Free rootkit with SONY copy protected CDs

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Corin
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Location: Cents, Letzeubuerg

Evidence has been uncovered that SONY are distributing a root kit installing (on to Windoze operating systems) CD player package with their copy protected CDs.

<http://www.sysinternals.COM/blog/2005/1 ... ights.html>
Feynman: "String theorists do not make predictions, they make excuses."
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Bail
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Location: UK

Would you care to define for the not to computer literate/nerdy what a "root kit thing" is?
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Dr Lobster*
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From theregister.co.uk:

A 'root kit' generally refers to the nefarious malware used by hackers to gain control of a system. A root kit has several characteristics: it finds its way onto systems uninvited; endeavors to remain undetected; and then may either intercept system library routines and reroute them to its own routines, or replace system executables with its own, or both - all with the intention of gaining system level ownership of the computer.

If you read that blog you'll be pretty amazed. I had a similar thing happen to with a Faithless CD I brought a year or so ago which installed something without me knowing. It stopped me from writing CD's until I did a system restore.
Corin
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Dr Lobster wrote:I had a similar thing happen to with a Faithless CD I brought a year or so ago
Was it a SONY label or another distributor?

So would you agree that the safest thing for people to do is to turn off the "AUTOPLAY on CD insertion" capability?
Feynman: "String theorists do not make predictions, they make excuses."
Dr Lobster*
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Corin wrote:
Dr Lobster wrote:I had a similar thing happen to with a Faithless CD I brought a year or so ago
Was it a SONY label or another distributor?

So would you agree that the safest thing for people to do is to turn off the "AUTOPLAY on CD insertion" capability?
i don't recall which label it was released under, but i do remember that i was able to rip it the usual way once i'd removed the dodgy ASPI driver.

i think you need to be very careful about leaving autoplay enabled - this faithless cd didn't so much as popup a dialog box. i remember being quite annoyed at the time because it took a good half hour to diagnose and fix the problem, which was quite unnecessary. i wouldn't have minded so much if it had displayed a prompt telling me EXACTLY what it was going to do, but it didnt.
Cheese Head
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Oh but you do get a little logo right at the bottom. or if your extra lucky, you get small print.

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MarkN
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Corin wrote:
Dr Lobster wrote:I had a similar thing happen to with a Faithless CD I brought a year or so ago
Was it a SONY label or another distributor?
"Cheeky Records" - part of Sony BMG
Skytower
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Article on BBC News: Sony slated over anti-piracy CD
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martindtanderson
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Just another argument for avoiding the stupid record labels.
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