Blizzard's Warden Thwarted by Sony's DRM Rootkit

shotfeel writes "First, news of Warden -a bit of code from Blizzard's WoW to trounce game cheats. Then, a Sony rootkit to make your computer safe for music. Now, news that you can use the Sony rootkit to make your game cheats safe from the Warden."

Comments

Just goes to show..

[Heem]

Just goes to show that there is indeed a good use for everything.

Re:Just goes to show..

[B'Trey]

Good or bad depends on your point of view, of course. Wouldn't it be trivial to modify existing worms or viruses to take advantage of the exact same concept, hiding themselves from virus scanners?

Re:Just goes to show..

[Anonymous Coward]

A better question is, why don't Antivirus Software remove the Sony Virus(TM) in the first place?

Re:Just goes to show..

[Tim C]

No. The Sony rootkit isn't deployed in order to thwart The Warden, just like the knives in my kitchen weren't created and sold to kill humans with.

If I create something to beat The Warden, that uses Sony's rootkit to hide, then *I* am the one liable, not Sony, just like Kitchen Devil aren't liable for any psychotic killing sprees I may go on with their products.

Unfortunately.

Let's bash Sony

[LordSnooty]

OK, so I understand that Sony did a bad thing with the rootkit. But I don't immediately understand the link to Blizzard. Surely there are other "rootkits" around (think Hacker Defender) which can hide files? Why has this suddenly become a problem with the release of the Sony rootkit? Is it a case of "yes, this is definitely bad... now quick, find some way of demonstrating how bad it is!"

Do other cheat protection systems use similar methods to look for files? If so, why are they not affected? Why am I only hearing about Warcraft?

Re:Let's bash Sony

[bleckywelcky]

This is newsworthy because someone can legitimately use the Sony CD and have the rootkit installed, and then play WoW. So blizzard can't just look for signs of the rootkit and ban that account - people will be pissed for a non-legit ban. At the same time, people can do the same thing AND initiate a cheat on WoW and claim to be pissed for the same "non-legit" ban.

Re:YRO?

[Experiment 626]

Are we suddenly interested in the rights of game cheaters? Whose rights are being impacted here?

The "rights" issue is with peoples' right to listen to music they've bought without the CD compromising their system and infecting it with rootkits. This article is signifigant more as a new development in that story, than as a "a victory for the rights of online cheaters everywhere!" thing.

To underscore the point, consider that yesterday on GlobeAndMail.com, we have:

The company dismissed the prospect of hackers exploiting its rootkits for their own purposes as an "academic" concern.

I guess it isn't so academic anymore.

Only slightly OT

[Nom du Keyboard]

It should be only slightly OT to ask:

1: Why are people celebrating victory because Sony announced they will remove the cloak, they're still leaving all the rest of the crap on your system - including the memory and cpu wasting scan that runs continually, even when you're not playing their DRM infested CD's.

2: Now that the cloak is removed, what was that registry key that keeps track of how many CD's you've burned under their DRM system?

3: Don't you think you're celebrating a bit early since Warden 2.0 should be able to use the same tricks as RootKitRevealer to diagnose your system? And how long will this take to appear?

4: If you detecting and removing this software from your computer violates the DMCA, then the DMCA is so cleary wrong that it should be repealed this afternoon.

5: Profit! Or in other words, who is profiting from this now? I don't see Sony going broke yet.

This is silly

[Locke2005]

Much as I detest the Sony DRM, this is not a valid criticism of it. Anybody wanting to implement cheats will just use the same method as the Sony DRM directly to hide the cheats, not rely on the Sony DRM having been installed first! This is a flaw in Warden that is independent of the fact that the Sony DRM is a bad thing. It also points out the flaw in the anti-cheat arms race -- since you don't own your customer's machines, any anti-cheating technology you deploy can be quickly circumvented by determined individuals.