Episode 15: Crying over Rootkits, Bugs & Games

I take it Brad cried? Have to wait for my download to finish to see!

Is it just me or is anyone else experiencing problems downloading this episode with iTunes?

Odeo works fine for me;)

Homeworld made me cry. The opening cinematic, A campination of the for story, the quality of the graphics (awesome for then) and the music.. A vocal version of Barber's Adagio for Strings (think Platoon opening, but better)

Fixed. Turns out I didnt have enough disk space...

Anyway onto something entirely more important

DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT REMOVE THE SONY/BMG ROOTKIT WITH ROOKIT REVEALER.

Steve Gibson's (Security Expert at grc.com if you didnt know) Podcast (http://grc.com/securitynow.htm) describes that if you remove the rootkit, it disables access to your CD-Rom driver...

Quote - Security Now Episode Transcript #12 ("http://www.grc.com/sn/SN-012.htm"):
In the case of this Sony DRM rootkit, it installs a filter driver sort of in - it's called a "filter" because it's in line between the operating system and the CD-ROM. And Mark of Sysinternals had exactly this happen. He deleted this file, this sys file, and his CD-ROM disappeared. Now, he knew, because he's a heavy-duty techie, how to go around and how to go about getting it reconnected. But many people have had to install Windows from scratch after removing this thing incorrectly. And in fact, in some postings over on the F-Secure site, they say, yes, BlackLight, our rootkit tool, will discover it. Do not use its deletion or you will lose your CD-ROM drive.

GJ guys.. keep rockin'

Some more fun: Apparently, parts of the sony rootkit DRM are taken from the LAME mp3 encoder, sony has not released the source code, this is in violation of the LGPL licence that LAME uses

Ohh. Even more of a reason to sue them.

Great work ... Keep the spirit up

Great show, but why is the file so darn big? 128kbps, 44,100 is overkill. No reason not to do 56kbps or even 32kbps at 22,050 for a talking heads show. Would cut the file size by like 2/3'rds. Just my two cents because the download time was way too long for my taste.