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November 08, 2005
This week's Business Idiot Award ...
... goes to Sony BMG Music.
Why? Because, according to Information Week, Sony is so paranoid about music piracy that they've included a hacker's tool called a rootkit "on selected CDs" that exposes its own customers to some pretty severe security vulnerabilities.
As IW editor Mitch Wagner opines:
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The Sony software is, plain and simple, spyware, by any reasonable standard of the word. It installs itself without users' knowledge, it runs in stealth mode, it damages the user's system, and it resists removal.
Sony's tactic isn't just a problem for consumers; it's also a problem for business network managers. Employees often enjoy listening to music while at work, and an employee who innocently brings in a CD that's infected with Sony's copy protection can open a security hole to the entire network. |
Talk about a lawsuit waiting to happen! That is, if the Justice Department doesn't get to them first.
I don't know about you, but I won't be buying any Sony music CDs anytime soon.
Posted by The Journal Blogger at November 8, 2005 09:10 AM
