DRM Take Two: The Sony Rootkit

A few weeks ago I wrote up a little piece on DRM and how it means A.) You don't actually own anything you buy when that that thing has DRM B.) How this costs you more money than actually owning it (and doesn't stop copyright infringers from getting things for free, or even slow them down)

Last week a major DRM story broke, when it was reveal the Sony used a "root kit" as part of their DRM on certain CDs. Root kits are normally use by black hat hackers, to maintain control of systems they've broken into. The kits prevent you from knowing that your machine has been broken into, and what your machine is doing on behalf of the hackers.

And this is exactly what Sony's drm software did it did. When you popped the CD into you're CDROM drive, on a windows box, it asked you if you wanted to install their music software (which is the only way to listen to this disk on a Windows box). When you clicked yes, it also installed a hidden program to monitor all usage of your CD drive and prevent you from using it to rip the CD. But the program that was doing this, altered windows so you wouldn't even know it existed, or that it was running. What's worse if you did manage to find it -- a very difficult task indeed, as almost all virus scanners are fooled, as is Windows itself -- when you remove it, it intentionally disables your CD drive. It does so so thoroughly that a reinstall of windows is the easiest way to fix the problem.

These are not the tactics of ethical people. These are not the tools of the good guys. And this is the way DRM works, sinking from one unethical low, to new even deeper depths.

If you want to track this story further watch this site.

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