This morning, Mark Russinovich offers the latest installment in the Sony “rootkit” saga. I’ll cut straight to the bottom line:
Instead of admitting fault for installing a rootkit and installing it without proper disclosure, both Sony and First 4 Internet claim innocence. By not coming clean they are making clear to any potential customers that they are a not only technically incompetent, but also dishonest.
First 4 Internet is the company that actually wrote the code that gets installed on your computer unwittingly if you play a “protected” Sony CD and click OK on the innocuous-sounding license box. A First 4 Internet spokesperson responded to Mark’s last post with comments that betray how dangerously clueless the company is.
In this post, Mark rips F4I’s self-serving responses to shreds. Mark proves, conclusively, that the Sony software can cause a Blue Screen of Death crash. (Check out the screen shot for yourself.) He also establishes that the company is either deliberately lying or technically incompetent. (Maybe both.) Do you want a clueless, dishonest programmer writing secret code that hooks directly into your computer’s kernel-level functions?
It’s almost time for Congressional hearings.
Background:
Sony’s even sleazier than I thought
Sony tries to stop the bleeding
Ed Bott 
Latest Issue of Langa List discusses this Sony outrage:
http://langa.com/newsletters/2005/2005-11-07.htm
http://langa.com/newsletters/2005/2005-11-07.htm#7
“Hostile and aggressive copy protection has always, always, always backfired on the vendors using it. Example: Lotus1-2-3 was once one of the most widely used pieces of software in the world.”
I cannot stand Sony. For anyone who ever owned or used one of there MD players, we know that Sony has no concern for the coustomer whatsoever. For way to long Sony has been riding on the undeserving reputation of there products. I have been a Panasonic fan for many years and I have proven again aand again that there products, service and support are leeps and bounds beyond Sony. I have not bought a Sony product in since I gave them the benefit of the doubt and perchased a MD player which I would later ,quickly regret. I wish that Sony would just fade to nonexistance. It is terably unfortunate that for so many years Sony has done so well powered not by quality but by missinformation and status symbol driven by the same ignorant yuppies that bought the IPod before they even knew what the hell it was.
%$#& You Sony. I don’t buy your cheap, overrated, electronics, and likely never will. ATTRAC, pfff, What a joke.
The sharks are circling: http://www.classcounsel.com/
At the bottom of the page they aer looking for people that might have bee affected.
Lotus 123 failed for far more reasons. One of which was they waited until Excel had the windows market sewed up until they had a windows version. Then it was too late. Thats one of the biggest ones.
Is there a Sony email some where that I can use to send Sony an email to tell them about what I think about their rootKit;
It’s trespass by putting something on a computer without permission. It’s spyware if it reports back without telling what it’s sending and why.
With the suggestion that malware makers may hijack and use the Sony rootKit for their own purposes, it’s time for virus detectors to be upgraded to remove all Sony rootKits from every machine.
Why bother e-mailing Sony? They have proven time and time again that coustomer appealls and consumer oppinions are of little concern to them. Its time to stop e-mailing Sony and start doing what people who know better have been doing for years already. Stop buying Sony’s crappy products.
It’s still an analog world. Play the Sony CD with DRM software on an ordinary home stereo “component” CD player, run the analog left+right channel signals into your computer’s sound card, and record the tracks at standard CD sample rates. Assemble the tracks as a homebrew CD-R, then listen and copy at will. With a reasonably good CD player and sound card, you and your friends won’t be able to hear the difference from the original.
Sony and other media producers should stop treating their public like idiots. If one can hear it or see it, one can make a copy of it in the analog domain.