Music Hidden in CD (embedded in executable?)

[joe_pool_is]

I recently got a new CD. It plays in the car's CD player fine; plays in the home theater fine.

 

I brought it to work to play on my PC. It autoloads an interface to view a video (that required Quicktime) and a button to play the music.

 

I clicked to play the music, my Windows Media player loaded up, but nothing happened.

 

I navigated to the CD and found that it contains a large executable (about 300 MB), but no soundtracks.

 

OK, obviously, someone has found a way to prevent others from copying their music.

 

My questions are:

 

How is this done? To my knowledge, my old CD players do not have the ability to run executables.

 

Next, I'm a software developer, so ...How is this done? (again, I know, but I'd like to also know how to do this from a software development standpoint - my main reason for posting this question here)

 

Does anyone have any thoughts on how get these tracks off of the CD and onto my PC? I'd rather not listen to the whole CD when there are only 2 songs I like. I guess I'm spoiled to the digital age!

 

Thanks for the time,

Joe

[snarfblam]

Some CDs have software that autoruns off the CD when inserted and prevents the tracks from being accessed on the PC. Very sketchy on the maker's part (I'm assuming the record label makes this decision). Have you tried disabling autorun?

[PlausiblyDamp]

Out of interest what CD is it? Certain manufacturers have been known to install software that prevents you seeing the audio tracks.

 

http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2005/10/31/sony-rootkits-and-digital-rights-management-gone-too-far.aspx is a good article (as most of his are) about a real life example of such a thing. It might be worth running the RootKitRevealer mentioned in the article to see if anything turns up.

[joe_pool_is]

Thanks Plausibly,

 

The CD is called The Backyardigans. My son loves them, and watching their shows all the time is getting me hooked on the songs.

 

Mark certainly did a lot of work in the link you gave. I'm not comfortable hacking my systems like that, and I'm not even sure I'd feel safe reproducing his steps. It turns out that the Backyardigans CD is also a Sony product, so I'm sure their malware is now polluting my PC.

 

I was eventually able to get into it using some cracking tool called "cdex 1.51", so I've got the MP3s.

 

I am still interested in how my old CD players are able to extract the information using this executable.

[Cags]

The way I understand it is that your old CD player isn't doing anything special, it doesn't need to extract anything because the files are on the disc just like they are on any other disc. The trick is your computer is lying to you about whats on the disc based on a piece of malware (rootkit) thats installed when you insert the cd. The files are there you just can't see them, the .exe either simply knows the files true location so can play them back, or alternatively authenticates with the malware to allow access to the files.

 

As far as I can tell from the article provided by PlausiblyDamp, the EULA doesn't state the software will be installed on your computer, and there is no option to remove it, whats more it sloppily attempts to disguise itself as something it's not (a plug and play driver), this in my opinion should be illegal (if it actually isn't). Sony should be as accountable for this type of behavior.

[PlausiblyDamp]

I would try running the RootKitRevealer tool just to see if it finds anything suspicious - you wouldn't need to do anything like the level of detail Mark's article went into.

[joe_pool_is]

I was skeptical about running RootKitRevealer, because I'd never heard of it.

 

A quick search told me it was a Microsoft tool, and that satisfied my concerns (I guess I'm one of the few out there that places my trust in Microsoft).

 

Thanks for the tool! It did not find any issues on my machine, but I'm definitely keeping this tool in my "Bag-O-Tricks"!