Darkforum.com - Dark Stories, Dark Art, Poetry, Photography, Debates and Discussions - View Single Post - Word Of Advice: Avoid Sony CD's Like The Plague!

waterRTBH · **Word Of Advice: Avoid Sony CD's Like The Plague! -** 11-06-05

...they install rootkits on your system, and the patch is a defective homecalling device.

A couple of links for your reading:

http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/200...al-rights.html

Quote:

I entered the company name into my Internet browser’s address bar and went to http://www.first4internet.com/. I searched for both the product name and Aries.sys, but came up empty. However, the fact that the company sells a technology called XCP made me think that maybe the files I’d found were part of some content protection scheme. I Googled the company name and came across this article, confirming the fact that they have deals with several record companies, including Sony, to implement Digital Rights Management (DRM) software for CDs.

The DRM reference made me recall having purchased a CD recently that can only be played using the media player that ships on the CD itself and that limits you to at most 3 copies. I scrounged through my CD’s and found it, Sony BMG’s Get Right with the Man (the name is ironic under the circumstances) CD by the Van Zant brothers. I hadn’t noticed when I purchased the CD from Amazon.com that it’s protected with DRM software, but if I had looked more closely at the text on the Amazon.com web page I would have known:

And a follow up:

http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/200...ecloaking.html

Quote:

My posting Monday on Sony’s use of a rootkit as part of their Digital Rights Management (DRM) generated an outcry that’s reached the mainstream media. As of this morning the story is being covered in newspapers and media sites around the world including USA Today and the BBC. This is the case of the blogosphere having an impact, at least for the moment. But, there’s more to the story, like how Sony’s patch can lead to a crashed system and data loss and how Sony is still making users jump through hoops to get an uninstaller. At the core of this story, however, is the issue of what disclosure should be required of software End User License Agreements (EULAs) and how the requirements can be made Federal law.

I have my own serious opinions on this, but I would like to hear how others feel. AND how you think this will affect illegal downloading as well.....

Sony's way of protecting their material might be a reason for artists to leave the company for one that is more geared to customer satisfaction. if they continue this way of working, they might just as well sign their death warrant.

When I hear about these types of games, I immediately want to boycott and form a movement to boycott these types of companies. Any more you need to be a coding genius to understand what companies are putting on your computer, if I'm going to a website that installs spyware - I can pretty much accept that. But when I am paying 15 to 20 dollars for a commercial product that is going to AFFECT my computer, that is a wholly different story.

Alas, we thought the same about the On-line Activation of Windows XP and Photoshop cs. Microsoft and Adobe are still alive.

There are also worries about virus's and spyware that might use the hiding of the $sys$ prefix files when the Sony rootkit is installed.

People might say that it is pointless to worry about, but if a virusscanner can't see a file, it doesn't mean it isn't running.

The big trouble is that it only needs to run a little code, the rootkit is already there, installed by the user who played a Sony CD. So if there ARE virus's and other malware around, taking advantage of said rootkit, Sony might be blamed in helping in computer crime (if you can call virus/spyware and similar programs crime) which I would, BTW.

This is just nasty.

X vBulletin 3.6.8 Debug Information
Page Generation 0.69859 seconds Memory Usage 7,562KB Queries Executed 14 (?)
More Information
Template Usage: (1)SHOWTHREAD_SHOWPOST (2)bbcode_quote (1)footer (1)gobutton (1)header (1)headinclude (1)iprof_zodiac_sign (4)option (1)postbit_legacy (1)postbit_onlinestatus (1)postbit_reputation (1)postbit_wrapper (1)spacer_close (1)spacer_open (1)welcome_headers Phrase Groups Available: global photoplog postbit reputationlevel showthread	Included Files: ./vbseo.php ./includes/functions_vbseo.php ./includes/functions_vbseo_pre.php ./includes/config_vbseo.php ./includes/functions_vbseo_url.php ./includes/functions_vbseo_createurl.php ./includes/functions_vbseo_db.php ./includes/functions_vbseo_vb.php ./includes/functions_vbseo_seo.php ./includes/functions_vbseo_misc.php ./includes/functions_vbseo_crr.php ./includes/functions_vbseo_cache.php ./includes/functions_vbseo_hook.php ./includes/functions_vbseo_startup.php ./includes/config.php ./showpost.php ./global.php ./includes/init.php ./includes/class_core.php ./includes/functions.php ./includes/class_hook.php ./includes/vblogetin_config.php ./blogs/plugins/init_startup.php ./blogs/plugins/style_fetch.php ./geek/gars/includes/gars_ignition.php ./blogs/plugins/cache_templates.php ./blogs/plugins/global_start.php ./blogs/backend/functions_blog.php ./blogs/backend/functions_seo.php ./blogs/backend/class_blog.php ./blogs/backend/class_siradrian.php ./blogs/datastore/blogstatistics.php ./blogs/datastore/categories.php ./blogs/datastore/blogcustomfields.php ./blogs/backend/class_permissionCheck.php ./blogs/backend/class_permissionCheckCore.php ./includes/functions_bigthree.php ./includes/class_postbit.php ./includes/class_bbcode.php ./includes/functions_reputation.php ./includes/functions_misc.php Hooks Called: init_startup fetch_postinfo fetch_threadinfo fetch_foruminfo style_fetch cache_templates gars_ignition_start gars_ignition_end global_start blog_permissions_start blog_permissions_process blog_permissions_complete parse_templates global_setup_complete showpost_start bbcode_fetch_tags bbcode_create postbit_factory showpost_post postbit_display_start fetch_musername reputation_image bbcode_parse_start postbit_imicons bbcode_parse_complete postbit_display_complete error_fetch showpost_complete
Messages:

Action	Status	Required	Cached
canViewBlogs	true	false	false
blog	true	false	false
blogPosts	false	false	false
createBlog	false	false	false
modifyBlog	false	false	false
manageEntries	false	false	false