Sony CDs Rootkit Your Systems (Bad news)

[astroglide]

official buyback program with sony-provided mp3 downloads

amazon.com email informing all buyers that they are eligible for refunds

usa today article on recall

sony's list of affected items (all of which are being replaced in stores)

register article on rootkit-targetting trojan

sony's press statement on the issue via reuters

washington post article with a bush administration official admonishing sony

wired article on infection rates

free microsoft antispyware product updated to remove the rootkit

sony eula investigated after the attention was drawn to them along with possible illegal use of open source code

electronic frontier foundation soliciting feedback for a potential class-action lawsuit

another class-action lawsuit from news.com

with the waiter comment i was literally talking about waiters and restaurants. it was inspired by the belief that boycotting sony for 2 years is a boner move. i wasn't suggesting that people contact sony or try to get free stuff or whatever from them. they're painfully aware of the problem already because the media has 'contacted the manager'. i was talking about how i think it's dumb to take a good idea like not getting walked on as a customer and proceeding to [censored] yourself by refusing to patronize an otherwise good establishment instead of actually getting them to address the problem. so i think people who love the food and hate the service that never go back after the first trip are dumb. separate, but similar topic.

i guess i'm a real freedom-hating heretic for suggesting that this topic just might have been noticed already. for weeks now you can't read the news without running into the story.

does this mean i don't care? no. does this mean i'm not going to [censored] myself over and refuse to buy a playstation 3 or whatever if it's a product i want? that's exactly what it means.

[Blarg]

Who cares? That's your decision, and you can do what you like, as can anyone else. It's ridiculous to criticise a consumer for putting his money where his mouth is. That's the greatest power he has. That doing so is not an exact science goes without saying, and the fact that it isn't is a very poor rationalization for not doing it.

The idea that you would really suffer by not buying a Sony product is also not a very compelling one no matter what you think about rootkits.

It also doesn't matter at all if other people have heard or said something about an issue before and it can be found on google. Most everything can. Most people know little or nothing about this, and couldn't be hurt by knowing a little more. I'll look at one or two of the links you provided too, so I can know a little bit more about it myself. And I'm glad that this is being discussed, because it's a serious and potentially quite costly issue that raises some interesting questions about where and how the lines are or can be drawn.

[astroglide]

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It's ridiculous to criticise a consumer for putting his money where his mouth is. That's the greatest power he has.

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it's seriously retarded that i have to spell this out for you, but that's not what i'm doing. i was trying to save the guy some trouble because sony makes a lot of crap and they are 100% aware of the problem. if they didn't make a lot of crap i wouldn't have bothered, because it wouldn't be likely to affect him as a consumer. if there was any possibility that they weren't aware of the problem, i'd say, "hey cool they should be forced to deal with this issue."

this is literally one guy saying to another guy, "you could easily be hosing yourself if you won't buy anything they make for 2 years. even though they know what the problem is, i totally understand if you feel strongly about the offense and want to vote with your wallet. how about targetting the specific group that did it? it still sends the message, and has much less chance of a buying collision for you."

i knew somebody was bound to take up the I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE AGAINST FREEDOM AND AMERICA SIR thing because i dared to suggest that, despite how valuable and important the practice is, it's simply unnecessary here if the goal is to inform because they're already well-informed. i'm surprised it was you that did it, though.

i also never said or implied that he shouldn't have raised the topic.

[Blarg]

Being aware of the problem is no answer to anything. Of course they're aware of the problem. They're the one who decided to use a rootkit in the first place, which decision is just as creepy as whether the rootkit does any damage. A corporation being aware that they're creating problems is supposed to be some sort of palliative on the matter?

Boycotting them for a while is not a wasted effort, regardless of whether all their products are affected. Less money going in their coffers coincident with them making a major and ill-spirited attempt at messing with their customers could help send a message that even a bean counter would understand quite clearly. It's just not the case that the only way Sony would get an important message is by a sort of surgical strike of a boycott. And it's not the case that there isn't satisfaction to be gained by doing things on principle even when their effect isn't flawlessly precise. Tremendous precision is just not necessarily that important here.

I think you're off your rocker on the second paragraph, because that has nothing to do with anything I said. I'm going to leave you in your own little world on that one. I read your response before you edited it to put that in, and it wasn't a good addition that really addressed anything.

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feel free to point out the part where i said he shouldn't have brought up the topic as well. i never said or implied that.


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Here's your implication:

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this topic just might have been noticed already. for weeks now you can't read the news without running into the story.

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Hype down. This is a thread, not a war, and I think you're flying off the handle.

[astroglide]

one part of sony is bound to have absolutely no idea what other parts of sony are doing, so having everybody top to bottom know about the issue is infact a largely notable event. if the goal is for them to solve this problem and avoid it in the future, i believe the work is well underway, and that is enough for me. i don't feel compelled to 'punish them' at a potentially signifigant cost to my choices as a consumer when individually it won't make a difference, and in aggregate it would collapse as we know a giant company that's already got stock trading around 1997 levels.

i've got people telling me that i'm criticizing the exercise of consumer freedoms when it's plainly obvious that i'm not. do you realize how infuriating it is when people "educate" you by telling you something you literally just proved to them? and we're talking about stuff where i would have to be the biggest moron on earth to disagree with it. yeah, buddy, i'm totally against rights.

also, the part where you're claiming i implied he shouldn't have raised the subject is totally out of context. i said it to illustrate that sony is aware of the problem, not that everybody else was. lots of people don't read news.

[wacki]

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i think people who love the food and hate the service that never go back after the first trip are dumb.

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I agree with you on this 100%.

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hink it's dumb to take a good idea like not getting walked on as a customer and proceeding to [censored] yourself by refusing to patronize an establishment instead of actually getting them to address the problem.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with this. However, a sony boycot isn't exactly [censored] yourself is it? You've got tons of alternatives for almost all of their products. A boycott would be of little inconvenience let alone [censored] yourself.

Look, basically I agree with everything you say except for the fact that indivual boycotts are useless. Think about it. Why does the "media's 'contacting the manager'" work in the first place? It's because they are afraid of declining sales. If you tell people an individual boycott is useless (and they listen to you) than you pretty much take away the power of the media to contact the manager.

Yes I know it's in the news. Still, if the populace is educated or conditioned not to boycott (as you seem to be doing) then the media loses it's power

Also, there is a long history of boycotts of products irrelevant to the issues being the critical factor in swaying the company to change it's stance in a different area. So telling people that boycotting the whole company isn't an acceptable route simply isn't true.


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i guess i'm a real freedom-hating heretic for suggesting that this topic just might have been noticed already.

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freedom hating Heretic? I hope this is an attempt at humor.

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for weeks now you can't read the news without running into the story.

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Well great! Now don't go around convincing people they are powerless.

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does this mean i don't care? no. does this mean i'm not going to [censored] myself over and refuse to buy a playstation 3 or whatever if it's a product i want? that's exactly what it means.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, a playstation 3 doesn't exactly have an equivalent does it? As for music, camera's, stereos, etc there are tons of ways to boycott without [censored] yourself.

Sorry if my post was a little unorganized. It's 5AM after all and I need sleep.

[scrub]

I'm skirting the retarded OOT rules here, but I'm interested to see how Party et al. deal with this situation. This ought to have created at least temporary open season for bots, like it did for WoW cheaters.

scrub

I don't understand the detractors in this thread. Having hidden spyware that allows open remote access into your system is a big deal. Some of us have tens or hundreds of thousands in online banks that we regularly access on these computers. Inserting a music CD should not install hidden backdoors on otherwise secure systems and leave an open door for hackers.

The way to discourage this crap is to generate a lot of noise, embarassing publicity and expensive recalls. "Boycott Sony" campaigns are a good start. News like this gets around the industry, and in future some exec looking for a quick fix will think twice before trying to install a rootkit.

Thanks for posting Flynn.

[CORed]

You decide to be ethical and pay Sony's ridiculous price for the music instead of illegally downloading it. They thank you by trashing your computer. Also, the hoops they make you jump through to get the uninstall program are unreal.

[CORed]

There are already at least two class action suits against them. Of course the way these things usually come out is that the lawyers get $100 million and the people whose computers got trashed get $20 each. But it will still cost Sony a bundle if they lose or settle.