For those of you that don’t know, Sony has distributed a program called a Rootkit on all music cds. This rootkit changes your operating system. The software can be used by Sony or potentially by hackers to modify your system whenever they want to. This is way beyond just spyware.
Not only does it modify your system, but they give you no way to uninstall it. Not only is there no way to uninstall it, but if it’s on your system its invisible so you won’t even know it’s on your sytem.
Here’s an article about it:
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,69559,00.html?tw=rss.TOP
Sony dropped it: http://www.techweb.com/wire/security/173602071
All major Antivirus/Trojan Horse apps are being updated to detect and remove it.
But even as it said it would defer using XCP, Sony remained defiant. " swiftly provided a patch to all major anti-virus companies and to the general public that guards against precisely the type of virus now said to exist," Sony added in its statement.
Sony also stood by its rights to copy-protect content from digital piracy. " is an important tool to protect our intellectual property rights and those of our artists."
Think I’ll stay away from Sony products still.
I agree with you, pretty bogus move on their part. Also, for those with Macintosh, you are not immune, either. Apparently some Sony/BMG CDs have DRM software that installs on your Mac. Luckily, as with any Mac software, you have to ‘authorize’ it with administer’s name and password. So, if you put an audio CD in your Mac and you get a software install message box - beware!!!