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by ¢    , posted Jun 29th 2004 at 7:00AM

Yes, this is a bit of a report from our post Monday, but we feel disabling
Autorun is extremely important. Last week we went off to buy a CD²
something we, like a lot of people, do on a regular basis. We wanted to check
out "Contraband" by Velvet Revolver, the group formed by ex-members of
Guns N' Roses, and the lead singer of Stone Temple Pilots. We figured with
that much drugs in those boys, there's bound to be a good tune or two in there.

As with all our CDs, we unwrapped 8 layers of plastic on the way to the car
and popped it in the CD player for the ride home, so far, so good²not a bad CD at all. After
arriving home, we put the CD in our Xbox (as we always do with our CDs) to copy the songs over
to the hard drive for use with games or as a jukebox.

Next up, inserted the disc in to our Mac, started iTunes and then iTunes put the newly created MP3s
on our iPod. Also, the Linux box in our kitchen (Xandros) was able to read and make MP3s just fine
too.

Lastly, we popped the CD in our PC (Win XP) and also ran iTunes to add the songs to our library.

Was this all a dream? Did it really happen? It did. But it shouldn't have if it were up to the people
who made that CD.

After looking around on the web it seems the folks from RCA Records actually don't want anyone to
make MP3s of the songs on that disc, they don't want you to listen to the music you just purchased
on your iPod or even your Xbox.
The disc has "Copy Protection" from SunnComm called MediaMax, which on some Windows
systems will force the user to install software in order to listen to their music, and restrict what they
do with the audio (for example you cannot make MP3s). If SunnComm sounds familiar, they
should. These are the folks who were going to sue a Princeton student for 10 million dollars for
writing a paper that showed by pressing the shift key while inserting the CD (and of course, pressing
the shift key still worked on this CD, according to all reports) you can bypass their copy protection.

Sadly, the way RCA and SunnComm want you to listen to music is pretty complicated. You'd need
to insert the CD on your PC, wait up to one minute for it to load, click an end user agreement, then
only "listen" to the music. Oh, wait there's more. It installs software which blocks making MP3s
and it requires a web connection to exchange "data" and keys. On the disc there were music files in
WMA format, but they don't seem to play on any device we have which plays WMAs²the site says
they play only on "approved" devices. Yikes!

Well, for us, it wasn't an issue. Why? Well, we have always disabled "Auto-Run" on our Windows
based system, since, like, Windows 95. The "feature" will, by default, automatically look for a file
called Autorun.inf on any CD you pop in to your system²if it finds it, it will execute whatever
programs it is instructed. This is a big security issue, as there are a lot of spywares and viruses
distributed on CDs²so much so, in fact, Microsoft is disabling it in their next security-focused
Windows XP Service Pack 2. SunnComn and everyone else who is trying to "copy protect" music
CDs have really only one option, and this is it: using the autorun file on their music CDs to install
their proprietary DRM software. But many people are becoming more vigilant about securing their
systems.

Disabling Auto-Run is something we think everyone should do, not only for security from viruses
and spyware, but so you'll never need to deal being unable able to listen to your music on your
devices. Here's how to do it in Windows XP.

In Windows Click Start, then Click Run

Type regedit
Click OK

Click >
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE>
SYSTEM>
CurrentControlSet>
Services>
Cdrom>

Double click "Autorun" the value is set to 1 by default, change it to zero.

Click OK
Now restart, that's it!

We also created a file which will do this for you, just right click this link and "save target as" to your
local file system. Then double click and restart.

Please, tell everyone to disable autorun, use our email option, IM your pals, whatever it takes.

If you a different Operating system or would like to learn more about disabling AutoRun, here's a
great article too.

------------------------------------------------------

_
  
     ¢  

The most effective method of preventing your system from getting infected is to disable autorun
feature of USB devices. DJ tells us about disabling autorun feature on Sizlopedia. He tells us a
method in which he uses á ! and disable autorun feature but the problem is that á !
is not available under  
"¢_ #  .

So, I am going to explain how to disable USB autorun feature through registry editing which not
only works for WInXP Home but also for any other edition of Windows.

àp Browse to the following key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\

CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
àp Modify the value of Ä  
  to  (hexadecimal)

Although I must warn you that playing with the registry can be harmful for your system and you
might end up re-installing your OS. Before making any changes, I recommend reading How to
backup your registry?

And if you don¶t want to edit the registry then you can download this registry
entry.

Download Disable_autorun.reg.

Right Click > Save it on your computer > Run it on your computer.

Press Yes when it asks for confirmation for adding the entry into the registry.

This will now prevent any virus from auto executing itself through a USB drive. In addition to this,
you must have a good anti virus installed on the system as this method just stops the virus from
infecting the system automatically.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

_
_

1.p If you use XP Pro, follow steps 1 through 8 only. XP Home users begin at step 9.
2.p Click u
 and then click 
3.p jype á
  and click

4.p jhe Group Policy window will open. In the left pane, double-click ? 


 


5.p In the right pane, double-click u

6.p ucroll down the list and double-click 
?  

 -.p In the 
?  

 
 window, select 

. From the dropdown next to 

?  
, select ?
 and then click

8.p hxit ð   by selecting 
, then choosing  from the menu.
9.p XP Home users will need to make the changes by editing the registry directly. jo begin, click u

and then click 
10.pjype 
á
 and click
. jhe Registry hditor window will open.
11.pIn the left pane, navigate to:
_u
u 


  



 

 

 
.
(Note: For help navigating the registry, see the Windows Basics uystem Registry tutorial).
12.pWith  
 highlighted, in the right-pane right click the value 

?  and select
  from the drop down menu. jhe base value will be set to Hexadecimal. If not, select
Hexadecimal.
13.pjype è and click
.
Note that this will stop Autorun on removable/UuB drives, but still allow it on CD ROM drives. If you
want to disable autorun on both, substitute  for the è . (jhanks to Ian L. of Manitoba for the tip).
14.phxit 
á   by selecting 
, then choosing  from the menu.
15.pou will now need to reboot your computer for the changes to take effect.

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