11/26/2005

Buy SONY. Buy your PC a TUMOUR for christmas

Did Gerald Ratner serve time at SONY?

For those who don't already know. Sony have been installing a rootkit (spyware) on your system whenever you play their cds.

DO NOT BUY SONY CDS. ESPECIALLY, DO NOT PLAY THEM ON YOUR COMPUTER!!! Or anything that might have anything resembling a operating system and could potentially connect to the net. In fact to be safe I would also suggest BOYCOTTING ALL SONY PRODUCTS FROM NOW ON. I would STRONGLY suspect that the rootkit is one manifestation of a customer monitoring and manipulation policy which informs their entire product range. HOW DARE THEY!?!?!?!?! Why buy a piece of hardware that has its manufacturer's interest actively at heart more than your own?

This rootkit monitors your playing habits, i.e. which tracks are you selecting and how often, and reports back to the SONY corporation on your activities. Unless of course you NEVER connect to the net. It also monitors for inappropriate use and prevents you copying the content of the CD outwith highly restrictive limitations.

The rootkit basically carves a lion sized cat-flap in your system's back door leaving a gaping wound in your systems security which can be exploited by worms and viruses from sources even more nefarious and other than the blessed SONY. Their hubris compromises your system and blithely leaves you open to identity theft.

The rootkit installs itself deep within the guts of your system registry and is almost impossible to completely remove without re-installing your system - i'm talking a full re-build including disk format.

Imagine a tumour being artificially and maliciously introduced into your body and growing throughout your nervous system before metastasising.

How recent are your backups by the way? You don't run a business on that system do you? Are you insured? How reliant is your business on your system? How reliant is your family on your business?

The efforts to remove it without a full re-build invariably leave your system more vulnerable than before.

Anti Customer technology indeed.

Also, iPod owners will already know that you cannot drag and drop SONY CD contents onto your iPod as Apple and they have failed to come to any form of licensing agreement.

Of course! As the bearded one, the Job-ster, is also aiming for world dictatorship of the digital media.

iPods are for tech-stupid, promo-sap, cash-rich numbskulls. Why pay a fortune to buy yourself into a proprietary backwater? It's a disk drive with headphones. iTunes? iBarf! iHadThisTechnologyFiveYearsAgo. iDidNotSuccumb to this particular proprietary technology, licensing and marketing package. Discuss.

The guys at SORRY sorry SONY also seemed to have been going for the 2005 Alanis Morissette prize for irony when it emerged that the code used to implement the rootkit, designed remember to obsessively protect SONY's precious legal copyright, was itself pirated from a piece of software written by/for Apple which in itself was designed to illegally overcome the digital rights mechanism used on movie DVDs - as a further irony this paragraph has been plagiarised to a significant degree from Wikipedia. I also believe that the bulk of my genetic makeup has been plagarised from my parents who in turn ...

SONY are one of the prime manufacturers who have been screwing us over CD prices for the past 15 years or so. These are the guys who quite happily charged us a premium as we were coralled into replacing our vinyl, despite the fact that the bulk of the product was already paid for. The sex, drugs and rock and roll (okay, the production costs) were already covered by the artists upon whom they are feeding. Their costs in the process were simply re-mastering, duplication and distribution. The remainder was pure profit. They also took the opportunity to exploit geographic arbitrage and relentlessly screw the UK over the USofA and the rest of the world over pricing.

Artists have a right to payment for their product. Manufacturers have a right to a fair profit for creating the media via which the product is delivered. All in the supply chain have a right to fair reward for their efforts. However, as far as I am concerned when I buy a media product - music CD say. I am buying the content and not the format and I will store and play that content how-so-ever I damn well choose.

These arseholes now seem to view the proliferating media options as fair game and seem to be hoping for a similar bonanza to the CD heist - multiplied to the nth degree, 'n' being the number of media options.

Unfortunately, SONY et al view your purchase as a lease. You ain't buying, you're renting.

Technically you are not allowed to copy the content off of the purchased format.

Did you know that to retain legal rights to play the material you must remain the legal owner of the original media i.e. the disc? Consequently, if you are burgled and they take your CD collection, but say you are out of town with your laptop at the time, you are then legally obliged to delete any files that you had uploaded from your collection to said laptop. Similarly if you are declared bankrupt and lose ownership of your CD collection it is then illegal for you to comfort yourself with music YOU HAVE PAID FOR!

It is time for dinosaurs such as SONY and the rest to suck a tailpipe. Class Action suits are springing up big-time as affected individuals aggregate their claims. Don't be surprised if SONY takes a massive hit as a consequence of it's hidebound arrogance.

Gulliver is teetering, Lilliput is singing - royalty free.

P.S. I intended to add spice to this piece by providing further detail on the class action suit in process against SONY due to the rootkit. The first I came across had NOTHING to do with the current action. The David Manning suit immediately sprang to my googletastic cerebelum. Basically David M does not exist! He was a fictitious reviewer and his authoritative reviews were quoted on esteemed SONY product promotional material for such turds as "A Knight's Tale" and "The Patriot". David Manning (SONY) was force to repay $5 to every sap who attended each of those pieces of shit inspired by his non-existential reviews. They have form! SONY are liars!

Following is not for human eyes. SearchEngineTastic:

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P.P.S. As a further irony I have just spotted that my Goooogle Ads are promoting the iPod Nano. Hypocrite? Moi? Go on buy one. Make me cash.

xx