AVID Mac Pro Problems Bring Down Workstations Across Hollywood

iaresee

iaresee

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Fascinating. Can’t wait to see what the root cause was behind this. Very coordinated malware breakout if it is indeed that.

Film and TV editors across Los Angeles were sweating Monday evening as their workstations were refusing to reboot, resulting in speculations about a possible computer virus attack. Social media reports suggested that the issue was widespread among users of Mac Pro computers running older versions of Apple’s operating system as well as AVID’s Media Composer software.
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Developing
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Developing, indeed.

Full story: https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/avid-mac-pro-corrupted-hollywood-1203347033/

Hackernews thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21057157

The HN thread suggests it might be there copy protection software and an expired certificate that have people locked out of their machines. Ouch. All speculation at this point!
 
Ohhhh. There’s good evidence mounting that points to this being a problem with Pace AP’s software — they, the makers of iLok. Either a old version of the software had a bad, time-based bug. Or this was a cracked version of the software that was wide-spread suddenly springing a latent exploit to life.

Is it irony that the industry who’s so against piracy of their material gets shut down because the pirated software? Maybe?
 
iaresee said:
Ohhhh. There’s good evidence mounting that points to this being a problem with Pace AP’s software — they, the makers of iLok. Either a old version of the software had a bad, time-based bug. Or this was a cracked version of the software that was wide-spread suddenly springing a latent exploit to life.

Is it irony that the industry who’s so against piracy of their material gets shut down because the pirated software? Maybe?
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When you stuff your software so full of DMCR protection that it almost forces you as a user to find a pirated version instead you know you overshot your target. Well, at least you should know.

spagthorpe said:
I'd be okay if it was only media companies getting burned by content protection of any sort.
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Maybe it is of sorts, as companies are less likely to use pirated software due to them being easier to monitor by DMCR protection agencies. Then again, Gary of Nerdrotic, a youtuber, has said that when he worked for a company that made DVD's of Hollywood movies and series, the burning software that they used to create the masters was a pirated copy of Nero.
 
It's some years since I worked in this world - but early 2000s when I worked as a PT operator in London.

The level of software piracy in an industry which was just beginning to get upset over Napster was beyond comprehension

If this was caused by pirated software, I think that's justice

If you manage your software, keep it updated appropriately etc. the software works pretty well - there is no excuse for piracy that's just theft
 
electronpirate said:
Then Apple seriously needs to work on their sandboxing.
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Better: Google needs to screw off and just use Sparkle like the rest of the Apple developers use for updates instead of trying to be smarter than everyone else in the room all the time.

Also, Avid requires you disable SIP for their DRM protection to work IIRC.
 
Maybe if their software wasn't universally viewed as overpriced, the piates would look for something else to steal....
 
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