Sony sneaking rootkits onto PC's? (DRM)

B3Nut

tubes and spinny things!
This is a bit alarming, it amounts to Sony installing very insidious malware without the user's knowledge when they try to play one of their new protected CD's on a Windows machine.

http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/10/sony-rootkits-and-digital-rights.html

Rootkits are nasty things, sometimes the only way to rid a PC of a rootkit is to completely delete all partitions on the drive, re-partition and re-format. Sony is installing software that up to now was only snuck onto PC's by worthless sniveling hacker kiddies.

Todd in Beerbratistan
 
That's interesting, and not surprising that Sony would throw such 2-year-old temper-tantrums to prevent users of the competing iPod player from enjoying artists on their roster.

The quality that Sony used to stand for was buried with founder Akio Morita when he died, IMHO....I bet he's in high rotation in his coffin about now.

Todd in Beerbratistan
 
Sony and Philips signed on this almost exactly three years ago
> http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/200211/02-1113E/

The big turnaround at Sony wasn't when Morita retired ('94) or (sadly) died ('98 IIRC) but when Norio Ohga resigned as "big chief" in '95/'96. Ohga was the last of the three founding members - the engineer part was Ohga. He left, and then...
It's also at the same time that Sony chose Micro$oft to develop PC apps and computers - a complete marketing contradiction. Apple was the one.
 
There was an article in the Chicago Tribune on Wednesday(?) that said something about Sony having or releasing a patch to either take it off or make it visible. My impression was/is that they got hit HARD enough on the Web that the traditional Media NOTICED....

They really farted in the elevator with that one......

I for one started noticing everything entertainment related around me that was sony with an eye toward what I would be missing/avoiding.... it was a LOT...
 
Sony could take a huge hit on this. There could be a consumer backlash (just in time for Christmas) - I know I will avoid them - do you want to give a virus as a gift? Then there should be reparations once they admit their guilt.

They should have just been happy with our difficulties to even make backup copies of SACD's or DVD-A's. Greed is ugly.
 
markthefixer said:
There was an article in the Chicago Tribune on Wednesday(?) that said something about Sony having or releasing a patch to either take it off or make it visible. My impression was/is that they got hit HARD enough on the Web that the traditional Media NOTICED....

And that "patch" comes with baggage of its own:

http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/11/more-on-sony-dangerous-decloaking.html

Mark Russinovich at sysinternals is one of the most knowledgeable Windows experts...his utils are *handy*. He knows more about the bowels of Windows than many people on the Windows team at MS.

Todd in Beerbratistan
 
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