Dear co-operating techs,

EFF is looking for a talented Windows admin or hacker to assist an

outside law firm with some research into Sony's SecuROM v.7 DRM system.

It is known that SecuROM refuses to operate with some anti-virus

software installed (or, at least, some modes of operation for some

anti-virus software), and that it blacklists some CD burning software.

The research would involve figuring out precisely what AV software

SecuROM prevent users from running, and whether it blacklists any CD

tools that are not explicitly piratical.

Information about any situations where SecuROM hooks actually break

other software would be extremely interesting, although we have not seen

any likely reports of this occurring at present.

A second question is related the complexity of uninstalling SecuROM.

What barriers does SecuROM place to uninstallation?

Lastly, any information about vulnerabilities caused by the presence of

SecuROM on a system would be extremely interesting.

If you are interested, please contact Peter Eckersley at pde@eff.org.

I've had some dealings with SecuROM when I was helping a friend diagnose why his NHL08 game wouldn't run. SecuROM also doesn't like SysInternal's Filemon or Procexp, both of which I attempted to use to find a solution but came up with none.