Sony's mind trick
Sony reached an agreement with the FTC over their infamous "rootkit" incident last year. Sony had installed a intrusive (and badly written) rootkit on some of their audio CDs, in such a way that when the consumer had bought the music and played it on their PC, the rootkit was surreptitiously installed on their hard drive. Once there, it would do things like stop the music from being copied onto MP3 players, monitor how the tunes were used and occasionally phone home to Sony and tell them what else you have on your computer. (A rootkit is a program that installs itself on your computer and then twiddles the operating system to hide it's presence--sort of like Obi Wan Kenobi using the Jedi mind trick on Imperial Stormtroopers "These aren't the droids you're looking for.")
The settlement worked out to $150 per user to repair damage to their computer. I haven't seen the details yet, but I imagine that the submitting user will have to show that there was in fact, repairable damage to their machine plus proof of purchase of the CD. In other words, although there were millions of CDs sold with the damaging software installed, it's unlikely that Sony will pay off on many of them. In fact, as per usual with this kind of settlement, the biggest beneficiaries will undoubtedly be the lawyers on both sides who probably high-fived each other in the hallways, congratulating each other on collecting another round of high-priced fees.
So, and this is a serious question--why isn't what Sony did an act of terrorism? Wilful attacks on private property, spying on American citizens and potential disruption of computer networks sound like something that the Taliban might have tried.
Why aren't Sony executives being brought up on criminal charges? The recording motion picture industries have been getting away with a lot in this country in the last few decades. This is one of the most outrageous acts, but it's not an isolated incident. If Congress would get the entertainment industries tongues and wallets out of their pants, perhaps they would protect us from these predatory actions on the part of companies like Sony.
I believe that there are worse things going on out there in cyberspace created and released by the Mad Doctors of Hollywood. Viruses and spambots, zombie nets and trojan horse files floating around the Internet plaguing our personal computers may in some part, someday, be traced back to these clowns at companies like Sony.
Posted on February 01, 2007
