I'm sure it frustrates the average slashdoter, but the truth is average consumer cares nothing about Rootkit. The same time the Rootkit came out Sony goes on to set increased profits and gain in stock http://www.google.com/finance?q=SNE , then goes on to very rank highly in brand trust.
What tech-savy Slashdot folks have to understand is that the world doesn't necassarily think like them. Truth be told, to the average person there are a million other important world issues to fill their conscious then if their Neil Diamond CD has some potentially malicious software on it. Some people are conerned about the war in Iraq, North Korea, Bush, China as a world power, atrocities in Africa; some are against gay marriage, some are for it; others are concerned about globalization, the economy or social security and their pensions. I know it hurts, but nerds have to understand that outside their ring of techie websites and small sphere of influence the average person doesn't care about Rootkit, they didn't care when it was around, and they certainly aren't going to care now.
Also, for the statement "forthcoming price of Sony Blu-Ray HD DVDs", Blu-ray isn't HD-DVD. They are different formats.
Sony Blu-Ray HD DVD is an appropriate term, because it is referring to High Definition Digital Versatile Disc, not HD-DVD. There is an ever so subtle difference."
No Anonymous Coward, you're wrong. "Digital Versatile Disk", "DVD", "HD-DVD", and "High Definition Digital Versatile Disc" are all trademarked and owned by the DVD consortium. Sony cannot call their Blu-ray format a HD-DVD, no more as they can call it a HD-VCD,or their Beta a VHS (or vis versa), or anything else that is trademarked. The proper term would be something akin to "High-definiton format" or "High-definition optical disk format".
Hell, before the term "Digital Versatile Disk" was made-up, two formats "super-dencity disk"(SD) (Matsushita, Toshiba, Warner Bros, et al.) and "multimedia CD" (Sony/Philips) was merged into "digital video disk"(DVD) format. Sony/Philips tried to play off the ubiquotous nature of the the "Compact Disk" trade mark they own to lauch the MMCD, Sony would later use the CD brand to unsuccesfully lauch the SACD. Later, MMCD and SD did become DVD, but Blu-ray is NOT an HD-DVD. I'm sure Toshiba and the DVD consortium wouldn't like that either . .
"It appears that you believe everyone reading slashdot think/believe/want exactly the same things. Excuse me, but this is a community with many people having diverse opin"
Well obviously everybody that reads Slashdot don't believe the same, which would put myself in the same catagory as everybody else here, but clearly there is sort of a hive mentality here. Opinons and views that differ from the herd quickly get modded down. Case and point, the parent of this thread which was modded "insightful and informative" at first but was quickly turned to "overrated/funny" by anti-sony sentiment at Slashdot.
If you would like to view any sort of this hive-mind moderation by all means look at any political discussion on Slashdot. Fact is, here on Slashdot, the majority can silence the minority. Look for any person on this discussion that is just plain tired of hearing about rootkit and sony-bashing, probably those individuals have been modded down
Arrogance? Don't you people get tired of your own bullshit? Honestly, if you want to be plainly honest, security faults are all over the place. Their response to it was pretty much similar to other companies, recall it, and patch it. If we were going to sue over this shit then there are a million and one security holes in IE. Clearly, the the lawsuit are being just used in a malicious intent rather than an legitimate form of justice.
This is just beating a dead horse, and as far as the avg person goes. Most ppl don't give a damn about Rootkit, people have actual real issues to deal with. Wars in Iraq, secret CIA torture camps around the world, bills to pay, a housing market that is starting to stagant. Something like rootkit is not on their minds
You miss the point, Slashdotters have overwhelmingly in the past bitch and moan about frivilous and excessive lawsuits against things that they care about. Topics such as IP, DMCA, SCO, etc, but clearly when the shoe is on the other foot, Slashdotters quite happily are willing to use the exact same tactics (i.e. flooding their groups with differing views with friviolous lawsuits).
While ideologically the lawsuits are different, Slashdotters are cheering on the exact same tactics which they spat upon and villified before. That, sir, is hypocrisy.
Besides, I sincerely doubt that any person on Slashdot actually purchased or was dumb enough to fall for rootkit from a Sony-BMG CD. I also doubt that all these ppl who are actually calling for these lawsuits even bought the CD in question and were harmed in either way.
I think you missed the parent comment's sarcasm. . .
though it is funny how the modders have modded him down from "insightful/informative" to "Funny/overrated"; that's how Slashdot's hive-mind works I guess. . .
Though it is quite amusing how/. loves to bash agressive lawsuits like SCO/IBM and general intellectual patent lawsuits, but are hypocrtitical enough to use excessive lawsuits as a weapon as well.
Sorry, mod me down, I had an individual thought. . .
First, just because you don't see any symptoms, does not mean your equipment is not suffering from the excess heat. You could just be shortening the lifespan of your components without any current noticable clues.
Second, the problem with most consumer AV cabinets is that they are designed for form, not function. IOW, they are made to look pretty in your living room, not safely house your equipment. Sure, a DVD Player, cable box (non-DVR), cd player, and basic receiver will live just fine in one of these cabinets, but you start putting things that generate real heat in there, and you're asking for trouble!
Shorting the lifespane of my components? Right, I've had my Xbox in that cabinet on the same shelf for about 4-years now without a problem, my XB360 is a couple days old.
IMO, MS should have designed the XB360 in a larger case with more cooling. Instead of consumers having to drill holes in the back of their cabinets and putting in fans, maybe they should have just added a fan or two to the original design.
The plain fact is that the XB360 has some heating issues. I mean, you have a three-core 3.2Ghz PPC and an powerful ATI 5xx GPU in the size of mini-itx you're gonna have heating issues, the blame shouldn't be on consumers side for over-heating due to a fundamental design issue, because if you plan on selling tens of millions of consoles that people will use them in a variety of enviroments.
We're taking components and cramming them in spaces with insufficient free air delivery and we're surprised when they crash and burn.
I've lost many hard drives and three computers (one Linux, one Mac and one Windows,) to "heat prostration". Sometimes the cases are not really capable of handling everything we can shove in there.
I hate the monolith in Redmond as much as the next guy but... heat is the enemy here.
I bet NOBODY who lives in a frozen food section at Safeway is reporting a crash.
>>First off, my other consumer electronic devices (including my 600W receiver) have absolutely no problems with over-heating. As do, I'm assuming, most electronic devices made today.
>>Secondly, as mentioned in my first post the cabinet is relatively large, and my VHS and DVD are obviously turned off when playing my XB360; there is ample space and ventilation in the cabinet, I put it on the shelf where my old Xbox used to sit.
>>Thirdly, MS should obviously design their "home entertainment" device to be put in, well, a "home-enteirtainment" cabinet. Its unresonable to expect every person to use their XB360 in "frozen food section at Safeway" .
It should also be mentioned that even outside the cabinet it's incredible hot. When I eject the DVD to the machine I can feel the heat of radiating from it, and the game is suprising hot to the touch. I've never had this problem with my original Xbox (that sat in the same cabinet), which I also bought on lauch day, and has been incredibly reliable since the day I got it. Personally, I think MS caved into the critism of the size of the original Xbox and stuffed the hardware into too small a place relative to heat disapation.
My XB360 crashed multiple times playing Quake 4. Personally, I think its an over heating issue.
Since the machine is pretty loud I put it in my home-entairtainment cabinet, which it shares with a receiver, DVD player, and an old VHS. While the cabinet is relatively large, when I close the glass door and play the XB360 it gets very hot in there after playing (and I've been playing alot).
Quake 4 seems to really stress the XB360 out since there is an aggrevating amount of slow down in the game. Several times when Quake 4 got too hectic my XB360 froze up on me. After I felt how hot it is I took it out of the cabinet and so far (being since last night) I haven't had any problems with crahes so far.
I just got mine, haven't slept yet since getting it, actually.
But I have to admit it probably isn't worth the price for everybody except the hardcore. It's waaaay pricer than what I payed for my original Xbox on launch day.
I payed: $400 XB360 Premium bundle. $50 Extra controller $100 WiFi adapter for Xbox (my TV is not where my router is setup; had to buy it:( ) $60 Madden $60 Quake 4
In total I payed around $700 including tax. That's basically with 2 games and an extra controller. If tt wasn't for the WiFi it would have been closer to $600.
Personally, I think I payed too much relative to the enjoyment factor. Quake4 is great but there is some MAJOR frame rate issues with that game, but my friend got PGR3 and it is absolutly beutiful, but the gameplay isn't my taste (personally prefer the Burnout-style gameplay to this "Kudos" system).
While I'll say that I'm happy with my XB360, I wouldn't recommend buying one to anybody else until PS3 comes out and MS drops the price of the console. Also, there is no killer-app that's worth the price, and graphics aren't any better than what you would get from a well-equiped PC. But I know Halo 3 will be out for it someday, so it's good enough for me.
Seriously fucked up priorities here in Slashdot.
When even today, Bridgestone/Firestone is sued for using child slave labor in concentration camp conditions in Liberia for their Firestone rubber plantation, and Dupont knowingly poisened tens of millions of people all of the world in food wrappers.
This rootkit is a minor in comparision to other recent corporate evils, there are more pressing matters than this dead horse. If you think rootkit deserves as much attention in the public mind as the war in Iraq and bin Laden, then you are seriously fucked in the mind.
the meme "Using DRM/Copy-Protected Media Lets Viruses & Hackers Into Your Computer" is as firmly established as "Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein Are Bad People" in Joe Sixpack's mind.
What an ass-backwards American way of thinking about things!
Let's just keep things in perspective here, DRM is just a nasty inconvience on an overpriced luxury good(a CD), Bin Laden and Saddam killed thousands of people (hundred of thousands in the case of Saddam). America has invaded two countries, killed tens of thousands of people, lost thousands of their own, and had America's name dragged through the mud based on multiple atrocities for the concept "Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein Are Bad People".
"Using DRM/Copy-Protected Media Lets Viruses & Hackers Into Your Computer" is just topic for a spoiled populus on Slashdot to bitch about their CDs that are infected with a copy protection scheme that is too draconian and obnoxious.
It's a positively disgusting comparison. I would say that I was part of the angry mob that was storming angrily at Sony-BMG in the last weeks; like an angry mob rallying against some Frankenstein. However, after awhile it becomes redundant and daft. Now I'm begining to see how ugly this mob is, consumer extremists if you will, seriously, get a life.
I'm merely saying move on already. Honestly, in the scale of evil corporations there has been more recent evil corporate deeds that deserve a lot more attention than this.
For instance just today: Dupont's top brass knowingly and intentionally hidden the fact that a chemical used in making packages, from candy wrappers to food wrappers, used by tens of millions contained a dangerous chemical that breaks down into acid inside the body and causes birth defects, severe liver and kidney damage, and high colestrol.
But god forbid that Americans buys a Celion Dion CD with a rootkit on it. There has to come a time when you declare victory and move on instead of beating a dead horse.
Can you even read a paragraph(and not a long one at that)? Nobody is talking about the volume of posts.
I'm saying this Sony BMG rootkit was a lot bigger victory than SCO or MS/. Crusades. An apology and a recall is a something we have never received from any of the later.
Ok, so there is DVD John's code, OK so please somebody explain why? Seems many ppl here just enjoy mindless Sony bashing and trying to identify the any code, but nobody is asking any real questions.
I know this is Slashdot, but I'm honestly becoming of very tired of all this rootkit news, I was really angry maybe a week ago, then they got sued, embrassed, they recalled it, and now offered an apology. This is so much more than we ever got from SCO or any of MSFT's many deeds. Congradulation folks, we won, now we are being sore-winners.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure it frustrates the average slashdoter, but the truth is average consumer cares nothing about Rootkit. The same time the Rootkit came out Sony goes on to set increased profits and gain in stock http://www.google.com/finance?q=SNE , then goes on to very rank highly in brand trust. What tech-savy Slashdot folks have to understand is that the world doesn't necassarily think like them. Truth be told, to the average person there are a million other important world issues to fill their conscious then if their Neil Diamond CD has some potentially malicious software on it. Some people are conerned about the war in Iraq, North Korea, Bush, China as a world power, atrocities in Africa; some are against gay marriage, some are for it; others are concerned about globalization, the economy or social security and their pensions. I know it hurts, but nerds have to understand that outside their ring of techie websites and small sphere of influence the average person doesn't care about Rootkit, they didn't care when it was around, and they certainly aren't going to care now.
"OK, I'll bite at being the nazi for a moment...
Also, for the statement "forthcoming price of Sony Blu-Ray HD DVDs", Blu-ray isn't HD-DVD. They are different formats.
Sony Blu-Ray HD DVD is an appropriate term, because it is referring to High Definition Digital Versatile Disc, not HD-DVD. There is an ever so subtle difference."
No Anonymous Coward, you're wrong. "Digital Versatile Disk", "DVD", "HD-DVD", and "High Definition Digital Versatile Disc" are all trademarked and owned by the DVD consortium. Sony cannot call their Blu-ray format a HD-DVD, no more as they can call it a HD-VCD,or their Beta a VHS (or vis versa), or anything else that is trademarked. The proper term would be something akin to "High-definiton format" or "High-definition optical disk format".
Hell, before the term "Digital Versatile Disk" was made-up, two formats "super-dencity disk"(SD) (Matsushita, Toshiba, Warner Bros, et al.) and "multimedia CD" (Sony/Philips) was merged into "digital video disk"(DVD) format. Sony/Philips tried to play off the ubiquotous nature of the the "Compact Disk" trade mark they own to lauch the MMCD, Sony would later use the CD brand to unsuccesfully lauch the SACD. Later, MMCD and SD did become DVD, but Blu-ray is NOT an HD-DVD. I'm sure Toshiba and the DVD consortium wouldn't like that either . .
Does (any Sony product) + (Rootkit Installed) = (Barrels of laughter at Slashdot)???
Never gets old does it? Boy, the laughs never stop here at Slashdot!
"It appears that you believe everyone reading slashdot think/believe/want exactly the same things. Excuse me, but this is a community with many people having diverse opin"
Well obviously everybody that reads Slashdot don't believe the same, which would put myself in the same catagory as everybody else here, but clearly there is sort of a hive mentality here. Opinons and views that differ from the herd quickly get modded down. Case and point, the parent of this thread which was modded "insightful and informative" at first but was quickly turned to "overrated/funny" by anti-sony sentiment at Slashdot.
If you would like to view any sort of this hive-mind moderation by all means look at any political discussion on Slashdot. Fact is, here on Slashdot, the majority can silence the minority. Look for any person on this discussion that is just plain tired of hearing about rootkit and sony-bashing, probably those individuals have been modded down
Arrogance? Don't you people get tired of your own bullshit? Honestly, if you want to be plainly honest, security faults are all over the place. Their response to it was pretty much similar to other companies, recall it, and patch it. If we were going to sue over this shit then there are a million and one security holes in IE. Clearly, the the lawsuit are being just used in a malicious intent rather than an legitimate form of justice.
This is just beating a dead horse, and as far as the avg person goes. Most ppl don't give a damn about Rootkit, people have actual real issues to deal with. Wars in Iraq, secret CIA torture camps around the world, bills to pay, a housing market that is starting to stagant. Something like rootkit is not on their minds
You miss the point, Slashdotters have overwhelmingly in the past bitch and moan about frivilous and excessive lawsuits against things that they care about. Topics such as IP, DMCA, SCO, etc, but clearly when the shoe is on the other foot, Slashdotters quite happily are willing to use the exact same tactics (i.e. flooding their groups with differing views with friviolous lawsuits). While ideologically the lawsuits are different, Slashdotters are cheering on the exact same tactics which they spat upon and villified before. That, sir, is hypocrisy. Besides, I sincerely doubt that any person on Slashdot actually purchased or was dumb enough to fall for rootkit from a Sony-BMG CD. I also doubt that all these ppl who are actually calling for these lawsuits even bought the CD in question and were harmed in either way.
I think you missed the parent comment's sarcasm. . .
/. loves to bash agressive lawsuits like SCO/IBM and general intellectual patent lawsuits, but are hypocrtitical enough to use excessive lawsuits as a weapon as well.
though it is funny how the modders have modded him down from "insightful/informative" to "Funny/overrated"; that's how Slashdot's hive-mind works I guess. . .
Though it is quite amusing how
Sorry, mod me down, I had an individual thought. . .
First, just because you don't see any symptoms, does not mean your equipment is not suffering from the excess heat. You could just be shortening the lifespan of your components without any current noticable clues.
Second, the problem with most consumer AV cabinets is that they are designed for form, not function. IOW, they are made to look pretty in your living room, not safely house your equipment. Sure, a DVD Player, cable box (non-DVR), cd player, and basic receiver will live just fine in one of these cabinets, but you start putting things that generate real heat in there, and you're asking for trouble!
Shorting the lifespane of my components? Right, I've had my Xbox in that cabinet on the same shelf for about 4-years now without a problem, my XB360 is a couple days old.
IMO, MS should have designed the XB360 in a larger case with more cooling. Instead of consumers having to drill holes in the back of their cabinets and putting in fans, maybe they should have just added a fan or two to the original design.
The plain fact is that the XB360 has some heating issues. I mean, you have a three-core 3.2Ghz PPC and an powerful ATI 5xx GPU in the size of mini-itx you're gonna have heating issues, the blame shouldn't be on consumers side for over-heating due to a fundamental design issue, because if you plan on selling tens of millions of consoles that people will use them in a variety of enviroments.
Why issue isn't an isolated one, TeamXbox has a stickied post on their forum for other XB360 owners:
http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=391764
We're taking components and cramming them in spaces with insufficient free air delivery and we're surprised when they crash and burn.
I've lost many hard drives and three computers (one Linux, one Mac and one Windows,) to "heat prostration". Sometimes the cases are not really capable of handling everything we can shove in there.
I hate the monolith in Redmond as much as the next guy but... heat is the enemy here.
I bet NOBODY who lives in a frozen food section at Safeway is reporting a crash.
>>First off, my other consumer electronic devices (including my 600W receiver) have absolutely no problems with over-heating. As do, I'm assuming, most electronic devices made today.
>>Secondly, as mentioned in my first post the cabinet is relatively large, and my VHS and DVD are obviously turned off when playing my XB360; there is ample space and ventilation in the cabinet, I put it on the shelf where my old Xbox used to sit.
>>Thirdly, MS should obviously design their "home entertainment" device to be put in, well, a "home-enteirtainment" cabinet. Its unresonable to expect every person to use their XB360 in "frozen food section at Safeway" .
It should also be mentioned that even outside the cabinet it's incredible hot. When I eject the DVD to the machine I can feel the heat of radiating from it, and the game is suprising hot to the touch. I've never had this problem with my original Xbox (that sat in the same cabinet), which I also bought on lauch day, and has been incredibly reliable since the day I got it. Personally, I think MS caved into the critism of the size of the original Xbox and stuffed the hardware into too small a place relative to heat disapation.
My XB360 crashed multiple times playing Quake 4. Personally, I think its an over heating issue.
Since the machine is pretty loud I put it in my home-entairtainment cabinet, which it shares with a receiver, DVD player, and an old VHS. While the cabinet is relatively large, when I close the glass door and play the XB360 it gets very hot in there after playing (and I've been playing alot).
Quake 4 seems to really stress the XB360 out since there is an aggrevating amount of slow down in the game. Several times when Quake 4 got too hectic my XB360 froze up on me. After I felt how hot it is I took it out of the cabinet and so far (being since last night) I haven't had any problems with crahes so far.
I just got mine, haven't slept yet since getting it, actually.
:( )
But I have to admit it probably isn't worth the price for everybody except the hardcore. It's waaaay pricer than what I payed for my original Xbox on launch day.
I payed:
$400 XB360 Premium bundle.
$50 Extra controller
$100 WiFi adapter for Xbox (my TV is not where my router is setup; had to buy it
$60 Madden
$60 Quake 4
In total I payed around $700 including tax. That's basically with 2 games and an extra controller. If tt wasn't for the WiFi it would have been closer to $600.
Personally, I think I payed too much relative to the enjoyment factor. Quake4 is great but there is some MAJOR frame rate issues with that game, but my friend got PGR3 and it is absolutly beutiful, but the gameplay isn't my taste (personally prefer the Burnout-style gameplay to this "Kudos" system).
While I'll say that I'm happy with my XB360, I wouldn't recommend buying one to anybody else until PS3 comes out and MS drops the price of the console. Also, there is no killer-app that's worth the price, and graphics aren't any better than what you would get from a well-equiped PC. But I know Halo 3 will be out for it someday, so it's good enough for me.
Seriously fucked up priorities here in Slashdot. When even today, Bridgestone/Firestone is sued for using child slave labor in concentration camp conditions in Liberia for their Firestone rubber plantation, and Dupont knowingly poisened tens of millions of people all of the world in food wrappers. This rootkit is a minor in comparision to other recent corporate evils, there are more pressing matters than this dead horse. If you think rootkit deserves as much attention in the public mind as the war in Iraq and bin Laden, then you are seriously fucked in the mind.
the meme "Using DRM/Copy-Protected Media Lets Viruses & Hackers Into Your Computer" is as firmly established as "Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein Are Bad People" in Joe Sixpack's mind.
What an ass-backwards American way of thinking about things!
Let's just keep things in perspective here, DRM is just a nasty inconvience on an overpriced luxury good(a CD), Bin Laden and Saddam killed thousands of people (hundred of thousands in the case of Saddam). America has invaded two countries, killed tens of thousands of people, lost thousands of their own, and had America's name dragged through the mud based on multiple atrocities for the concept "Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein Are Bad People".
"Using DRM/Copy-Protected Media Lets Viruses & Hackers Into Your Computer" is just topic for a spoiled populus on Slashdot to bitch about their CDs that are infected with a copy protection scheme that is too draconian and obnoxious.
It's a positively disgusting comparison. I would say that I was part of the angry mob that was storming angrily at Sony-BMG in the last weeks; like an angry mob rallying against some Frankenstein. However, after awhile it becomes redundant and daft. Now I'm begining to see how ugly this mob is, consumer extremists if you will, seriously, get a life.
Who said go out and buy sony products?
h /13184886.htm
I'm merely saying move on already. Honestly, in the scale of evil corporations there has been more recent evil corporate deeds that deserve a lot more attention than this.
For instance just today:
Dupont's top brass knowingly and intentionally hidden the fact that a chemical used in making packages, from candy wrappers to food wrappers, used by tens of millions contained a dangerous chemical that breaks down into acid inside the body and causes birth defects, severe liver and kidney damage, and high colestrol.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/healt
But god forbid that Americans buys a Celion Dion CD with a rootkit on it. There has to come a time when you declare victory and move on instead of beating a dead horse.
Can you even read a paragraph(and not a long one at that)? Nobody is talking about the volume of posts. I'm saying this Sony BMG rootkit was a lot bigger victory than SCO or MS /. Crusades. An apology and a recall is a something we have never received from any of the later.
Ok, so there is DVD John's code, OK so please somebody explain why? Seems many ppl here just enjoy mindless Sony bashing and trying to identify the any code, but nobody is asking any real questions. I know this is Slashdot, but I'm honestly becoming of very tired of all this rootkit news, I was really angry maybe a week ago, then they got sued, embrassed, they recalled it, and now offered an apology. This is so much more than we ever got from SCO or any of MSFT's many deeds. Congradulation folks, we won, now we are being sore-winners.