Coding DVD's

[deannkc]

I recently went to a seminar where they said they could do a business DVD that when someone played the DVD that it would notify you by email their name, email address ect.. Has anyone heard of this and how hard would it be to code a DVD to do this?

[Metgod]

I wouldn't be surprised if it is true and even less surprised if companies did it, regardless of serious ethical issues. I honestly don't know how this would be done. I guess you'd have to study DVD technology and how data is encoded onto them. Then you could find out how to do this kind of things with time. That's about all I can offer you.. Sorry I can't be of more help.

Met.

[Tazinator]

This sounds like it basically runs a spyware type of application when you launch the DVD. I think that all you would need to do is somehow tie the lunch of such a program to the DVD menu so when a user clicks the play button or something else in the menu, the program silently installs as well and gathers the info then fires it off with a self contained SMTP engine or something. You could probably tie it in with an autorun command of some sort when the DVD is automatically lunched by the OS or the DVD software like WinDVD.

Its basically no different then how spyware is distributed as commonly known. Such as when you download certain freeware or shareware.

Of course the only way they could get that info is if you played it on your machine unless you have WebTV or something, but that pretty much goes without saying.

[Metgod]

That's a good way of thinking about it.. And quite plausible to say that it could very well  be what they were referring to. It must be some kind of spyware, in some form or another...

The question is.. is it hard coded or just a hidden feature ? Another question is.. does it matter ? Eitherway, if they are gathering your info that is wrong.

I think Taz nailed it on the head...

[wilnix]

buy one and start crackin away at it....

wilnix

[karma]

I think this is only possible if the person gets connected to internet after using the dvd once ..for we already know that some sites keep track of you once u visit them i think that the possiblity of above feature lies in these lines ..whot'say

[wilnix]

If this were true, which I doubt. You could very easily pick it up with a tool that watches socket connections. But, I truly doubt this is even remotely true...


Thanks,

Wilnix