It's been a few days since our last Sony update, but that's hasn't stopped Sony from giving me reasons for an update.
At the top of the list: Sony has released a
tool to uninstall the rootkit with. I hope you don't mind filling out several forms of personal information to download the tool. Oh yes, you also need to explain why you want to uninstall the tool. Oops, I also almost forgot that the uninstall tool installs software of it's own, which has a security hole in it, and doesn't actually uninstall everything (
can't make this stuff up).
Next, the EFF, in an
open letter to Sony, asked that they recall all the CDs and pay people for any damage done or time lost because of the rootkit. Well, Sony has put out a
recall, details will come later in the week. It's CYA mode now at Sony, let's hope this doesn't get them off the hook because I'm sure they are working on a better version of the rootkit as we speak.
LAME is a open source mp3 library that allows developers access to a free, high quality, mp3 encoder. Maybe. LAME stands for "LAME ain't an MP3 encoder." You have to just love geeks, and don't try to understand. My favorite, highly recommended, CD ripper uses LAME,
CDex. Why do I bring this up? Well there is some
buzz among geeks if LAME was included in Sony's rootkit. The jury is still out right now, but if this is true it would eclipse the privacy issues.
Why? Well LAME is free only under certain rules, the big one among those is if you use LAME source code you must make available your source code. If you don't, it's copyright infringement. You read that right, in Sony's quest to protect their copyrights they ignored the copyrights of others. Now know that, even if they find Sony used code from LAME that doesn't automatically equal infringement - there is fair use to consider. Ironic (yes, this is a
legit use of the word ironic so you freaks that think there is only one meaning of the word ironic - wait, that's ironic too -
back off) that Sony never considered fair use when installing the rootkit.
Last, here is
what to look for to know if you are buying a CD with the rootkit (but you're boycotting Sony so why would you be doing that?). It's sad that the example is Trey Anastasio's new CD, once the lead guitarist of Phish, a band who made it a point to allow fans to tape and freely swap their concerts. Seems I'm not the only one selling out these days.
Posted By Mike On Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Filed under politics sony |
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