newprotest.org: SONY MALWARE

SONY MALWARE

November 02, 2005
by: jovial_cynic
Sony's new DRM = more sucky than ever!

It looks like playing a new Sony CD in your computer will pretty much break your system. In the case of Sysinternal blogwriter Mark Russinovich, it wiped out access to his CD Rom devices by deleting the device drivers and disabling the CD drive entirely. The code on the CD installed itself in such a way that made it difficult to detect, difficult to remove, and it turns out that it'll cripples the computer if attempts to remove it occur. Oh, and never mind that the code is poorly written enough to break, leaving a security hole in the machine.

The ramifications for this are huge. Let's say average Joe employee for a multinational company sticks his Sony CD into his computer CD drive at work. Surely there's nothing written in the employees' code of conduct that prohibits such an act... and now he can't access his business-related content on other CDs/DVDs, which creates a need for the company's IT department to come and try to make repairs. In the meanwhile, his work station becomes a gaping-hole security risk.

Don't malicious code-writers go to jail for this crap?

As a side note, Sony has been responding to requests to remove the code here.

Thanks, Sony - you're a pal!
np category: corporations
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