Sony's Rootkit Still Causing Problems For Users
from the great-move dept
It's been a little under a year since Sony BMG's infamous rootkit became a big story -- costing Sony a tremendous amount of bad publicity and money in lawsuit settlements and recalls. Turns out that the XCP copy protection they used is still causing problems. Since the rootkit was discovered, plenty of security software products have added it to their list of things to protect against. There's just one problem: some security products from AOL and CA apparently have trouble removing XCP properly -- often causing a computer's CD-ROM drive to stop working. Of course, many users may not use the CD drive right away, and so they won't even know why it stopped working. A patch has now been issued, but it shows how long these types of things continue to cause problems.
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.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Freaking Sony
Stupid Sony, what did they ever do for anyone anyway?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Freaking Sony
Betamax!!! lol Seriously though, their record labels are as screwed up as the rest of the company... [not a sony fan here]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Marketing Plot!
Everyone is talking about Sony and their rootkit and then BAM! They release the PS3 with a game bundled and you guessed it ... Rootkit!
Rootkit, created by Rockstar Games, its a GTA spinoff but insted of stealing cars and beating drugs dealers, you steal the consumers and beat the crap out of them*!
Its fun guaranteed for all the family.
* Baseball bat not included.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Marketing Plot!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Sony
Sony used to make great products and that was how they made money.
When did they start worrying about what was going on in my hard drive?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Sony
Pretty pathetic reallly.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
What scares me...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The only obvious thing the produce in mass quantity is lack of consumer trust.
Screw the PS3, I wanted one, but god only knows what information it'll be sending back to Sony. I think I'll go with the Xbox this time around.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Three is a pattern....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
boycott sony
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: boycott sony
Well I thought, I'd take a Sony Vaio notebook for free. I could reformat the hard drive and install software from scratch, but..,
Then I remembered 2 things:
1) A Friend bought one back in 2000, He didn't want to run ME on it, and Sony wouldn't provide him with the drivers for Windows 2000. Why, because he didn't purchase the Windows 2000 model (Which was almost $200 more, same machine just different OS). Needless to say, he still reformated and installed 98se
2) Who knows what garabe Sony could have hardcoded into the chips on the motherboard
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
let us not forget . . .
who knows what crazy sh*t the PS3 will be doing
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Big surprise...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Vaio notebook
I got a VAIO notebook little more than a year ago and it has crashed on me 2x. first in December 2005 and last month... both crashed were the same the notebook just stop working... it would not turn on or anything...
the first time it was covered by the warranty and now it is not...
I just can not undestand what is going with SONY.......
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Vaio notebook
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
sony has always been..
In almost every field of hardware they have ventured into there is a cheaper, better quality brand that is just plain better.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Stolen
Ironic?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]