CITP Blog is hosted by Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy, a research center that studies digital technologies in public life. Here you’ll find comment and analysis from the digital frontier, written by the Center’s faculty, students, and friends.
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The Sony copy protection debacle has so many angles that the mainstream press is having trouble keeping track of them all. The rootkit. The spyware. The other spyware. The big…
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Not Again! Uninstaller for Other Sony DRM Also Opens Huge Security Hole
I have good news and bad news about Sony’s other CD DRM technology, the SunnComm MediaMax system. (For those keeping score at home, Ed and I have written a lot…
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Immunize Yourself Against Sony's Dangerous Uninstaller
Jeff Dwoskin and Alex Halderman have developed a simple tool that can immunize a Windows system against the dangerous CodeSupport ActiveX control that we have written about over the past…
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Update: Sony Uninstaller Hole Stays Open
Earlier today Ed Felten and I reported a serious security hole opened by the uninstaller that Sony provides to users who want to remove the First4Internet copy protection software. Further…
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Sony's Web-Based Uninstaller Opens a Big Security Hole; Sony to Recall Discs
[This post was co-written by J. Alex Halderman and Ed Felten.] Over the weekend a Finnish researcher named Muzzy noticed a potential vulnerability in the web-based uninstaller that Sony offers…
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Don't Use Sony's Web-based XCP Uninstaller
Alex Halderman and I have confirmed that Sony’s Web-based XCP uninstallation utility exposes users to serious security risk. Under at least some circumstances, running Sony’s Web-based uninstaller opens a huge…
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Sony Shipping Spyware from SunnComm, Too
Now that virus writers have started exploiting the rootkit built into Sony-BMG albums that utilize First4Internet’s XCP DRM (as I warned they would last week), Sony has at last agreed…
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SonyBMG DRM Customer Survival Kit
Here’s a handy bag of tricks for people whose computers are (or might be) infected by the SonyBMG/First4Internet rootkit DRM. The instructions here draw heavily from research by Alex Halderman…
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SonyBMG "Protection" is Spyware
Mark Russinovich has yet another great post on the now-notorious SonyBMG/First4Internet CD “copy protection” software. His conclusion: “Without exaggeration I can say that I’ve analyzed virulent forms of spyware/adware that…
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RIAA Critics, and their Critics, Debate Lawsuits
Last week the EFF released a report criticizing the RIAA’s lawsuits against individuals accused of P2P infringement. Some commentators have criticized the EFF. Tim Lee at Tech Liberation Front summarizes…