A couple of days ago we posted a story about Sony DRM installing a rootkit . Since then we have seen many more stories on the subject that I thought were worth sharing. manno gave us a link to the inquirer and salemnic sent us a page from the washington post . smallfries gave us one from PC Pro . It's nice to see this story not getting lost in the cracks since the implications are gigantic.
Mark Russinovich, of SysInternals.com, has discovered a so-called "" which is installed by Sony's new -protected music compact disks (CDs).  A rootkit is a common name for malicious software that is used by computer criminals to hide their presence on a compromised computer.  Rootkits frequently contain hidden files and are designed to be difficult for the user to detect and remove.

Russinovich classifies Sony's rootkit as  because it is alleged to introduce several serious security holes, one of which can be exploited to hide files and prevent the user from removing them.  In particular, all executable files which begin with '$sys$' are hidden when the software is installed.  He points out that these security holes could be exploited by hackers, or other malware producers besides Sony.

Russinovich explains that naively removing the files will result in a crippling of the operating system on the user's computer.  He provides an explanation of the difficult step required to remove Sony's malware.

Playing the same CDs on computers not running the Windows operating system, or on a non-computer based CD player remains safe.  As removing Sony's malware would violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention provisions,  the CDs on computers running a non-Windows operating system may be the best legal and technically safe option for those who wish to listen to them under Windows.

The software is automatically installed when a Sony CD is played on a computer, and is not mentioned in their .  The rootkit has been commercially developed by  First 4 Internet and licensed to Sony.

Other rights management techniques used by music publishers recently include breaking the  compact disc standard format. This technique causes many CD players to not be able to play the new CDs, but also protects against casual ripping.  's recent album release in the United States uses such technology.