sony rootkit
Remedies Final Summer
This fact pattern is regarding the misbehavior of Sony and its brand of music cds. In an effort to combat piracy, Sony hired a company to design a copy-protection system called XCP. This software was imbedded onto Sony’s cds and this software was designed to prevent unauthorized replication. If you tried to play a protected disk in your computer, you first had to agree to install a Sony music player to listen to it. Yet, this software used malware tactics, it took over the computer and it exposed it to potential system compromise and failure. “This software is called Rootkit, Rootkits were invented for Unix systems (where you could log in as "root" to have complete control over a computer). They were designed by the bad hackers to let them log into a system as "root" without the owner knowing”. (USA Today, Andrew Kantor). Albeit, this software was badly constructed so it also created an opening for hackers to access the Users PC. The flaw on the rootkit allowed any web site that a User visited to download, install, and run any code that it liked onto the Users computer. When this happened the Web page could seize control of the Users computer and this could allow open access that created a threat to the Users PC. Besides installing a player for the CD and copy-protection software, Sony also hid other code that contacted the company every time a user played a song. It appears that Sony was aware that their software was flawed and it created to access to the Users PC and they did not convey that this knowledge to the User. Additionally, the software was designed so that it was impossible to remove from the Add/Remove software feature located on the control panel. Sony ended up creating a solution in the form of a patch. “In order to get the patch, you have to provide your name, e-mail address, and other personal information to Sony. When you finally download the patch, it then installs more software that Sony doesn't tell you about.
This fact pattern is regarding the misbehavior of Sony and its brand of music cds. In an effort to combat piracy, Sony hired a company to design a copy-protection system called XCP. This software was imbedded onto Sony’s cds and this software was designed to prevent unauthorized replication. If you tried to play a protected disk in your computer, you first had to agree to install a Sony music player to listen to it. Yet, this software used malware tactics, it took over the computer and it exposed it to potential system compromise and failure. “This software is called Rootkit, Rootkits were invented for Unix systems (where you could log in as "root" to have complete control over a computer). They were designed by the bad hackers to let them log into a system as "root" without the owner knowing”. (USA Today, Andrew Kantor). Albeit, this software was badly constructed so it also created an opening for hackers to access the Users PC. The flaw on the rootkit allowed any web site that a User visited to download, install, and run any code that it liked onto the Users computer. When this happened the Web page could seize control of the Users computer and this could allow open access that created a threat to the Users PC. Besides installing a player for the CD and copy-protection software, Sony also hid other code that contacted the company every time a user played a song. It appears that Sony was aware that their software was flawed and it created to access to the Users PC and they did not convey that this knowledge to the User. Additionally, the software was designed so that it was impossible to remove from the Add/Remove software feature located on the control panel. Sony ended up creating a solution in the form of a patch. “In order to get the patch, you have to provide your name, e-mail address, and other personal information to Sony. When you finally download the patch, it then installs more software that Sony doesn't tell you about.