Audio Streaming & Piracy

The rise of music piracy reflects an out of touch industry.

Today at lunch Michael told us about time he was working for a company that was trying to sell a sound system to Warner Brothers . This was back around the year 2000 and Warner Brothers wanted a secure sound system that would allow all those concerned with a project to be able to listen to the dailies ( dailies  are just whatever was recorded that day). The solution was a pair of programs that transferred the digital sound files from the master computer to the listener's computer. The programs allowed the user to start playing the recording at any point in the recording. It basically looked the same system used by YouTube  and Spotify , but this was back in the year 2000. Warner Brothers was very concerned about security (they didn't want anyone making black market copies), so the receiver program had to bypass the Windows sound system and talk directly to the hardware. Of course, you could just set up a microphone and record the audio from the speakers. However, the receiver program added a high frequency squeal to the output signal. Presumably it was above a human's hearing range, but low enough the speakers could reproduce it. The idea being that if a pirated copy showed up, they had evidence it was stolen. In addition, they encoded the user's number in that high pitched squeal so they would be able to identify the culprit.

I asked Google about this (pasted the entire above text) and got a long response. Here's a couple of items extracted from that response:

The system Michael described was incredibly forward-thinking for the year 2000, effectively combining modern streaming architecture with strict digital rights management (DRM) to prevent and track piracy.

🔇 The "Silent" Tracker: Audio Watermarking

The high-frequency squeal Michael mentioned is a forensic technique called psychoacoustic watermarking .

• Human Hearing vs. Speakers: Healthy young adults can generally hear frequencies up to 20,000 Hz (20 kHz). Standard audio equipment and speakers can easily reproduce sounds up to 20 kHz or 22 kHz. By placing the squeal in the ultra-high spectrum (e.g., around 18 kHz to 21 kHz), it becomes effectively inaudible to most busy executives and producers listening to dailies, but it is still physically blasting out of the speakers.

⏳ The Streaming Pioneer

Building a system in 2000 that allowed arbitrary scrubbing (clicking to play at any point in the timeline) over the internet was a massive technical feat. Broadband internet was in its infancy, and most of the world was still on dial-up. They essentially built a secure, private precursor to Spotify and YouTube technology years before the infrastructure for those platforms existed on a consumer scale.

 

Bad Times

Bad Times - Imael Angel | 4K Music Video
KEREY REMIX

Funnies

10 Short Videos #6312

10 Short Videos #6312

1. How white lime is made from snail shells.
2. When life gets hard, I train harder 🧠 🌱🩰 - Balance on a weeble base
3. 100-Year-Old Method: Handmade Brass Plate Making Process.
4. Man and woman coordinated exercise
5. Diwali decorate Chinese Light making
6. flyboarding
7. Flying Tourbillon Assembly of the IWC Ingenieur Tourbillon 41 IW345901 in 18-carat 5N gold. - Watch making
8. Rise slow - Kimo sounds - Africa
9. Toddler dancing to car alarm
10. Is this too easy? - Puzzlebox

Chlorophene

Monday Starts on Saturday

I'm reading Monday Starts on Saturday by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, but only intermittently. I keep it in the car and pull it out when I am waiting for someone, usually my wife. Today I'm reading along and on page 100 I find this sentence:

Singing and talking strains appeared, and the descendants of the most ancient species now fed exclusively on a mixture of pyrethrum and chlorophene.

They're talking about bats, the book is mostly a bunch of confused nonsense, so 'pyrethrum and chlorophene' could be just words the authors invented, but let's see what our lord and master Google has to say.

Pyrethrum is pretty straight forward:

Pyrethrum refers to certain perennial daisy-like plants—most notably Dalmatian chrysanthemum and painted daisy — belonging to the aster family. These plants are famous for producing pyrethrins, natural organic compounds in their seed cases and flower heads that act as potent, fast-acting natural insecticides.

Chlorophene is another kettle of fish entirely:

Cychlorphine (often referred to or misspelled as chlorophene) is an emerging, highly potent synthetic opioid belonging to a class of compounds known as "orphines".

Key Facts About Cychlorphine

• Potency: Laboratory and pharmacological data indicate cychlorphine is potentially up to 10 times more potent than fentanyl, making even microscopic amounts life-threatening.
• Origin: The compound was originally described in 1960s pharmaceutical research (such as a 1967 patent by Janssen Pharmaceuticals), but it was never approved for human use or medical application.
• Illicit Supply: It has surfaced in the illicit drug market mixed into or masquerading as other substances, including heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and counterfeit prescription pills. 
• Detection Challenges: Cychlorphine is not detectable by standard fentanyl test strips or routine hospital opioid urine screens, requiring specialized laboratory toxicology testing to confirm.
• Overdose Reversal: While naloxone (Narcan) is still the primary emergency treatment, severe or deep respiratory depression from cychlorphine may require multiple doses of naloxone.

Google's first link goes to the  National Library of Medicine page about Chlorophene where we find:

3.2.1 Physical Description

Ortho-benzyl-para-chlorophenol appears as white to light tan or pink flakes or white crystals. Insoluble in water. Slight phenolic odor. (NTP, 1992)

How do you know what it smells like, since inhaling a microscopic amount could kill you? 

7.3 Reported Fatal Dose

3. 3= MODERATELY TOXIC: Probable oral lethal dose (human) 0.5-5 g/kg, between 1 oz and 1 pint for 70 kg person (150 lbs).

On one hand even microscopic amounts can be life-threatening and on the other a fatal dose could be as much as a pint. Something does not compute. There's probably some footnote in there somewhere that explains the discrepancy, but I ain't a chemist.

Anyway, looking over the page about Chlorophene at the National Library of Medicine (it's a very long, very sparse page), I found a surprisingly long list of manufacturers (67) of this drug. Being on the list may not mean anything other than they have the formula for the drug on their books.

	National Library of Medicine
Number	Company Name	PubChem SID	Purchasable Chemical
51	001Chemical	439988649	DY510814
28	10X CHEM	491495581	TX000R5M
9	A2B Chem	443817784	AA33494
27	AA BLOCKS	374150557	AA000PX6
23	AbaChemScene	463562650	CS-0066335
62	abcr GmbH	316400672	AB125458
2	Accel Scientific	507558058	EC000S5Q
15	Accela ChemBio Inc.	517727033	SY048947
63	Achemtek	508824336	MSK2543
29	Acmec Biochemical	485434378	B60870
55	Activate Scientific	442122558	AS140265
33	AiFChem an XtalPi Company	508424768	ACXEQC261
57	AKos Consulting & Solutions	105981470	AKOS001434264
64	Aladdin Scientific	504751675	B152826
19	Alfa Chemistry	486317154	APS120321
19	Alfa Chemistry	486412739	ACM120321
19	Alfa Chemistry	527715894	PI120321
47	Ambeed	377506182	A335646
1	Angene Chemical	207118804	AGN-PC-0JK8JM
1	Angene Chemical	521716097	AG000PZY
6	AppChem	503289682	AI33494
12	AstaTech Inc.	458781152	D88696
66	BenchChem	445697205	B1669242
8	Biorbyt	516470329	orb1909603
8	Biorbyt	525002152	orb3139480
8	Biorbyt	528787049	orb1940359
31	BLD Pharm	377352155	BD17759
5	BOC Sciences	341110978	120-32-1
5	BOC Sciences	488319150	NP2809
11	CAPOT	152240834	15819
50	CATO Research Chemicals Inc.	513788494	CCPD100935
16	Chem-Space.com Database	434441788	CSSB00000211996
44	ChemoSapiens	514148688	314486
46	CHIRALEN	532080698	C965305-CT
61	Clinivex	497168154	RCLST000573
10	Cooke Chemical Co. Ltd	478258996	A1588712
49	CymitQuimica	470236302	CQ_120-32-1
41	DC Chemicals	439515919	DC33723
48	Debye Scientific Co. Ltd	387058932	DB-041547
22	DempoChem	523957873	120-32-1
67	DSL Chemicals	475715860	C004749
52	eMolecules	490660654	519767
26	Enamine	473167828	EN300-21338
26	Enamine	475368553	Z104495406
26	Enamine	521602300	EBC-332138
43	eNovation Chemicals	496389750	Y1466745
17	Finetech Industry Limited	164796459	FT-0611303
25	Fluorochem	527865544	F320130
20	Hairui Chemical	375645451	HR100007
32	Hangzhou APIChem Technology	92710176	AC-10752
24	J&H Chemical Co. ltd	469489269	JH619864
24	J&H Chemical Co. ltd	477518052	JH486095
30	Key Organics/BIONET	442079612	BS-20052
21	LGC Standards	340508030	DRE-C10572000
21	LGC Standards	485254505	TRC-C375000
21	LGC Standards	495993976	TRC-C375000-10G
18	Mcule	167376482	MCULE-8594187019
45	MedChemexpress MCE	488241725	HY-118547
7	MicroCombiChem GmbH	483477734	MCC10433
42	MolCore	405441982	MC510814
42	MolCore	446214617	DY510814
34	Molport	87623734	MolPort-000-145-915
35	MuseChem	355154639	R056891
4	Oakwood Products	312606154	320130
13	Pi Chemicals	322089174	PI-32433
60	Quality Control Solutions	522887188	RG-A261687
14	RR Scientific	472449995	R004004
65	Sigma-Aldrich	24879046	548618_ALDRICH
39	Sinfoo Biotech	404796854	S018324
53	Smolecule	438454079	S524058
59	Starshine Chemical	464752353	starbld0586441
40	SynHet - Synthetic Heterocycles	506016282	CAS-120-32-1
38	TargetMol	494442850	T25266
36	TCI (Tokyo Chemical Industry)	87563799	B0812
56	Thermo Fisher Scientific	459260104	GID_900000007869679
3	TimTec	124530890	ST029301
3	TimTec	143431076	SBB056562
37	VladaChem	381009696	VL264710-100G
54	Win-Win Chemical	438495889	1008
58	Yuhao Chemical	347739804	RT12304
58	Yuhao Chemical	463761116	LL0468

10 Short Videos #6311

10 Short Videos #6311

1. run Sweetpea run 🤣🤣 - Turkeys
2. Westernize or Die: Japan’s Meiji Calculation - Sarah Paine
3. Why Britain Gave Up America - Sarah Paine
4. When This Restaurant Used a Dice Roll to Make Customers Order More Food
5. Quantum Entanglement Explained 🤯
6. Book Goblin is running out of space.
7. This Grass Becomes Something Millions Use Every Day - Tatmai mats
8. "Rigger": The Parachute Packer and Inspector, the Guardian of Paratroopers' Lives - Thailand
9. Fair is fair MOM 🤨
10. The KGB Bugged the Typewriters

Funnies