Re: [SLUG] Sony, Rootkits and DRM

From: Paul M Foster (paulf@quillandmouse.com)
Date: Tue Nov 01 2005 - 16:42:28 EST


On Tue, Nov 01, 2005 at 12:13:32PM -0800, William Coulter wrote:

> I have posted this message to a few other user groups but I wanted to here
> your take on this.
> This is scary stuff here. I am glad that I use linux. I don't have to
> put up with this kind of
> crap.
>
> http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/10/sony-rootkits-and-digital-rights.html
>

Don't be too hasty. This kind of thing could easily happen under Linux.
As more an more people flock to Linux, there will be more and more
opportunities for companies to write proprietary (uninspected) software
which will run on it. Unsuspecting users from the Windows world will
consider it normal to simply insert a CD and tell it to install its
software. And there you have it, the exact same situation the author
detailed. In fact, without some alertness, this could even happen to
people who run Linux routinely. When was the last time you checked MD5
sums when downloading and installing software on a Linux box? Did you
check for advisories that indicate the server you downloaded from might
have been compromised? It's happened before.

I think what's more important is the threat to Windows users. Consider
the expertise of the guy writing this article. I know Linux _far_ better
than I know Windows, and if this type of thing had happened on my Linux
box, I'd have been lost. The majority of Windows users have nowhere near
this expertise. So they'd be stuck. They'd never know there was poorly
written DRM software on their system, which would be there forever. And
what would happen the next time they bought a DRM-protected CD? What
would its software do to the DRM software already there? What effects
would it have on their system overall? They couldn't even go into Safe
Mode and fix it, since the drivers were loaded there as well.

This is a deeply dishonest way of writing DRM software, and as one
poster mentioned, it qualifies as spyware under one definition. Given
that, it shouldn't be too hard to convince someone that this is an
offense worth suing over. At the very least, Sony could be made to scrap
this malware and come up with something else (perhaps equally poorly
written and underhanded).

Morals:

1) Don't ever by copy-protected CDs.
2) If you're going to run Windows, acquire the same level of expertise
this guy has.
3) Fight DRM. Whatever that means to you.

Paul

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