Nasty Rootkit on Sony CDs

Proof the Sony rootkit "phones home" once installed on your PC:
www.doxpara.com/?q=sony
And even if you uninstall it in the way Sony approve, it leaves your machine in a vulnerable state:
searchsecurity.techtarget.com/originalCo...NL-102&ad=534063
So Sony recalls the CDs:
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4441928.stm
Is that the nearest we're going to get to an apology?

Have you guys seen the wired.com article on how many DNS servers have those URLs that the rootkit phones home with in their cache? It's ridiculous how far spread it is, especially in the U.S. and U.K.

wired-vig.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,69573,00.html

Yeah I read the article. Very interesting method of determining the extent of the distribution of "phone-home" type scumware.

And you thought Sony was the only company with invasive DRM. It turns out that Electronic Arts includes DRM on some of its game CDs that makes the games unplayable if you’re running CD emulation software, such as Fantom CD Emulator or Alcohol 120%. In order to run the games, you need to quit the offending software. EA’s actions seem designed to make it harder for users to copy the company’s games, but there are plenty of legitimate uses for emulation software, such as allowing a game or other product to run more quickly in an emulated CD drive than it might in your hardware drive, or simply to reduce wear-and-tear on the CD drive. It seems that EA, like Sony, has decided to assume its customers are pirates, and has provided an inept and troublesome way to express that assumption.

Source: www.engadget.com/entry/1234000937068099/

know that the game F.E.A.R also had that kind of protection, but i doubt that its going to stay legal.
Like th article says, emulators are used alot of legitimate purposes. I don't like the looks of this....

Cheers...

~Pranav

Sony BMG announced it was recalling millions of music CDs with copy protection software that experts said could expose personal computers to viruses and hackers.

news.inq7.net/infotech/index.php?index=1&story_id=56824

Hey Dalight, that's the most brilliant description I've heard in a long time. I think we have defining moment in history here for Firewall.cx - the site where the term SCUMWARE was first coined!
And what a perfect description it is for this type of, well.. Scumware