Comments on: Sony's antipiracy may end up on antivirus hit lists

Security software makers consider adding protection against the cloaking tool in Sony's anticopying technology.

[Piercan]

Sony's ineptware

When powerful companies behave like criminals, they should be taken to court and made to pay the heaviest possible price. Their software should be banned and their products boycotted until they give the world an example of integrity. Otherwise, how could we fight hackers and pirates?

[Russell McOrmond]

Sony had a malicious intent!

It is important to remember that DRM doesn't stop people from infringing copyright as the DRM is always trivial for a technical person to remove. This harmful rootkit only infects the computers of law abiding citizens, not copyright infringers. I disagree with some of the security professionals that suggested that Sony's intent is not malicious intent, given the intent of Sony's software and other malware is to take control of a personal computer away from its owner.

If you can't trust the owner of a computer to be in control of that computer to the point you will infect them with malware, then there is something wrong with what *YOU* are doing, not the computer owner.

[Mendz]

Sony is Appalling!

Read this: http://www.grc.com/sn/SN-012.htm. Or listen to the podcast linked in the same page. Sony is agreeably appalling! They should've been more responsible.

[arluthier]

Providing a Method for Criminals

From what I can deduce from this whole thing...

Sony has laid the ground work for criminals discover a point to gain access to your computer or to use your computer as a zombie. So in escence, Sony has given criminals a tool that may be used for criminal activity. While Sony may not have intended for it to be used for criminal activity... that may become one of the uses. Since customers were not aware that it was there in the first place they might not be aware that their computer has become a tool of criminals.

Hmmmm does that sound anything like what Sony, RIAA, MPAA, and the like, said about Napster, Grokster, Morpheous, etc? The only difference is that the P2P community had at that time been used for illegal activity... now we just have to wait for someone to get hacked using Sony's rootkit.

But unlike the lawsuits by RIAASONYMPAA, where they received millions in damages, and threatened citizens with jail, I am sure that the people that were affected by the rootkit will end up with a 75 cent coupon for a Sony music CD.

[tony7896]

Sony's rootkit removal tool is not sufficient

Sony has supplied a utility to help us deal with the cloaked rootkit software that its CDs install, however at this point I'd prefer to take my chances of being infected by the new viruses that the Sony software enables than run the new utility from Sony.

At this point I just don't trust them, and in addition I've read in the Register that the Sony utility appears to be hastily and poorly written, and can cause system instability and possibly system damage, so now I definitely won't run it.

If Sony is sincere about undoing the damage that it has done it must work with anti-virus vendors to help them create updates that will safely and effectively remove the cloaked software and any viruses that it has hidden.

I'll trust Norton or McAffee to handle the problem if this is done, but I'll never trust software from Sony again.

Tony Rogers

[XcentricGT]

Linux Friendly?

Will Sony's DRM copyright software be Linux compatible? And if it is not, will a listener be able to use a Sony cd on their computers? There are too many flaws in the theory of copy protection. In essence, most of the software on the market that works on a mac/win platform will not work with linux systems. If there is no availability for linux then there are going to be political problems. Besides, if it is available on a linux system, everyone knows that linux users are VERY security conscious. No one will stand for it!
But that is just my opinion --Eric