My pleasure. Be sure to tell everybody you know who might play CDs in their PC how to turn off the autorun. That’s the surest way to pull the teeth from these assholes.
Well, this is a pretty new thing, and it sounds like a non-trivial task to remove it. This isn’t just deleting some files, that apparently damages the system somehow. To be honest, I’m a bit worried that a mistake in “healing” software from Symantec and others might cause more damage. I’ve heard many a horror story about Symantec products, and in fact I think there’s one in the pit right now.
These goddamn rootkits sound so low-level that maybe the best solution might have to come from Microsoft. It’s supposed to be in their ‘Defender’ software, which is what their malicious software removal tool is going to be called.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1886122,00.asp
Revtim, are you aware that most of the first viruses spread by floppy disk? When people booted from the floppy or opened a file on it, their computer would get infected by the virus. How is the situation any different?
For anyone who questions my labeling of this as a “virus” – I’m well aware that the Sony situation, since it doesn’t self-replicate, might not fit the classical description of a virus, and any computer professional would understand the difference.
But I think the term “virus” is used by the average computer user to encompass a wide range of baddies, including worms, trojans, malware, spyware and worse. From that point of view, as Rysto points out, something that latches on to your system without your knowledge or consent from an infected floppy is identical in function to a Sony-infected CD. The only difference I can see is one is spread by someone who is has no ethics and we have learned not to trust; the other is spread by a manufacturer who, up to now, we had a lot of trust in. Not much of a difference, methinks.
From the definition you yourself provided: “The main criterion for classifying a piece of executable code as a virus is that it spreads itself by means of ‘hosts’.”
In the case of the first viruses, the floppies you mention were infected by hosts, infected computers that replicate the virus. In the case of the Sony DRM, an “infected” computer does not replicate the DRM, hence there is not a host and the definition is not met.
In a nutshell: A virus contains code to replicate itself, and an infected machine spreads the virus by executing this code. The Sony DRM does not do this.
Yes, people use the term that way, but it’s incorrect and misleading, and takes away the usefulness of the term “virus”. The OP used the term “malware”, which is a good general term for this crap (and adware, to boot).
It’s about time that Microsoft began protecting the humans stranded on other planets from their alien abductors! 
If they follow it up with MS Robotron, that would sweet…
That’s right, but it is interesting that an exact copy of an infected CD will contain the bad code as well as the music, just like an exact copy of an infected floppy.
It’s also interesting that the Sony scheme does nothing to prevent a user making an exact copy of the “protected” CDs just like the unprotected ones. It only affects ripping.
And someone has found that the whole scheme can be defeated in much the same manner as an older scheme where a felt pen marker used over a certain spot on the disk causes that track to be unreadable and the computer ignores the protection software. The suggestion here is to use tape, but it seems likely that a marker would work, too:
http://www.techtree.com/techtree/jsp/article.jsp?article_id=69297&cat_id=582
And now the RIAA is in it. Stupid RIAA.
Un-fucking-believable.
And those cunts at the RIAA wonder why consumers don’t trust them.
I’d find it interesting if an exact copy DIDN’T have everything the original had, 'cause that’s kind of the definition of an “exact copy”. 
So sweet. It kinda makes me glad this shit secretly transmits details about what music the PC is playing, because that makes the anti-spyware law apply.
Now would be a good time for them to make legislation that would make surreptitious installation of any software, spyware or not, against the law. Close that loophole that might have made this Sony shit legal if it didn’t spy. (Assuming these laws do not already exist)
And extra penalties if it cannot be deleted easily and safely by simply removing it with “add/remove programs”.
Oh, this is interesting. I’m reading the latest issue of Maximum PC and according to it, Sony’s doing a lot of firmware upgrades to it’s PSPs to prevent people from running things like emulators for non-PSP games on the things. Given that the PSP also has a web browser now, I’m just wondering if the thing doesn’t “phone home” to rat you out as well.
I figure it’s more that all the games that are available for PSP suck ass and nobody in their right mind would buy a UMD.
Bill Amend’s take on the topic…
Damn, Tuck, you beat me to it. Well, here is another article on the subject anyway.
This is a good time to [URL=www.copyright.gov/1201/comment_forms/index.html]send your comments on DMCA rulemaking to the Copyright Office[/A]. Technically, cleaning this crap out of your system is probably illegal, and antivirus companies aren’t going to want to touch it unless the rules are corrected on this point.
Fixed link: