Some weeks ago Sony made the attempt to protect the music from some of the cd´s they distribute by adding a rootkit software which would be installed if the user wanted to play the cd on his personal computer. The technique had its flaws and was only working on windows but it still ment that a rootkit was installed on the pc and other scripts could use this rootkit for malicious purposes. After a large outcry from the web community Sony decided to pull the cd´s from the shelves and offer a tool to uninstall the rootkit. (which you would only get through a long process)

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No matter which internet page you open this days you are guaranteed to find at least one article mentioning the Sony rootkit affair. Instead of providing you with the latest news on the case customer vs. Sony BMG I´d like to analyse an interesting aspect of it.

In the beginning, there was one guy, who found out about the rootkit software, analysed it in depth and wrote an entry in his blog named Mark’s Sysinternals Blog on a well frequented site. Then the ball got rolling, the news was copied and commented on other sites, big portals like slashdot.org and digg.com had articles that soon became the most popular ones for the day.

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This article explains it all. It provides links to consumer made cd listings that contain the rootkit software, shows how cds with the rootkit software look like, explains how one can check his personal computer for the rootkit and finally gives a detailed walkthrough on how to remove the rootkit software manually from your computer.

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After lots of controversy about their rootkit music cds Sony announced today that it will halt the production of rootkit music cds. It seems that consumer and media backlash finally paid off.

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The news spread like fire last week: Sony has a installer on some of their music cd´s that might install a rootkit on customers pc´s if they put them into their personal computer. The rootkit software could not be uninstalled by normal means and has already been used by hackers to hide World of Warcraft cheat scripts from being detected by Blizzards Warden client.

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