Free Virus With Every CD

Thanks, Sony:

A controversial copy-protection program that automatically installs when some Sony BMG audio CDs are played on personal computers is now being exploited by malicious software that takes advantage of the antipiracy technology's ability to hide files.

The Trojan horse programs — three have so far been identified by antivirus companies — are named so as to trigger the cloaking feature of Sony's XCP2 antipiracy technology. By piggybacking on that function, the malicious programs can enter undetected, security experts said Thursday.

What does Sony say? Well, on NPR, an executive said, “Most people, I think, don’t even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?” The Electronic Frontier Foundation has more informtion and a list of CDs that use this copy protection scheme at http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004144.php. (Whew! I've never heard of 99% of the people on that list.) Y'know, we never had this problem with vinyl records...