A Copyfighter’s Musings

“The suit, to be filed in Los Angeles County Superior court, alleges
that the XCP and SunnComm technologies have been installed on the
computers of millions of unsuspecting music customers when they used
their CDs on machines running the Windows operating system. Researchers
have shown that the XCP technology was designed to have many of the
qualities of a “rootkit.” It was written with the intent of concealing
its presence and operation from the owner of the computer, and once
installed, it degrades the performance of the machine, opens new
security vulnerabilities, and installs updates through an Internet
connection to Sony BMG’s servers. The nature of a rootkit makes it
extremely difficult to remove, often leaving reformatting the
computer’s hard drive as the only solution. When Sony BMG offered a
program to uninstall the dangerous XCP software, researchers found that
the installer itself opened even more security vulnerabilities in
users’ machines. Sony BMG has still refused to use its marketing
prowess to widely publicize its recall program to reach the over 2
million XCP-infected customers, has failed to compensate users whose
computers were affected and has not eliminated the outrageous terms
found in its End User Licensing Agreement (EULA).”