who strongly defend the practice, saying music pirates deserve what they get.

Of course, what the article isn't mentioning is that
this means that the WMA and WMV file formats have features
that can be used with the Windows Media Player to support adware,
so a good chunk of the blame belongs back in Redmond.
(Remind me again why closed-source DRMware is a good idea?)

Now, it wouldn't bother me if the Windows Media Player's
silly trippy visuals that you get when playing audio
that doesn't have a video track were replaced by
some advertising video, as long as it's all self-contained
and doesn't phone home to tell advertisers what I'm listening to.
But this one seems to be pretty chatty.




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Bill Stewart  bill.stewart at pobox.com