Don't Buy Sony Music CDs -- Installs rootkits

Here are some good questions, I'd like to see some answers to them:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11...drm_questions/

Well... I'm very disappointed about CounterSpy's official posture on this issue as well. Below is a direct quote I received from the inquiry:

We cannot do anything at this time and I have not been given an
official
word on when or if we will be supporting this.

Warm Regards,

Jamie L. Hudson MCP XP
Consumer Support Technician

Doesn't inspire a lot of confidence, does it?

Well, my feeling is that CounterSpy is doing the best they can, given the constraints of their lawyers. Even though we all agree that Sony went about this as wrong as wrong can be (given their approach and fix to this mess), the software in question was/is still a Digital Rights Management program. And there are laws in the USA (the DMCA being chief among them) that give content owners broad protection. And removal of DRM software carries penalties that companies like CounterSpy don't want to bear. So, sadly, they are just being cautious.

(Personally, I hope Sony takes a major bath over this. I don't condone illegal copying and so forth but my PC is still (at least for the moment) my PC. I place on it what I want. Not Sony!)

finally!

there was a story on the TODAY SHOW (on NBC in usa) about sony's rootkit. maybe more (non-techie) infected people will be aware of the reason for their problem.

the big downside was that the reporter ended the story telling viewers to go to sony's site for help removing this software.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nix

It's now 14,800,000

---

Huh now it's dropped back to 13,800,000 for sony rootkit and 13,000,000 for sony +rootkit and 1,900,000 for sony rootkits and 1,840,000 for sony +rootkits

How can the figures have dropped ?

People losing interest and removing it from their web pages ?

Nix,

Were you using the Google search engine for all searches?

If you were not using Google, then what search engine were you using?

I just did a Google search on "Sony rootkit" and got

14,700,000.

Cheers,

Linda

;) :rolleyes: :cool:

Results of about 4,500,000 English pages for "Sony rootkit".
from Google at 2:45 pm eastern time. usa.

seems to be quite a big fluctuation.....?

I'm typing sony rootkit with no quotes, capitals or anything, hitting search and get 13,800,000

This is the link after the search is complete http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...it&btnG=Search

I'm very perplexed.

Maybe it's cached on a server somewhere ?

rootkit sony got me 13,900,000

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...ny&btnG=Search

This is really very strange. I just did a Google search on Sony rootkit and got 13,800,000.

BTW, all of the searches were done with Google with no quotes and only the s of sony was capitalized.

The only thing that I can figure is that the searches are hitting different servers.

I would love to find out what is really going on.

Cheers,

Linda

;) :rolleyes: :cool:

interesting development ...

my niece just wrote me to say "I received a cd in the mail this weekend, it's on EMI (capital) and when I put it into my computer, it tells me to agree to some stuff and it downloads software or something. It completely scared me and I'm not sure if I should or shouldn't."

anyone know if EMI has this same thing going?

I googled EMI Rootkit and got over 300K hits. This is the first link shown, which says NO, EMI doesn't use rootkit, from CNet:
http://news.com.com/EMI+We+dont+use+...3-5937108.html

IMHO if she can listen to the cd without downloading any "stuff", then do that....does it say what 'stuff' will be downloaded?..

A lot of labels have DRM software on them While they aren't all as bad as the Sony rootkit, a lot of them are still nasty in their own way. Personally I wouldn't allow a DRM infected CD anywhere near my PC's.

Gee,,,,seems like Mickeysoft is deeply involved in DRM. Is it not?

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...a/drm/faq.aspx

There is a software update from MS that I chose not to download some time ago because of the DRM.

"Microsoft Windows XP
"Update for WMDRM-enabled Media Players (KB902344)
Download size: 614 KB , 2 minutes
Install this update on your PC if you use a portable device that accesses subscription media content protected by Windows Media Digital Rights Management. After you install this update, you may have to restart your computer. Details... "

Did this DRM upgrade apply just to XP?

I'm asking because I have W2K.

I just checked in Windows Update and I do not show a separate update with an associated KB article ....2344. I also checked to see if there were any updates waiting to be installed and there were none.

This upgrade was released in June 2005. Here is the link for the KB article on this.

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;902344

It appears from this article that DRM is built into some portable media players and that this was a firmware upgrade for these portable players. This is not the same thing as putting a rootkit on your PC.

I am not a media player expert but this is my take based on reading this KB article.

Comments.........

Cheers,

Linda

;) :rolleyes: :cool: