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A Legal Analysis of the Sony BMG Rootkit Debacle

Posted by kdawson on from the bad-ideas-just-keep-on-coming dept.

YIAAL writes "Two lawyers from the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology look at the Sony BMG Rootkit debacle: 'The Article first addresses the market-based rationales that likely influenced Sony BMG's deployment of these DRM systems and reveals that even the most charitable interpretation of Sony BMG's internal strategizing demonstrates a failure to adequately value security and privacy. After taking stock of the then-existing technological environment that both encouraged and enabled the distribution of these protection measures, the Article examines law, the third vector of influence on Sony BMG's decision to release flawed protection measures into the wild, and argues that existing doctrine in the fields of contract, intellectual property, and consumer protection law fails to adequately counter the technological and market forces that allowed a self-interested actor to inflict these harms on the public.' Yes, under 'even the most charitable interpretation' it was a lousy idea. The article also suggests some changes to the DMCA to protect consumers from this sort of intrusive, and security-undermining, technique in the future."

6 of 227 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Auto-run is evil by RuBLed · · Score: 3, Informative

    say bye bye to autorun.inf...

    One quick trick prevents Autorun attacks

  2. Oops, forgot about the laziness of slashdotters by Tanman · · Score: 1, Informative

    Here's a link:

    http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/default.mspx

    The specific one you want is TweakUI for your OS.

  3. Re:Nothing like... by Boycott+BMG · · Score: 3, Informative

    In fact Sony/BMG gets no money from electronics because they don't make electronics. Sony Corporation makes electronics. Sony/BMG is not Sony, that's why they have the "BMG" in their name. In case you were interested Sony/BMG was formed by the combination of spinoffs Sony Music and 'B'ertelsmann 'M'usic 'G'roup, with all of the higher ups from the Bertelsmann side. It is 50/50 owned by Sony and Bertelsmann.

  4. Re:Its a moral issue. by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2, Informative

    this article uncovers the modivation behind the rootkit project... Rootkit Open Sourced (link to http://fohootville.myminicity.com/ ) Link in parent is some sort of datamining site

    [06:52] gotcha: MyMiniCity is designed to capture information from all its visitors. thank you for your participation.
    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  5. Re:Auto-run is evil by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2, Informative
    Vista prompts you before autorunning stuff

    http://www.phdcc.com/shellrun/autorun.htm

    And actually from the same link -

    In Windows NT4, 2000 and XP systems, only Administrators and Power Users can use AutoRun.
    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  6. Re:Islam will bring morality back to Europe by arivanov · · Score: 2, Informative

    Ugh... The movie... Puke...

    It has nothing to do with the original message from the novel. The novel had a number of very powerful messages regarding social structure, moral, etc. These are all absent from the film. And in the novel the enemy was anything but low tech.

    --
    Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
    http://www.sigsegv.cx/