sirkitbreaker
well sorry aboutr your friend situation ( i also hold that term in high wstweem and am proud to have people i trust honour and respect in my life) but however i will end my 2 cents on this. if you dont trust the dj dont let them use your stuff. But do you 'trust' that the contract you are currently in will still be there? The sad fact is everyone must consider the cost when signing a contract if you are unable to forfill it for any reason you must be willing to pay that price. I just think any software they have access to they can copy unless it is on a protected server.
Posted Fri 17 Oct 08 @ 3:26 pm
low-fat-al
you know it is unfortunate that VDJ didn't implemented this feature years ago. I did suggest it when I first started using it...
A shell mode that is similiar to PCDJ Red 5.2. It only had the user of the computer able to use PCDJ and couldn't minimize the software, modify the library, or anything. Perfect for this sorta situation.
...
oh well.. I am done suggesting ideas and giving constructive feedback anyways to the VDJ team... I am pretty much just using Serato Video now anyways. Just a shame is all.
A shell mode that is similiar to PCDJ Red 5.2. It only had the user of the computer able to use PCDJ and couldn't minimize the software, modify the library, or anything. Perfect for this sorta situation.
...
oh well.. I am done suggesting ideas and giving constructive feedback anyways to the VDJ team... I am pretty much just using Serato Video now anyways. Just a shame is all.
Posted Fri 17 Oct 08 @ 5:06 pm
SBDJ
low-fat-al wrote :
A shell mode that is similiar to PCDJ Red 5.2. It only had the user of the computer able to use PCDJ and couldn't minimize the software, modify the library, or anything. Perfect for this sorta situation.
Actually that would require being able to configure other DJ's machines, so not really perfect at all ;)
Posted Fri 17 Oct 08 @ 5:44 pm
low-fat-al
well if you had a computer set up JUST for that user then you wouldn't have any problems with using the shell mode. It could be a laptop or whatever. It would just boot right into VDJ and lock out any other functions. There would be a password made to access the config menu to disable the shell mode or explore the rest of the computer.
Posted Fri 17 Oct 08 @ 6:22 pm
SBDJ
low-fat-al wrote :
well if you had a computer set up JUST for that user then you wouldn't have any problems with using the shell mode. It could be a laptop or whatever. It would just boot right into VDJ and lock out any other functions. There would be a password made to access the config menu to disable the shell mode or explore the rest of the computer.
But thats not what the OP was asking, he was asking to lend his external HD to another user - who's machine he has no control over - and allow them to play files but not copy them ;)
Shell mode is already possible with any application...
Posted Fri 17 Oct 08 @ 9:22 pm
djtops
If the new guy does not have his own library, already cut on Hard drive...then I begin to question what decade he djed in...any PRO level dj these days has "some" tunes on a hard drive, Ipod or something portable yes even the guys who djed in American HURRICANE states still have their library......absolutely do NOT GIVE HIM YOUR DRIVE...your library is your livelyhood. But if you are determined... The OLD FASHION method to "help" insure he will not copy your files, is to have your girlfriend deliver the drive to the club to him that night, sit in or near the booth with him, have the club security camera (or imitation one) focused on the booth, and have the burley door bouncer mention that you said you'd fuX him up if he steals your stuff!!!!! Build a script that pops up every 48 minutes with a message " IF YOU EVER WANT TO DJ FOR ME AGAIN, DON"T EVEN THINK ABOUT STEALING MY FILES" every 28 minutes the title bar flashes "Copy command will cause viral, trojans to shut down the system." perhaps he will fear being "off the air" on his big debut. Then have your girlfriend bring your drive back to your house that nite to tell you how much better than him you are.......ta daaa Problem solved....thats a plan..... Dude this could be a good mini-series
Posted Fri 17 Oct 08 @ 10:32 pm
Daviex
Please how I have Serial Number or him I have state(learn,discover,elicit,find out)Thank you very much!!!!
Posted Sat 18 Oct 08 @ 4:32 am
dj-e-lectric
SBDJ wrote :
But thats not what the OP was asking, he was asking to lend his external HD to another user - who's machine he has no control over - and allow them to play files but not copy them ;)
Shell mode is already possible with any application...
low-fat-al wrote :
well if you had a computer set up JUST for that user then you wouldn't have any problems with using the shell mode. It could be a laptop or whatever. It would just boot right into VDJ and lock out any other functions. There would be a password made to access the config menu to disable the shell mode or explore the rest of the computer.
But thats not what the OP was asking, he was asking to lend his external HD to another user - who's machine he has no control over - and allow them to play files but not copy them ;)
Shell mode is already possible with any application...
Actually I may need to go the route of Fat-Al and set up another computer specifically set up with protection features so instead of them borrowing the drive they would borrow the computer.
I do have some very dear friends I would trust my life with, unfortunatley only one of them is a Dj and he is in Iraq putting his life on the line for me (and all of us)...in the mean time I need to do the best I can with the others I have to work with.
thanks for all the suggestions guys, much appreciated.
Posted Sat 18 Oct 08 @ 7:04 am
dj-e-lectric
djtops wrote :
If the new guy does not have his own library, already cut on Hard drive...then I begin to question what decade he djed in...any PRO level dj these days has "some" tunes on a hard drive, Ipod or something portable yes even the guys who djed in American HURRICANE states still have their library......absolutely do NOT GIVE HIM YOUR DRIVE...your library is your livelyhood. But if you are determined... The OLD FASHION method to "help" insure he will not copy your files, is to have your girlfriend deliver the drive to the club to him that night, sit in or near the booth with him, have the club security camera (or imitation one) focused on the booth, and have the burley door bouncer mention that you said you'd fuX him up if he steals your stuff!!!!! Build a script that pops up every 48 minutes with a message " IF YOU EVER WANT TO DJ FOR ME AGAIN, DON"T EVEN THINK ABOUT STEALING MY FILES" every 28 minutes the title bar flashes "Copy command will cause viral, trojans to shut down the system." perhaps he will fear being "off the air" on his big debut. Then have your girlfriend bring your drive back to your house that nite to tell you how much better than him you are.......ta daaa Problem solved....thats a plan..... Dude this could be a good mini-series
Thanks, but again we are talking VIDEO library and video djs in Phoenix are rare indeed (at least ones who can actually mix, program, hold a floor, take requests, do mic work, keep the crowd int he club, rotate the floor for drink sales, don't scratch, don't play too much rap).....you get ther idea the clubs I work for are EXTREMELY picky....
And thanks for reminding me of my other problem...oh yeah I need to find a girlfriend too!
Life is just too complicate these days.
Posted Sat 18 Oct 08 @ 7:08 am
SBDJ
dj-e-lectric wrote :
Actually I may need to go the route of Fat-Al and set up another computer specifically set up with protection features so instead of them borrowing the drive they would borrow the computer.
If you do, lock it down fully - and I mean totally overboard. You would be suprised what you can do to bypass restrictions ;)
Posted Sat 18 Oct 08 @ 1:32 pm
digijoc-Mele
dj-e-lectric, this a pretty interesting problem you have posted ! I consider it a nice challenge for the very technical among us.
After thinking about this for a little while, my approach would be as follows:
Employ file encryption, which will require decryption just for your buddy to see the files and of course for vDJ to see them too. This gives you two benefits. Firstly, he may think you don't trust him, but you can say that you encrypt all your stuff for general security. The second and more important benefit it affords you is a way to install a program without him knowing. The only way you can know if files get copied in an environment to which your drive is connected, is to "watch" the file system. This will require some small program.
Requiring your buddy to decrypt the files gives the opportunity to have the small "watch" program installed without him knowing, because you can mask the decrypt function inside of this "watch" utility. Once engaged, the watch program can write any changes to the file system back to YOUR drive. So when you retrieve the drive, you simply review the log.
There are two bigger challenges/concerns here. In order for the file system to watched, more than likely it has to be cataloged first. So when your buddy fires up the "decryption" program, it will need to do the fastest possible cataloging of all other drives connected to the system. This may not be fast enough to go unnoticed by your friend. The second challenge/concern, is if the performance of the watch utility is good enough not to interfere with the normal operation of vDJ.
This is just my idea of an approach. It is kind of ....well... a "trojan" approach. Would be interested in comments about this approach.
After thinking about this for a little while, my approach would be as follows:
Employ file encryption, which will require decryption just for your buddy to see the files and of course for vDJ to see them too. This gives you two benefits. Firstly, he may think you don't trust him, but you can say that you encrypt all your stuff for general security. The second and more important benefit it affords you is a way to install a program without him knowing. The only way you can know if files get copied in an environment to which your drive is connected, is to "watch" the file system. This will require some small program.
Requiring your buddy to decrypt the files gives the opportunity to have the small "watch" program installed without him knowing, because you can mask the decrypt function inside of this "watch" utility. Once engaged, the watch program can write any changes to the file system back to YOUR drive. So when you retrieve the drive, you simply review the log.
There are two bigger challenges/concerns here. In order for the file system to watched, more than likely it has to be cataloged first. So when your buddy fires up the "decryption" program, it will need to do the fastest possible cataloging of all other drives connected to the system. This may not be fast enough to go unnoticed by your friend. The second challenge/concern, is if the performance of the watch utility is good enough not to interfere with the normal operation of vDJ.
This is just my idea of an approach. It is kind of ....well... a "trojan" approach. Would be interested in comments about this approach.
Posted Sun 19 Oct 08 @ 10:19 pm
SBDJ
You could land yourself in trouble if you get caught out installing such software and the guy doesn't know about it. Especially if it somehow has an adverse affect on his system.
I would strongly recommend against this.
If someone tried to install something like this on my gig machine, the external drive might suffer a slight accident lol...
I would strongly recommend against this.
If someone tried to install something like this on my gig machine, the external drive might suffer a slight accident lol...
Posted Mon 20 Oct 08 @ 12:51 am
dj-e-lectric
SBDJ wrote :
You could land yourself in trouble if you get caught out installing such software and the guy doesn't know about it. Especially if it somehow has an adverse affect on his system.
I would strongly recommend against this.
If someone tried to install something like this on my gig machine, the external drive might suffer a slight accident lol...
I would strongly recommend against this.
If someone tried to install something like this on my gig machine, the external drive might suffer a slight accident lol...
I think MELE is talking about setting the encryption up on a NEW computer system that I would let them borrow instead of just the drive.
I think maybe the most secure way is like Al said, a whole new computer. Then I can have only one firwire port connected and NO other ports including LAN, USB, Parallel, etc. physically connected (not just turned off but rip the jumpers out) and the DVD/CD drive be a read only drive when the system is built so they could not even be activated. Then get the protection software to protect the one firewire that is active so I can update the computer, etc....not ideal but as cheap as computers have gotten it is worth it to protect my files, me Dj relationship and my accounts.
Posted Mon 20 Oct 08 @ 6:54 am
kradcliffe
I really understand where you are coming from here .... I started DJing from a laptop back in 1999 with PCDJ red then with BPM Studio. I painstakingly ripped many many vinyl tracks to CD, then ripped all my CD's to MP3 and tagged them.
Everyone thought I was mad at the time, but recently everyone wants a piece of the digital DJ action. I've had many people ask if they can "copy" my collection to save the lazy persons ripping and tagging all the tracks themselves. I too have my own remixes and some rare versions of songs. It is a personal collection that makes me a unique DJ as I have many 12 inch versions bought in the 70's and 80's that are very hard to find.
I don't think other people realize the years of committment and money it takes to buy the collection, rip from vinyl to CD then CD to MP3 and tag them all. This may sound quite selfish, but I'm not just going to give away my personal music and livelyhood for someone else to use.
Good luck and I hope you find a solution. Shell mode in either PCDJ or BPM would be perfect, but that wouldn't stop them just plugging the HDD in to another machine and copying the files. A cheap desktop with 1tb built in HDD may be the way to go.
Cheers - Keith
Everyone thought I was mad at the time, but recently everyone wants a piece of the digital DJ action. I've had many people ask if they can "copy" my collection to save the lazy persons ripping and tagging all the tracks themselves. I too have my own remixes and some rare versions of songs. It is a personal collection that makes me a unique DJ as I have many 12 inch versions bought in the 70's and 80's that are very hard to find.
I don't think other people realize the years of committment and money it takes to buy the collection, rip from vinyl to CD then CD to MP3 and tag them all. This may sound quite selfish, but I'm not just going to give away my personal music and livelyhood for someone else to use.
Good luck and I hope you find a solution. Shell mode in either PCDJ or BPM would be perfect, but that wouldn't stop them just plugging the HDD in to another machine and copying the files. A cheap desktop with 1tb built in HDD may be the way to go.
Cheers - Keith
Posted Mon 20 Oct 08 @ 3:25 pm
Andrew87
Couldn't a user just start up task manager (ctrl+shift+escape) then start explorer/command-prompt to copy their files even if you did change your shell. The only working solution I can think of is if Virtual DJ supported some sort of on the fly decryption and your files were encrypted.
Posted Mon 20 Oct 08 @ 4:12 pm
SBDJ
Andrew87 wrote :
Couldn't a user just start up task manager (ctrl+shift+escape) then start explorer/command-prompt to copy their files even if you did change your shell. The only working solution I can think of is if Virtual DJ supported some sort of on the fly decryption and your files were encrypted.
Thats why I said you need to lock it down. You can do all sorts, including disabling right clicks, disable running certain applications, disable task manager etc...
There's almost always a way around it though. You can just boot from a CD which will give you access to administrator account in windows anyway.
Posted Mon 20 Oct 08 @ 5:54 pm
digijoc-Mele
What I described is an approach to the problem. And no I am not talking about encryption on a loaner computer. Sure there may be implications in the approach. I think my approach may have sounded too stealth or sneaky... but this is not to say that the friend would not agree to using the drive under pre-agreement. After all, someone even suggested earlier to draft an agreement on paper.
The other implication I tried to call out was the performance factor. This doesn't mean that the implications cannot be overcome. Many vDJ DJs run WinAmp in the background as backup and even a 2nd instance of vDJ. All this to say that another program can run without any ill-effect on vDJ performance. If the decryption with file watch method is used, it could perhaps be efficient enough not to be an issue.
E-lectric, would your buddy agree to having to use the decrypt software in order to mount the drive and have use of it ? Would he even agree not to copy the files and know that if he copies them you will know ? I think it would be reasonable for someone to agree to the use of media knowing that the decryption software also registers copy attempts. An agreement of sorts really gets you past some of the implications. If the guy really wants to use the library, I don't see why he couldn't even wait a minute or two while the decryption software loads up to mount the drive and catalogs all drives. It won't be touching anything, just taking a snapshot.
Re: the point about shelling to DOS and circumventing the decryption... I'm am not sure you can do that. The encryption may still be in effect. In any event, is your buddy savy enough to do that ?
What about booting from CD ??.... again I suppose if you are savy enough you could possibly get around things... but most DJs I know aren't that savy, so the method could still give E-lectric some level of peace.
The other implication I tried to call out was the performance factor. This doesn't mean that the implications cannot be overcome. Many vDJ DJs run WinAmp in the background as backup and even a 2nd instance of vDJ. All this to say that another program can run without any ill-effect on vDJ performance. If the decryption with file watch method is used, it could perhaps be efficient enough not to be an issue.
E-lectric, would your buddy agree to having to use the decrypt software in order to mount the drive and have use of it ? Would he even agree not to copy the files and know that if he copies them you will know ? I think it would be reasonable for someone to agree to the use of media knowing that the decryption software also registers copy attempts. An agreement of sorts really gets you past some of the implications. If the guy really wants to use the library, I don't see why he couldn't even wait a minute or two while the decryption software loads up to mount the drive and catalogs all drives. It won't be touching anything, just taking a snapshot.
Re: the point about shelling to DOS and circumventing the decryption... I'm am not sure you can do that. The encryption may still be in effect. In any event, is your buddy savy enough to do that ?
What about booting from CD ??.... again I suppose if you are savy enough you could possibly get around things... but most DJs I know aren't that savy, so the method could still give E-lectric some level of peace.
Posted Mon 20 Oct 08 @ 8:37 pm
SBDJ
The shelling part was in relation to unencrypted files on a locked down machine ;)
Posted Mon 20 Oct 08 @ 8:39 pm
dj-e-lectric
digijoc-Mele wrote :
E-lectric, would your buddy agree to having to use the decrypt software in order to mount the drive and have use of it ? Would he even agree not to copy the files and know that if he copies them you will know ? I think it would be reasonable for someone to agree to the use of media knowing that the decryption software also registers copy attempts. An agreement of sorts really gets you past some of the implications. If the guy really wants to use the library, I don't see why he couldn't even wait a minute or two while the decryption software loads up to mount the drive and catalogs all drives.
E-lectric, would your buddy agree to having to use the decrypt software in order to mount the drive and have use of it ? Would he even agree not to copy the files and know that if he copies them you will know ? I think it would be reasonable for someone to agree to the use of media knowing that the decryption software also registers copy attempts. An agreement of sorts really gets you past some of the implications. If the guy really wants to use the library, I don't see why he couldn't even wait a minute or two while the decryption software loads up to mount the drive and catalogs all drives.
(1) It was somewhat of a hypothetical situation (at this point I have only had to do it once...no harm that time), but I was mainly exploring easy, reasonable options for the future.
(2) It is not just one guy...at this point I don't know who the Dj may need to be next time.
(3) Agreements are only as good as the trustworthiness of the Dj himself, and if I knew I could trust them there would not be an issue.
(4) It's not so much that he wants to use the library, but the club(s) I play INSIST on video (as well as the Dj being very talented), that's one of the reasons they give me the contracts in the first place is the talent AND the videos as is there are VERY few Djs in the Phoenix area that do video that are talented enough for their needs...as I said lots of video hacks, not many professionals.
(5) Being the nature of computers, I think loaning a protected computer out is the easiest, most cost effective and hasslefree way.
Posted Tue 21 Oct 08 @ 1:50 am
digijoc-Mele
@dj-e-lectric I don't completely agree that loaning a laptop is the most hastlefree or effective. If you a talking about vDJ, isn't each DJ likely to have his vDJ environment customized ? How would that work ?
Re: the method I propose, it shouldn't make a difference who the DJ is. If you have a policy that you secure your library via encryption, why would a DJ not respect that ? You also don't have to trust him/her. If they violate your trust, you will simply know about it. What you do after that is up to you.
Re: the method I propose, it shouldn't make a difference who the DJ is. If you have a policy that you secure your library via encryption, why would a DJ not respect that ? You also don't have to trust him/her. If they violate your trust, you will simply know about it. What you do after that is up to you.
Posted Tue 21 Oct 08 @ 6:55 am
