Sony Rootkit Case "Exposed"

Article Title: Sony Settles Secret Spyware Suit
Author: By Keith Regan (E-Commerce Times)

One may or may not have followed this story, so let me sum it up. Sony released a selection of CDs from about a dozen artists or so with some nasty rootkit software on it. This software was designed to control the content of the CD by restricting use of the content. Users could only rip the CD to their computer if it was encoded with special Sony DRM. Additionally, the software would report information back to Sony. While this is clearly anoying spyware and severly locked down DRM, this wasn't what Sony got in trouble for. They key issue was how the software installed itself. For those familiar with rootkits, they go in with the Windows operating system files. In some cases Sony's software would canibalize or damage critical Windows files. For this reason, Micro$oft actually declared that the rootkit was a virus anda threat to Windows. They even released a patch to fix the damage. Contributing to this nastiness, the user wasn't even given a choice. Once the CD went in the drive, this software would install automatically.

I can't say how happy I am that Sony got reamed for this. What the hell were they thinking? What corp exec actually let this stuff go to production? This is a great example of why we as consumers must be AWARE or what we are buying and who we are buying it from. Capitalism thrives best when consumers keep companies in line. We can't sit around and buy whatever is on the shelf these days. Consumer demands should drive what goes to market. Your wallet is your loudest voice, and you should use it responsibly for both positive and negative reinforcement.

A note to the author about his hyped-up headline title...Keith, I hope you don't think it actually took detective work to "uncover" this story. I have been following this story via the techie community since Sony's spyware was first discovered. There was actually a small scale ban on Sony and their record labels during the summer of 2006. This ended after Sony stopped producing CDs with the spyware, though some were still laced with tubby DRM. This law suite against Sony is just now ending, but as I recall it was a pretty big to do when it first started.

peace.