The Sony Rootkit revisited

December 17, 2007

The Sony Rootkit debacle of 2005 (discussed here and here) now has a full-length analysis which you can read in draft form. In a paper about to be published in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Deirdre K. Mulligan and Aaron K. Perzanowski examine what happened, what the rootkit did, and why Sony BMG apparently went insane:

The harms flowing from the rootkit incident were varied and wide-reaching. The security flaws inherent in Sony BMG’s DRM left users open to attack, and the DRM collected data about users’ private activities without proper disclosure. Moreover, Sony BMG, as well as its artists, suffered damage to their reputation and bottom line as a result of the rootkit incident. But the effects of the rootkit extended well beyond the parties to these transactions. The rootkit incident threatened both the security of the network infrastructure and the future of DRM technology. [ The Magnificence of the Disaster, PDF ]

Via Boing Boing

Posted in Technology