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Hackers really have had their way with Sony over the past year, taking down its Playstation Network last Christmas Day and creating an international incident by exposing confidential data from Sony Pictures Entertainment in response to The Interview comedy about a planned assassination on North Korea's leader. Some say all this is karmic payback for what's become known as a seminal moment in malware history: Sony BMG sneaking rootkits into music CDs 10 years ago in the name of digital rights management. "In a sense, it was the first thing Sony did that made hackers love to hate them," says Bruce Schneier, CTO for incident response platform provider Resilient Systems in Cambridge, Mass.
Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure, the Helsinki-based security company that was an early critic of Sony's actions, adds: "Because of stunts like the music rootkit and suing Playstation jailbreakers and emulator makers, Sony is an easy company to hate for many. I guess one lesson here is that you really don't want to make yourself a target.
[...] Noted tech activist Cory Doctorow, writing for Boing Boing earlier this month, explains that some vendors had their reasons for not exposing the Sony rootkit right away. "Russinovich was not the first researcher to discover the Sony Rootkit, just the first researcher to blow the whistle on it. The other researchers were advised by their lawyers that any report on the rootkit would violate section 1201 of the DMCA, a 1998 law that prohibits removing 'copyright protection' software. The gap between discovery and reporting gave the infection a long time to spread."
[...] The non-profit Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) has been calling attention to the Sony BMG rootkit's 10th anniversary, urging the masses to "Make some noise and write about this fiasco" involving DRM. The FSFE, seeing DRM as an anti-competitive practice, refers to the words behind the acronym as digital restriction management rather than the more common digital rights management. In a blog post on FSFE's website, the group states: "Despite the fallout of Sony's rootkit experiment, 10 years later restrictions on users' personal property are more prevalent than ever. Restrictions are commonly found in legitimately purchased ebooks, video game hardware, and all manner of proprietary software. It has even found ways into our cars and coffee machines."
We remember the rootkit:
Historical posts below by Bruce Schneier, blog posts which contain a vast resource of information shared by his open community in which anyone can post - more technical and polite than most discussion forums!
November 1: Sony Secretly Installs Rootkit on Computers
November 11: More on Sony's DRM Rootkit
November 15: Still More on Sony's DRM Rootkit
November 17: Sony's DRM Rootkit: The Real Story
November 21: The Sony Rootkit Saga Continues
Old Slashdot stories on the topic:
October 31: Sony DRM Installs a Rootkit?
November 7: Sony Rootkit Phones Home
November 10: California Class Action Suit Sony Over Rootkit DRM
New Slashdot Story: Revisiting the Infamous Sony BMG Rootkit Scandal 10 Years Later
[Editor's Note: Check the Original Submission for additional links.]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Sunday November 01 2015, @06:03PM
Good enough for you? Seriously? Why? A pittance of money from the recall was sufficient punishment?
Dude, you sound like a corporate apologist saying that finances made them see what was wrong and what was right, and that's a perfectly acceptable substitution for regulators, handcuffs, and prison sentences.
Corporations are not people, and some *people* from Sony over 10 years ago knowingly, and actively pushed malware onto consumer systems. Were it anyone else , the government would have made an example and put them in prison.
What do you think would have happened to you?
Hope my butt. As long as they continue to get away with no prison sentences, and no loss of profits that impact their golden parachutes, you will see zero change. The myth that the market corrects anything is exactly that. A myth.
I don't hope. I actively seek and support the complete and utter destruction of the Sony empire, the scattering of their assets and IP to the wind, and dolling every executives lips up with rosy red lipstick and throwing in them in prison where they can service their new exclusive customer: Prison Husband.
I needed to print pictures yesterday for a funeral and had no time. I spent time and money I didn't have just so I didn't use the Sony picture station at Kinko's IIRC, and went to Wallgreen's instead. Never bought a single thing for BluRay.
I have no hope for justice, and that's about all we can do, which is boycott Sony. Sounds like you forgave them because they have shiny product you wanted? That's what today reminds me of. It doesn't matter how cool the product or service is from Sony, you don't negotiate and support terrorists.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @02:25AM
While you were at Walgreens, I hope you picked up some Preparation H to deal with your butthurt.