{"id":8424,"date":"2005-11-22T08:30:40","date_gmt":"2005-11-22T15:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2005\/11\/22\/at-the-rootkit-of-the-problem.html"},"modified":"2005-11-22T08:30:40","modified_gmt":"2005-11-22T15:30:40","slug":"at_the_rootkit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/11\/22\/at_the_rootkit.html","title":{"rendered":"At the root(kit) of the problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

A nice (and biting) summary article on the shenanigans by Sony in sneaking rootkit code onto consumers’ PCs<\/a> on a number of CDs they shipped. Money quote:<\/p>\n

The only thing that makes this rootkit legitimate is that a multinational corporation put it on your computer, not a criminal organization.<\/p>\n

That ties into the real point of the article — not that Sony was scummy for putting this rootkit code onto PCs in the first place (we sort of expect Big Media to do that sort of thing), but that the OS (Micro$oft) and anti-virus vendors have been so quiet in detecting this, cleaning this, or even complaining about it.<\/p>\n

What happens when the creators of malware collude with the very companies we hire to protect us from that malware? We users lose, that’s what happens. A dangerous and damaging rootkit gets introduced into the wild, and half a million computers get infected before anyone does anything.<\/p>\n

Who are the security companies really working for? It’s unlikely that this Sony rootkit is the only example of a media company using this technology. Which security company has engineers looking for the others who might be doing it? And what will they do if they find one? What will they do the next time some multinational company decides that owning your computers is a good idea?<\/p>\n

These questions are the real story, and we all deserve answers.<\/p>\n

(BoingBoing has its latest roundup of news items on this matter<\/a>, too.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A nice (and biting) summary article on the shenanigans by Sony in sneaking rootkit code onto consumers’ PCs on a number of CDs they shipped. Money quote: The only thing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[28,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-moguls","category-virii"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9305,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/07\/29\/bt06_and_now_fo-2.html","url_meta":{"origin":8424,"position":0},"title":"BT06 – And Now for Something Completely Different …","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 29-Jul-06 2:25pm","format":false,"excerpt":"... a serious topic. I am blogging for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).\u00a0 I am not a comfortable political blogger -- I tend to be too sympathetic to too many...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogathon"","block_context":{"text":"Blogathon","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/blogathon"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18839,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/10\/06\/unblogged-bits-wed-6-oct-10-1130.html","url_meta":{"origin":8424,"position":1},"title":"Unblogged Bits (Wed. 6-Oct-10 1130)","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 6-Oct-10 11:30am","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... T-Mobile sneaks \"rootkit\" into G2 phones - reinstalls locked-down OS after jailbreaking - I doubt it's illegal, but it's certainly an obnoxious trick. I'd expect to see other carriers\/vendors, sadly, follow suit, following the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9788,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/11\/01\/possible_end_of_an_era.html","url_meta":{"origin":8424,"position":2},"title":"Possible end of an era","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 1-Nov-06 3:04pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Because of virus\/malware distribution problems from infected machines, the security folks at the office are going to put out a workstation policy (the \"part of the Windows operating system\" kind)...","rel":"","context":"In "My Computer"","block_context":{"text":"My Computer","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/my-computer"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31970,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/12\/30\/chrome-offers-dire-warnings-about-twitpic.html","url_meta":{"origin":8424,"position":3},"title":"Chrome offers dire warnings about … TwitPic?","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 30-Dec-12 2:39pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Assume it's a false positive that's leading to \"DO NOT WANT TO LOAD THIS PAGE\" warnings. Hopefully someone's in the office up at the Google Mothership ... Embedded Link Google blocks TwitPic over alleged malware, causing Chrome to deny access to some Twitter pages Google's malware checker on Sunday has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10268,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/03\/02\/if_its_free_it_must_be_sa.html","url_meta":{"origin":8424,"position":4},"title":"If it’s free, it must be safe, right?","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 2-Mar-07 1:35pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Heh. After citing this article a few weeks back, I was ... amused at the airport when I looked up available WiFi connections and got ... this. ATTWiFi is...","rel":"","context":"In "Virii & Malware"","block_context":{"text":"Virii & Malware","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/computer-security\/virii"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/free-wifi.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/free-wifi.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/free-wifi.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6806,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/12\/28\/tech_support_6.html","url_meta":{"origin":8424,"position":5},"title":"Tech support","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 28-Dec-04 3:20pm","format":false,"excerpt":"This year has been remarkably free from the usual tech support calls on my parents' and in-laws' computers. Not sure why -- no specific complaints, perhaps. I did run through...","rel":"","context":"In "My Computer"","block_context":{"text":"My Computer","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/my-computer"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8424\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}