[Wylug-help] Re:OT Sony spyware - was linux laptop

[Paul Hardy]

<snip> Sony tend to
>> be quirky (plus I will not buy from a company that deliberately
>> distributes spywre).
>>


I'm surprised by this and Mischa's comments.  I know this is drifting
OT, but
I'd appreciate it if either of you could elaborate.
================

Hi Gary,


    To put it briefly, Sony BMG included a DRM system on recent music
CDs which installed a rootkit on Win computers. When this was discovered
they apparently denied the scale and importance of what they had done,
and offered a patch which actually didn't remove it but made it less
detectable. The whole thing has been a PR disaster for them; some of the
code in the DRM may be taken from an open source product! Here are a
couple of blogs covering it.

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/17/sony_rootkit_roundup.html

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/11/sonys_drm_rootk.html

Hope this helps,

Paul Hardy
Wakefield UK