Virus Writers Take Advantage Of Sony's Rootkit
from the thanks! dept
As if things weren't bad enough with Sony's lovely rootkit DRM, what with it acting like spyware and everything, now virus writers are using it to cover up their work -- just as was earlier predicted. The Sony software conceals filenames that start with "$sys$", so a new variant of a trojan simply uses a similarly named file that becomes completely invisible on computers infected with the Sony rootkit. The Security Fix blog of The Washington Post points out a quote from Sony CEO Howard Stringer, made four years ago: "Right now it would be possible for us, and I've often thought it would cheer me up to do it, you could dispatch a virus to anybody whose files contain us or Columbia records and make them listen to four hours of Yanni ... but in the end we're going to have to get serious about encryption and digital-rights management and watermarking." In light of that, and other efforts, like trying to get lawmakers to give record labels the right to destroy the computers of people that file-share, Sony's rootkit isn't surprising at all. But even though people may not know exactly what a rootkit is, they're beginning to understand that Sony's CDs can do some nasty stuff. The company's original "trust us, it's okay" defense was worn thin, and consumers' distrust of Sony could have long-term effects on its business.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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No Subject Given
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Re: No Subject Given
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MySpace has a big haaarrRRAAAGHHH!!
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Re: MySpace has a big haaarrRRAAAGHHH!!
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Re: No Subject Given
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Sony Rootkit
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The Beginning of the End for DRM
This whole fiasco basically shows that the consumers will not take this sort of thing lying down. We will fight back, and fight hard. Mark my words, this is the beginning of the end for DRM.
The appearance of this trogan horse virus is just adding fuel to a fire that's already burning out of control. If Sony was smart they'd drop that technology right now and campaign to make certain its never used again by anyone.
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Re: The Beginning of the End for DRM
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What devices?
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Re: What devices?
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OT: Re: What devices?
>>Specifically my DVD Burner??
Try disconnecting power and data cables from it, boot up, see if you've still got noise? Can't hurt to try.
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DDOS Sony.com
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No Subject Given
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Get a Mac
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Re: Get a Mac
What does a hamburger have to do with this article?
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Re: Get a Mac
Sony has DRM that targets Macs too:
http://www.macintouch.com/#tip.2005.11.10.sony
granted it cant weasel its way onto the system as easily as it does on windows but still..
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An appeal to virus writers
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Re: An appeal to virus writers
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wow
megaupload files
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Megaupload downloading
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