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Bad Day To Be Sony
Not only is Sony no longer selling the RootKit CDs, Arend writes "According to a USAToday article, Sony is to pull their controversial rootkit CDs from store shelves." A nice gesture, but a little late. bos writes "Sony's DRM rootkit has been found by Dan Kaminsky to have infected at least half a million networks, according to an article by Quinn Norton for Wired News. Dan has even put together some pretty pictures of the breadth of the infection." With so many people infected, it's unfortunate that wiredog writes "From The Washington Post comes the news that serious security flaws have been found in the software that Sony is distributing to users who want to remove the Sony rootkit. The article says: 'Because of the way the tool is configured ... it allows any Web page that the user subsequently visits to download, install and run any code that it likes.'" Oops. Even Microsoft is getting into the act. ares284 writes "Microsoft said it would remove controversial copy-protection software that CDs from music publisher Sony BMG install on personal computers, deeming it a security risk to PCs running on Windows."
I'm not a "boycott!!!" kind of guy. When I was younger I used to be, but no one ever stuck to it. This "error in judgement" is definitely something that I am adding to my (really small) short list of company-groups I won't buy from. I already won't buy CDs without the "CD" logo. I won't buy Sony TVs or receivers for the last 4 years because of their terrible support policies. I won't buy anything from Menard's either. And now Sony music CDs are permanently out.
How do those who are active boycotters stick to it? Do you actively pursue telling others, or is it just a "one person, one dollar, one vote" kind of life lead?
I could care less if other people want to support Sony artists or Sony products. All mercantilistic (using government to acquire wealth) corporations are bad, but that doesn't mean that every business is bad. Sony has actually been one of the least mercantilistic corporation I've tracked over the years, but their releasing of items without proper quality control is what kills them time and again.
And I believe that is the problem with this rootkit. Sony didn't test it properly. If they had tested it properly and kept it within its own little world on a customer's PC, I don't think the fallout would have been so excessive. They didn't test the product, they relied on the customers to do so. Luckily for Sony, the customers weren't happy and were vocal about it.
That is the free market at work. People unhappy about a company or a product have much more of a voice with the web being so readily available. The more the Internet allows billions of citizens to align on different issues, the more we'll see that a free market "democracy" is better than a democracy built around the use of force.
Vote with your dollars.
To have Microsoft call you on your bad business practices...
I'd like to thank the fine folks at Sony for helping me decide which next-generation gaming console to buy (hint: It doesn't begin with the letter "P" or end in a "3"). It's a sad state of affairs when Microsoft has to come to the rescue and un-fsck your security blunders.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
I'm all in favour of letting the average person know the truth behind what content distributors are willing to do to protect "their" property.
Let us hope that people find out about DRMs before they saturate the market any further.
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
The DRM WANTS to be free!
Do not confuse "Freedom of Choice" with "Free Will".
you should have tried $sys$fp. Then see if the moderators would have caught you. Oh well...
Read the comments for this protected disc by Van Zant on the Sony label.
,br>OUCH.
Trolling is a art,
Looks like Sony crossed the threshold from nuisance to crime. While DOJ is almost certainly going to soft-pedal this, a savvy attorney general with political ambitions from a state unencumbered by Hollywood and the RIAA could probably ride this case into the governor's office....
"Paging Eliot Spitzer, Paging Eliot Spitzer, Mr. Spitzer white courtesy phone..."
What a strange bird is the pelican, his beak can hold more than his belly can.
The Brotherhood of NOD has taken over 75% of the United States!
So we have a vulnerability on machines that was pushed out intentionally by somebody. We know who that somebody is.
The question is, will they get punished for this by the authorities? The FBI and police seem to be happy to jail writers of virii or worms or those who spread vulnerabilities to unsuspecting systems. Why shouldn't the product manager responsible for this pay for his crime of making the nations computers even more insecure?
Considering the rootkit is installed without owners realistically being aware, doesn't that make it equivalent to a form of worm, virus, or other type of nasty?
I seriously believe that someone should be doing jail time for this. Such a punishment would make any other malfeasants think twice before thinking that they don't have to obey the law.
Go to http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/ or http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/english/form14.html
...since Sony says over 2 million disks containing the rootkit have been sold, that puts them under the gun for roughly U.S. $150 billion in damages :)
Where it asks for the Artists name type in some diatribe
Where it asks for the Album Title, type in more diatribe
Where it asks for Store Name, type in yet even more diatribe
Where it asks for email address try something that will cause them trouble such as uce@ftc.gov or some chronic antispammer advocate.
This will hopefully force Sony to make the "patch directly downloadable."
Perhaps the copyright owners could offer to settle: have Sony repay all of the people who have been extorted for money because of filesharing (double for damages), and promise to stop all such activities in the future. That would only run them about $100 million, so it would be quite a deal.
I suggest people consider boycotting _all_ RIAA member labels, not just Sony. They just happened to be the fools who fell for this particular version. It's not hte implementation that's anathema, it's the concept of DRM. When in doubt, consult RIAA Radar. Don't buy discs produced by RIAA members, it't that simple.
.nosig
Why hasn't Sony been raided by the Feds, yet?
... break into their offices, confiscate every single piece of electronics and CD in the place, and never give them back, ever (or at least, not until years after you've replaced everything).
If this had been an individual, or small business, you know they would already be behind bars awaiting trial for violating some law or another... possibly even being brought up on some sort of national security-related charges.
( Someone in a secure/top secret/classified government network has probably stuck one of these CDs into their machine at some point.)
I want to know why the Feds aren't treating Sony like they would anyone else
I'm a music nut. I've tried the boycott thing with mixed results. But what has "worked" for me lately is buying CDs and vinyl second hand. Unfortunately, They may already have the money from the original purchase of the music, but if you buy second hand, someone gets money and you get a CD or record and the RIAA partners get nothing.
Why yes I am paranoid! Thanks for asking!
Now that I have already got GTA: Liberty City Stories for my PSP.
From Sony regarding the XCP CD received today in an email: Sony has already addressed the issue of the security concerns via the Service Pack 2 update on our website. According to the terms of the EULA that you agreed to when first installing our software, you agreed to obtain and install any recommended updates. All major security vendors have and Microsoft have announced that the installation of the SP2 update removes their concerns over the original technology used on our CDs. Sony BMG does not offer a refund/return program for this product.
I just found the website claiming to lead the charge http://www.boycottsony.us/ in the boycott.
I've been including information I think is important about the Sony case on my blog too since the story broke, but other sites have much more detail. I just try to break it down so the average joe knows what's going on if their brain turns off at acronyms like DRM.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
... for a political maneuver where you first propose something so outrageous that it's sure to get shot down, and then withdraw the proposal and advance something only slightly less outrageous? Like, let's say Senator Boughtandpaidfor introduces a bill requiring the death penalty for anyone who cracks a copy-protected CD, and when that gets the desired uproar, he says, "Oh, okay, let's compromise and make it fifty years in prison instead" -- and that bill passes because it's more "reasonable."
Which makes me wonder what Sony's got coming next.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
this....
Disclaimer: In case those lawyers from Sony is not being work to death right now from all those demage lawsuit- I am joking.
Seriously - if some company hires a hitman to do illegal stuff they get in trouble. Why can Sony hack my network without any repercusions.
Sony really screwed the pooch on this one.
;)
They actually got the Department of Homeland Security to denounce them. I knew it had to be good for something
The great thing about all of this is that now that the Feds are aware of this evil DRM bullshit, they will start regulating it a little better. As it stands now, the DMCA basically give all the media companies "carte blanche" with regards to copy-protection schemes.
That's a clear DMCA violation.
If DVD John gets in trouble for less, surely whomever at Microsoft decided to do this should suffer the same.
Download them from the net. It's much safer. ;)
"I would like to point out that at Sony's size, the different divisions have little or nothing to do with each other."
They're associated well enough to have the name "SONY" branded on them. Good enough for me.
>I study at last(sic) 40 hours a week the various documents that help me reinforce the views I hold dear to me. ...
Am I the only one who saw that as a disturbing statement? You spend 40 hours a week, which amounts to having a second job (I'm assuming that you're employed based on your previous statements) reinforcing your own point of view. I've met religious fanatics who don't spend that much time reading their religious scripture. Literally, you claim to be spending more time with whatever literature supports your views than a fundie does with a bible.
First off, if you wanted an informed opinion, wouldn't reading the opposition make more sense? If I want to know the full story about something, I find info from both sides, I don't just take the side I agree with as automatically infallable. Second, why the need to "reinforce" those things you already beleive? Sounds a bit too much like brainwashing for me - certainly if someone else was shoving their point of view down your throat that's the word I would use.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
About the only way DRM will be tamed (I think, in the long run, it will be eliminated completely, but that will take people completely rethinking intellectual "property" as a lega concept) is if it intereferes or damages an average person's system. That is perhaps the biggest "problem" with DRM - its many failure modes usually screw you out of your content - or in this case, screw up your system. And it's a great, wonderful problem, because all we need are a few more screw-ups like this, and average people will start to associate "DRM" with "Sucks/Breaks" and avoid it like the plauge.
Go Sony! Do it again!
Let's look at this from the stockholder's point of view, as well as the customer's. If that type of conflict of interest exists between Sony's divisions, then that is telling me that management is *not* maximising shareholder value because the music division is harming the Playstation division by reducing the utility of the Playstation console.
That tells me that the only way to increase shareholder value is to break Sony into at least two companies: the entertainment division and the electronics division. Each division will then float on its own merits without impeding the other.
In a nutshell, we can add Sony's own *shareholders* to the list of people that are getting screwed by the management. My prediction? Look for a shareholder suit against the Board of Directors within 3 years to break Sony into two companies.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
These CDs have been out since mid-2004, according to Sony. Why hasn't this been noticed? Were they all bought off?
This is what really disturbs me. Not "What was Sony thinking?" -- businesses can be really stupid. Not "How could they do this?" -- businesses can be really evil. Shit happens. Get over it. Bad security happens, whatever.
However, I did have some trust (not much, but some) for the anti-malware establishment. I'm in infosec; I believe that even in the biggest and stupidest infosec company, there will be people with the hackerish instincts (i.e. lower-than-average sense of self-preservation) to blow the whistle. However, the failure of all the big anti-whatever companies to notice and/or do anything about this, with full year of lead time, demonstrates that they are incompetent at best, unethical at worst.
I don't care, personally; I use a Mac. It's not a security panacea but it's a pretty darn good line of defense. Professionally, however, I feel downright ill.
Kudos to F-Secure and Sysinternals. Where the hell were the rest of them?
What I say does not represent the views of my employers, my friends, my cats, or myself.
That sounds to me like more reason to boycott, not less - the impact is not compartmentalised, but spreads across their entire business. It also gives ammunition to those on the inside who are fighting against the shenanigans. Sony need to get the message that their actions don't just do damage to their CD sales business, they also create a serious dent in the Sony "brand" as a whole.
My next sig will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush
Blockquoth the AC:
Let's hope so. With a bit of luck, this case will demonstrate the idiocy of both draconian copy protection mechanisms and draconian anti-copying laws. If it becomes Sony vs. Microsoft, there will be a big, high profile case with both sides sending zillions of lawyers at each other and zillions of lobbyists at the government, ultimately with no winning option for either side since any outcome will hurt their corporate interests in the longer term even as it protects them in the short term. The government can't suck up to both parties forever, and public opinion is bound to sway against things like the DMCA, DRM, and so on the longer it goes on.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
According to the feedback page for Sony USA, you should call their Quality Management Department at 800-255-7514 (609-722-8224 in New Jersey) "if you believe a Sony Music product has a manufacturing defect".
I would seem reasonable to give them the courtesy of doing what they ask for, and phone them before doing anything else.
Okay, I've fallen for your lines about downloading and not paying for mp3's "taking money away from artists", that downloading is illegal and immoral and God knows what else. Or maybe I've just gotten tired of trying to find a good copy of a song online. Or I might simply prefer to have a high-quality copy of my favorite album(s) so that, if for some reason my computer should crash, I can convert a new copy to MP3 and lose nothing but a little time.
...
For whatever reason, I buy one of your CD's, pay the $18 CAD or thereabouts for a new release. But this is the computer age, I don't even own a stereo, so I want to play the CD on my computer.
The first thing I notice is that the CD is DRM-ed to death so it's a pain in the ass to convert the songs to MP3 format; so much for listening to the music that I've bought on my iPod. (If I live in Canada, I may have also paid for this music twice, once through the purchase of the CD, and a second time through the levy on my iPod as "blank media".) Oh yeah, and for some reason, neither iTunes nor Winamp will play the CD.
The second thing I notice (because who really reads the EULA?) while researching how to crack the DRM, is that, among other things, if my house is burgled I will have to delete all the mp3's from this disc. (Because, you know, a burglar would spend all that time copying the MP3's from my hard drive instead of stealing the whole damn computer. And man, if I own a laptop, they're just going to leave it on the desk and take my crappy TV instead...) Also, if I don't update the software whenever it prompts me to, I will lose all access to the music that I have purchased. And I can't listen to the music on a work computer, nor can I re-sell the CD that I have just purchased. WTF?
But then my system crashes, and some virus I can't get rid of keeps me from accessing all the data on my hard drives that I haven't backed up in ages (of course). And how did this virus get on my system? Through a root kit that the Sony CD installed without even telling me it was doing so, thank you very much.
Alright, Sony, now you've shot yourself in the foot. You've basically persuaded millions of CD buyers out there (you know, the people who were actually paying for your product?) that it's easier, safer, and plain old less annoying to yoink MP3's from thier favorite website or file-sharing program.
Way to go.
(Idiots.)
Ah yes, broad generalization and stubborn ignorance, that'll solve the problem. Isn't that why they want DRM in the first place?
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
The kinds of machines that are in these secure environments are locked down big time...most don't even have a CD-ROM attached to the machine. The networks are closed (no direct internet access) and the machines with CD-ROMs/RWs have their lasers aligned differently so as to not be able to be read on a standard drive...one of the benifits of purposefuly misaligning the laser that writes the disks to be read in these machines is that you can't just insert a standard CD... Yes, contrary to what the media would have you belive, the folks in secure/top-secret/classified government positions are not stupid...
All I can say is I am in the know with regard to such matters and you are so amazingly wrong it is unbelieveable. There may be EXTREMELY isolated cases of such Machiavellian security measures, but it has been my experience that music CDs are always making it into secured areas and being played on secure machines.
Did anyone look at some of the titles they chose to infect with this thing?
Bob Brookmeyer - Bob Brookmeyer & Friends
Horace Silver - Silver?s Blue
Dexter Gordon - Manhattan Symphonie
Ahmed Jamal - The Legendary Okeh and Epic Recordings
Bob Brookmeyer???? Was Sony afraid of the cadre of L33t h4xx0r d00dz pirating their catalog of elderly jazz trombonists?
Jennifer Granick, executive director of Stanford University's Center for Internet and Society, sees this as a question of how well written their EULA is, a topic of much conversation in the media lately.
But either way, she noted over IM, "if the EULA did not advise the user that s/he was installing software on the machine that would collect information and/or open the machine to vulnerabilities, then the software arguably violates 18 usc 1030(a)(5)(A)." That's a criminal charge. But Granick doesn't see criminal prosecution of Sony anytime soon.
"The (Department of Justice) is not going to charge Sony.... They have never charged a big corporation with a computer crime."
In order to invoke 18 USC 1030, you have to show $5,000 in damages or damage to a computer system used by or for a government entity in furtherance of the administration of justice, national defense or national security. That's another interesting point of Kaminsky's work, because it shows networks that are part of national security and civil infrastructure faithfully reporting their existance back to Sony, along with as yet unknown information about the compromised computers.
The Sony/XCP uninstall process requires you to fill out a web form that uses an ActiveX control. That control has several serious security issues including the ability to run arbitrary code and even a handy built-in reboot function. The ActiveX control gropes around your system and encrypts some information that is submitted in a hidden form field. Their privacy policy does not mention this.
Feel free to go over there and try it yourself. If you install the ActiveX you can remove it in Tools, Internet Options, Settings, View Objects, "CodeSupport Control". Here's what they send you:
From: contentprotectionhelp
Sent: Monday, November 14, 2005 04:22 AM
To: sony-bmg-sucks@invalid.com
Subject: Re: ContentProtectionHelp Email Form
Thank you for contacting Sony BMG Online.
Sony BMG and First 4 Internet have released a Service Pack 2a update that addresses recent concerns surrounding the cloaking technology component on SONY BMG content protected CDs which use XCP technology. These components are not malicious nor spyware however to alleviate any concerns that users may have about the program posing potential security vulnerabilities the update removes the cloaking component from their computers. Please visit the link below to install the SP2a update.
http://updates.xcp-aurora.com/
If you do not want to install the SP2a update and only wish to uninstall the DRM software, visit the form below using IE 5.0 (or higher) from the computer where the software is installed. After submission, you will be emailed a customized uninstall link within 1 business day (M-F).
http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/english/form9.html
Your "Case ID" is: 9999999.
TIP: The uninstall request form will require an ActiveX plug-in.
Also you may need to temporarily turn off any pop-up blocker
software on the PC.
Thank you for the opportunity to be of assistance.
The Sony BMG Online Support Team
FKSZ
This message and any attachments are solely for the use of intended recipients. They may contain privileged and/or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you received this email in error, and that any review, dissemination, distribution or copying of this email and any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you receive this email in error please contact the sender and delete the message and any attachments associated therewith from your computer. Your cooperation in this matter is appreciated.
- - - - -
So Sony is in real trouble. Watch this turn into a criminal case.
Sony didn't just screw the pooch, my friend.. this is more than that.. straight-up goatse!!
I also agree boycotts will not work. A major reason? Because there's no way Sony can measure what you are not buying. If you can get enough people not buying something it might work, but as the poster said that task is really impossible when it comes to Sony as a company.
So what will work:
Litigation. That's a great start because it costs them money they can count (legal fees) instead of four people not buying some Sony product. It looks like this might end up costing them big.
Harrass customer service. It is not as effective but if a lot of people start consuming customer service with calls, again this costs them a measureable amount of money and also makes the VP in charge of customer service very angry. You want angry people at the same level in the company as the ones who are putting in things like the rootkit.
The main goal in all this should be to try and make a public example of Sony so that other companies do not do the same thing, and Sony themselves will not want to try again for quite some time.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's an even worse day to be Sony, in the UK. Today's newspapers have headlines like "Sony accused of Internet rip-off" and "End to online bargains as Sony forces prices higher".
, 00.html
According to The Times, "the practice of charging different prices to Internet retailers and high street stockists -- known as dual pricing -- was started by Sony and has been followed by other manufacturers." Here's the article:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1872549
I would like to point out that at Sony's size, the different divisions have little or nothing to do with each other.
Irrelevant.
Not that the people working in the other divisions, who didn't make such stupid decisions, deserve to be punished, but the way to stop companies from doing crap like this is to hit them where it will hurt the top-level decisionmakers: their stock price. To do that, you have to damage their profits, and the best way to do *that* is to decrease their revenues by not buying their stuff. If Sony's stock takes a 20% drop as a result of some decisions by the entertainment division, the C-level execs will take action, and if they don't then the board of directors will, and if *they* don't, the stockholders will. If it gets nasty enough, no one in Sony will ever again dare to do something that has even the remotest possibility of bringing that sort of shitstorm down on their heads.
Not that I believe a lot of "boycott Sony" shouting and posturing on slashdot will really affect their revenues noticeably, much less their stock price. But still, the theory is sound, even if follow-through is insufficiently widespread to make any difference.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
If the CD is a valid music CD and will play in a standard player,
Why is the operating system trying to run a program from the CD?
You should be able to set the OS to treat music CD's as music CD's and ignore any other content.
This is all due to MS advanced features messing the user over. Pressure should also be placed on Microsoft to treat music CDs as music CDs.
Perhaps a configuration to easily switch between
1. Play Music
2. Access any Autorun features
3. Offer option of 1 or 2
It's widely published that legal actions have begun in California, New York, and Italy. The Italian situation is not just some class-action lawsuit. A complaint was filed with a criminal investigation unit last Friday.
i ty/story/0,10801,106064,00.html?source=NLT_PM&nid= 106064
"The complaint alleges that XCP violates a number of Italy's computer security laws by causing damage to users' systems and by acting in the same way as malicious software, according to Andrea Monti, chairman of the ALCEI-EFI. "What Sony did qualifies as a criminal offense under Italian law," he said in an e-mail interview.
Should police determine that a crime has been committed, prosecutors will be required to begin criminal proceedings against Sony, Monti said."
Sony has declined to comment.
From:
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/secur
What you do with a computer does not constitute the whole of computing.
Last I checked the PS3 is going to ship with Blu-Ray which is filled with its own DRM restrictions, so essentially his "broad generalization" is fairly accurate IMO.
No sig for you!!
However, with the advent of internet-based human networking (IM, blogs, etc.), this is starting to change. You still can't get the old airplay and venues, but it is now affordable to distribute your music over the internet, using word of mouth to increase demand. Similarly, you might not be able to book the good venues, but with blogs etc., people can find the alternative venues that don't get ad-time in newspapers, on the radio, or on TV.
So in summary, artists often are victims, but with the new technologies of the last 10 years, more and more artists are able to emancipate themselves and survive.
New sig:
--
Days since my last Sony purchase: 602
Capitalism as an economic theory has its attributes and flaws, but capitalism as a religion is the worst thing ever foisted upon humankind. If you let "do as thou willst be the whole of the law" in business, you give businessmen a license to rob and loot. Guess what. They will use it. Bowing before golden calves called "competition" and "the markets" is all anarcho-captalism is, and libertarianism is basically the same.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.