Sony using Spyware?

[EvilMonkey]

http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/10/s...tal-rights.html

 

Long read, very technical read. To nutshell it, Sony has some anti-copying technology on some CD's that install what amounts to Spyware, using the same techniques and programs as the bad guys do. The EULA doesn't mention this, and if found, basic removal can cripple your system. I can see class action lawyers goin crazy on this, if they can understand it.

[southsideirish71]

http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/10/s...tal-rights.html

 

Long read, very technical read.  To nutshell it, Sony has some anti-copying technology on some CD's that install what amounts to Spyware, using the same techniques and programs as the bad guys do.  The EULA doesn't mention this, and if found, basic removal can cripple your system.  I can see class action lawyers goin crazy on this, if they can understand it.

 

 

Hence why I use Linux for most of my day to day stuff. If stuff like this doesnt scare people watch the microsoft genuine software movement and what they drop on a persons machine. At my work we have locked down every users PC so they cannot install anything, but now I just installed a Juniper IPS to strip out spyware in flight to keep the amount of crap that people pick up and install through IE "features".

 

Just another reason to read and understand the EULA. Everyone just scrolls down and clicks the agree button, without understanding that they are agreeing to have some sort of trojan dumped on their system. But when people dont disclose things like this, its a lawyers wet dream. You are right, lawsuits are a coming on this.

[EvilMonkey]

http://news.com.com/Week+in+review+Sonys+s..._3-5959672.html

 

Week in review: Sony's sour note

By Steven Musil

Staff Writer, CNET News.com

 

Published: November 18, 2005, 10:18 AM PST

Sony BMG Music Entertainment finds itself singing the blues this week, after copy protection on many of its CDs struck a sour note on fans' PCs.

 

The record label will recall millions of CDs that, if played in a consumer's PC disc drive, will expose the computer to serious security risks. Anyone who has purchased one of the CDs, which include southern rockers Van Zant, Neil Diamond's latest album and more than 18 others, can exchange the purchase. The company added that it would release details of its CD exchange program "shortly."

 

Sony's software, installed when playing one of the record label's recent copy-protected CDs in a computer, hides itself on hard drives using a powerful programming tool called a "rootkit." But the tool leaves the door open behind it, allowing other software--including viruses--to be deeply hidden behind the rootkit cloak.

 

Sony reported that over the past eight months, it shipped more than 4.7 million CDs with the so-called XCP copy protection. More than 2.1 million of those discs have been sold.

 

News of Sony's copy protection problems incensed some CNET News.com readers. "These companies will do anything to stop people from copying their CDs...including making people so afraid to even use a CD, for fear of it destroying their PCs, that no one will buy a copy-protected disc again," wrote Philip Brooks in News.com's TalkBack forum. "Who do they think they are benefiting? It would seem to me that this fiasco will only encourage music pirates. Bravo, Sony!"

 

 

"This nightmare makes it rather clear that Sony doesn't really care about customers, not only in the way they want to spy on you (and open the door to your pc for any hacker) but rather in the way the handled the whole situation."

--Ki Ji

 

Sony BMG took another blow when a security company said it has found malicious attacks based on software designed to defuse the record label's "rootkit" problems. Websense's security labs reported that it has discovered several Web sites designed to exploit security flaws in a rootkit uninstaller program issued by Sony BMG.

 

Websense has uncovered only a couple of Web sites set up to attack flaws in the initial uninstall program, and the damage they cause appears to be minimal so far. One of them, hosted in the United States, simply restarts infected computers.

 

Microsoft plans to update its security tools to detect and remove part of those copy protection tools after determining that the "rootkit" can pose a security risk to Windows PCs.

 

To protect Windows users, Microsoft plans to update Windows AntiSpyware and the Malicious Software Removal Tool, as well as the online scanner on Windows Live Safety Center, to detect and remove the Sony BMG software.