The audacity of Sony
The audacity of Sony in handling this "root kit" disaster of theirs leaves me nearly apoplectic...
Bruce Schneier writes
a great article at Wired about the whole situation
and points out some really great reasons to get really pissed
off: If you don't know of Bruce, he is a great resource for
computer users' rights and is always fighting for the "right thing"
when it comes to software. Everything he writes is very cogent
and on the mark; it really makes you think.
Anyway, here's a very small background on this issue:
- In 2004, Sony decides that they want to watch what they do with the CDs that you BOUGHT from them on your computer.
- Sony
adds secret software to their CDs so that when you put them in your
machine, it installs without your knowledge. This software
watches what you do with Sony's CDs and sends that information back to Sony!
- In order to avoid detection, Sony installs what is called a "root kit" that allows them to hide the existence of this software.
- This software can't be removed without crashing Windows.
- Sony
executives just act like a bunch of elitist pricks saying things like
"Most people don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care
about it?"
- Sony issues a "fix" that removes the cloaking of the software, but doesn't remove the software itself!
- It turns out that some included software in there might actually be violating other people's Copyright, which is exactly what they were supposedly trying to prevent!
- People
have now written viruses that take advantage of Sony's installed
software to hide themselves from the rest of the machine (including
anti-virus software as far as I know).
- Sony has yet to actually issue a removal tool that actually removes.
- The number of machines with this root kit installed on it number over 1/2 million and some of those are in the DoD... not good.
- Your anti-virus software does NOT remove this....
Read the article for other details and reasons to get mad.
This makes me so mad that we bought a Sony TV the other day for my
mother-in-law. I will not buy Sony products anymore. How
about you?
To