Sony CDs Rootkit Your Systems (Bad news)

[Matt Flynn]

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i think you're cutting off your nose to spite your face here

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Astroglide,

I understand your reasoning. Both positions strike me as rational.

I am worried about worldwide corporate hegemony. At some size X, corporations get to rewrite many of the laws in their favor. At the top of those corporations are still highly fallable people, many of whom demonstrate megalomaniac tendencies and a lack of empathy for others in this man's opinion. I am most concerned about toxins in the environment (the real ones like organic mercury, not the tree-hugger ones), loss of privacy, and people wasting my time. Time and a body are all we get: I value those assets very highly.

I do not want those corporations controlling my privacy or invading my private life or wasting my time. If I could, I would ban most of the information tracking and trafficking that goes on. A boycott of Sony in toto sends the message that messing with my privacy and my property has consequences. Posting on this message board helps to magnify my statement - likely not enough to tickle the beast, but perhaps so. I want these companies to think long and hard before blithely attacking me. Anyone who, for their own gain, slips malware on my computer (and it IS malware - just the increased vulnerability to hacking is enough - if someone passed out keys to my house would it seem innocuous?) attacks ME. At the least, it wastes my time looking for it and removing it.

If I owned Sony stock I would sell it for the same reasons. I vote with my wallet. If Sony came out with something spectacular, it's a simple decision of utility vs anger.

[CORed]

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And from what I read, the program wasnt even a rootkit per se.

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What you read was BS. It's a rootkit.

[Matt Flynn]

It is a powerful argument to steal music, isn't it?

[Matt Flynn]

The StarForce problem is worse. I just bumped your post.

[vulturesrow]

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And from what I read, the program wasnt even a rootkit per se.

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What you read was BS. It's a rootkit.

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It could just be my misunderstanding, since I read the links that Matt posted. My understanding of what a rootkit was designed to hide the presence of a cracker who has obtained root privileges in a comprimised system. I do agree that the way this DRM software works has similar effects. Its just semantics really. I fully agree that is a [censored] up thins for Sony to do.

[vulturesrow]

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It is a powerful argument to steal music, isn't it?

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No. Why do you think we have DRM now? Because of people stealing music. Companies have a right to protect their profits. This implementation of DRM obviously has a host of issues but the answer isnt stealing.

[IggyWH]

I don't know if I read it here or elsewhere, but I remember a couple of weeks ago where people discovered that color printers leave a trace of very small yellow dots on everything, so small they're near impossible to see unless you know where to look for them.

They are in fact the printers serial number so if something illegal is done with that printer (namely counterfeitting), it can be traced back to that printer.

[CORed]

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do you think this order came from the ceo?

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I think somebody pretty high in management (possibly VP level) said, "I want a copy protection system that can't be removed." . Somebody farther down the food chain hired Three Stooges Software to implement this, and they came up with this abomination. While I wouldn't boycott Denny's because some idiot assistant manager in Bumfuck, Kentucky threw a black guy out of the restaraunt for no reason other than that he was black, I don't think the two cases are comparable. Also, Sony's response to this is telling. They have not made an uninstaller publicly available: You have to send two emails, and accept ActiveX controls from their website to get the uninstaller. They have not recalled the infected CD's, nor offered to refund or replace on request. They have tried to spin it as not really being that bad.
So, while the initial decision to put the root kit copy protection on their CD's may or may not have been a mistake by a contractor or a lower level employee, their response when it became public has shown them to be unethical and irresponsible. Yes, making it right would be expensive for them, but I hope, failing to do so will be even more expensive.

[wacki]

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It is a powerful argument to steal music, isn't it?

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There is always i-tunes. You can just download the music. Again, there is a reasonable alternative to almost any product when performing a boycott.

[CORed]

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It is a powerful argument to steal music, isn't it?

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I'm going to get on my soapbox here. I think the notion of intellectual poperty is a useful one. How to maintain it in the face of computer technology is a tricky problem and one I haven't really thought up a solution to. However, the way we are currently going ain't it. The DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) makes it illegal to circumvent copy protection technology, without regard to whether you are doing so for illegal purposes. This pretty much renders the notion of "fair use" moot. Now, the law doesn't define what is and isn't "fair use" of copyrighted content, the publisher does. If the TV networks and manufacturers get together and implement technology to prevent you from recording a football game for later viewing, and you find a way to defeat it, you are breaking the law regardless of the fact that it is perfectly legal to do so otherwise. If Sony or another CD pulisher decides to make it impossible for you to copy a song to your MP3 player or IPOD, you are breaking the law to circumvent that technology.

Sony, and other publishers of copy-protected content, are basicly saying to their paying customers, "we don't trust you, so we're going to restrict your ability to copy our content for legitimate purposes". Sony has takem it a step further by compromising the reliability and security of your computer to do so.

The record companies and movie companies are lobbying heavily to get increasingly intrusive and draconian legislation passed to protect an obsolete business model. Audio CD's as a means of delivering content are really pretty well obsolete now. DVD's, etc. will be soon for movies as bandwidth and storage costs go down. This has several implications. There is less need for mass appeal for content. Internet distribution makes it possible for artists to sell directly to the public, and the costs of production are low enough for content with a small market to be profitable. This scares the hell out of the media giants. Instead of trying to adapt, or accept that their business is obsolete, and invest their money in a viable business, they are doing the equivalent of harness makers in 1915 lobbying for legislation requiring you to hitch horses to the front of your car. They are making deals with computer hardware and software to restrict the ability of computers to copy files. So far, most people seem to be accepting this. The best case scenario would be for consumers to wake up to the fact that they are being screwed and refuse to buy this crap. I'm not sure the Sony flop is going to be enough, but it's a good start.

In the meantime, don't buy any more buggy whips.

OTOH, as oil gets scarcer, maybe buggy whips will be useful again.