Posted on 02/20/2006 12:14:33 PM PST by mathprof
US government officials are considering introducing legislation if companies continue to distribute copy-protection measures that compromise computer security.
The Department of Homeland Security's Border and Transportation Security Directorate warning followed the discovery last year that Sony BMG employed two different types of digital rights management (DRM) on music CDS sold in the US and both installed rootkit software on PCs that made them vulnerable.
'We need to think about how that situation could have been avoided in the first place,' said
Jonathan Frenkel at the RSA computer security conference. 'Legislation or regulation may not be appropriate in all cases, but it may be warranted in some circumstances.'
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials met with Sony BMG after the security breach was discovered and delivered what Frenkel described as a 'forceful' message to the record company.
Although it has no power to implement new rules the DHS is said to have the ears of legislators.
Sony has begun compensating customers who inadvertently installed the rootkit by inserting the affected CDs into PCs. However the swathes of bad publicity that it received over the whole affair have not deterred others. F-Secure reports that German DVD of the Mr & Mrs Smith movie starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie contains the Settec Alpha-DISC system that installs a user-mode rootkit.
I would want a brand new computer, to start.
I fail to understand why Sony's actions weren't already massively illegal under existing law. Kevin Mitnick was thrown in prison for less.
IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING ... here is good info and a free tool -
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/RootkitRevealer.html
Read what the page says - if you don't understand it ... DON'T mess with it. You can easily damage your system to the point where you need a complete re-install.
At the very least, they should pass a law holding harmless from lawsuits Anti-spyware and Anti-virus companies who provide software to block or remove these rootkits.
When the evil Sony rootkit was discovered, a lot of software companies were afraid of offering cures for it for fear of being sued, because it's illegal to help anyone remove copy protection, according to an earlier stupid law that congress passed.
So, maybe they should just reverse that law blocking removal of copy protection, at least in the case of rootkits, and let the market work.
As for Sony, they have lost my respect. I used to think they were a good outfit. They are going to have a lot of image repair work to do after this.
bump
Because Sony pays more in taxes than Kevin Mitnick did.
Seriously, though, Sony's actions were already massively illegal and the exposure to criminal and civil penalties is not small, if there were a prosecutor and class-action lawyer with the guts and desire to take it to them.
I do hope they are made illegal.
In the meantime it should be company policy that no computer is allowed to play ANY sony CD in a company or gov computer or the computer of a government employee.
Just too security hazardous.
Writes well, I might add.
The software at their site is a Must Have for administrators.
But why is a new law needed and why is Sony not criminally liable under existing law??? After all, under DMCA, you're pretty much guilty if you've ever been in the same room with a computer, so just prosecute them under that. Oh, that's right, I forgot, DMCA doesn't apply to Sony since they paid for it.
Leave it to Sony to come up with a way to violate your privacy, show their continued incompetance and piss off the Government all at the same time.
I don't buy their products for these reasons.
It's high profile enough to interest Eliot Spitzer (spit!), but he has a policy only to work against the interest of the individual citizen.
Mark Russinovich, IIRC.
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