After pushing the concept of DRM too far, I urge everyone to boycott Sony.
If you haven’t heard what they have been doing with their “copy proctected disks”, then a few of read these:
The Register: First Trojan Found Exploiting Sony’s Code
The Register: Radio Interview by Sony Exec.
The Register: Original Story
BBC
Sony have yet to even admit they are in the wrong, or even aplogise.
The attitude of one of their executives?
“Most people, I think, don’t even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?”
Why should you care about it?
I disagree with DRM full stop. Every single track on my computer is bought from itunes. Paid for, completely, no illegal music for me TYVM.
Yet, I am restricted to what I can copy it to.
If I want it on a mobile device, I have to either buy an iPod, or copy it to a CD, then put it on my existing player, taking time and money to be able to use something that I have already paid for.
To then find out that if I buy certain tracks, what is basically a particularly vicious computer virus will be installed on my computer, without my consent, let alone my knowledge, is beyond unnacceptable.
On top of this, because of the way Sony’s rootkit works, a file given a filename starting with “$sys$” will be completely invisible to the computer.
That includes Virus Scanners, anti-Spyware tools, and, if you play any MMORPG’s, anti-cheating devices.
A trojan has already been written to exploit this. If it were to infect you, there would be no way to detect it, and no way to remove it easily.
So, once again, boycott Sony, at least until they rethink their policy.
