Getting a Sony Rootkit Canal

[Audioholics]

It all started with an innocent looking British firm called First 4 who wrote software enabling Sony CD owners to make up to 4 copies of the disc for their personal use (after that the disc was locked up.) That's reasonable and everyone was happy. Consumers could make their few backup copies. Labels got their royalties. Dealers could sell their discs. Ordinary folks could enjoy their music. Of course, those First 4 code whisperers were a sneaky group and added this little guy called a rootkit that would crawl into the user's computer and hide so you couldn't find him without some serious technical sleuthing...

[Read More]

 

[corey]

Your whole article reads like it was written by the RIAA. It makes the whole thing seem some what funny, and not a big deal.

It is a big deal. Say someone breaks into your home, tells a joke, steals an ice cube tray, and leaves. The most important fact is not that there was humor involved, that the ice cube tray doesn't really matter, nor that the person breaking in didn't really mean any harm. What's important is that someone broke into your home.

I have owned a number of Sony products over the years. The last one I purchased cost $2,000. Unless Sony makes a substantial change, it will be the last.

 

[Art Slartibart]

To make things worse, Sony have violated copyright rules themselves, as the DRM code appears to contain sections that are protected by the Lesser General Public License. See the article entitled "Sony's CD rootkit infringes DVD Jon's copyright" for details.

Art

 

[claudermilk]

To make things worse, Sony have violated copyright rules themselves, as the DRM code appears to contain sections that are protected by the Lesser General Public License. See the article entitled "Sony's CD rootkit infringes DVD Jon's copyright" for details.

Art

That is a VERY interesting link (particularly the next one from it). I find it amusing that their own stongarm tactics have a good potential to turn around and bite them. You just have to love quick Karma.

I am hoping that this incident does blow up a whole lot more and force some common sense in the DRM/DMCA laws. I am sensitive to copyright issues being a photographer, but these corporations have stepped WAY over the line.

 

[j_garcia]

It gets even better. Someone here listed a link to a site that has a check you can do to see if the software is installed and running and I found that it IS on my computer. They don't list any of the CDs that I have ripped onto this system though... There are at least TWO versions of software from the company that wrote the code for Sony and the older version may be harder to remove and CDs containing that version are not covered by the replacement program.

 

[GlocksRock]

This is they type of thing that makes people want to download music for free onlilne, that way they know they won't be getting any rootkit garbage on thier pc, they just have to keep their antivirus up to date.

 

[rgriffin25]

It gets even better. Someone here listed a link to a site that has a check you can do to see if the software is installed and running and I found that it IS on my computer. They don't list any of the CDs that I have ripped onto this system though... There are at least TWO versions of software from the company that wrote the code for Sony and the older version may be harder to remove and CDs containing that version are not covered by the replacement program.

Where can I find this link?

 

[MDS]

You might try http://www.sysinternals.com. That is Mark Russinovich's site - he is the guy that broke the story in his blog.

 

[rgriffin25]

You might try http://www.sysinternals.com. That is Mark Russinovich's site - he is the guy that broke the story in his blog.

Thanks, I found it on this page http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=927

Code Support detector page link towards the top of the page.