I decided to take a tiny bit of my lunch break and cobble together my
own statement on Sony’s
nasty anti-piracy “rootkit” (software hidden on Sony music
CDs that takes control of your computer without your permission) by
mashing up Dan
Kaminsky’s visualization of affected systems worldwide and
one of the Sony PlayStation’s most beloved games, Katamari Damacy. The
result:
Those of you with better Photoshopping skills should feel free to
create more “screenshots” from this conceptual game.
An alternate name for this game could be “Katamari XCP” — XCP is the
name of Sony’s rootkit. It works well with the game’s theme song:
“Na na na na na na na na,
Katamari XCP…”
Have a good April Fools’ Day tomorrow, but be mindful about your pranking.
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Hehhe. This is Dan Kaminsky, and just to be clear -- I don't _know_ how many systems have been infected. I just know that names related to the rootkit have been looked up an astonishing number of times.
Hey there, Dan! Long time no see!
I needed a "real" number to use as the score, so I used the number of nameservers that saw rootkit-related queries and figured it would be a good lower bound.
I'm so glad I own a Mac
Darryl, Sony has software that puts unwanted kernel extensions on your Mac. I haven't looked into what they do because I don't own a mac, so it doesn't really concern me. Good thing for you is that it prompts for a root login before installing them.
I read that part, but it's still a non-issue
In OS X a program such as that cannot be installed unless you type in your password and click "ok" -- it can't be snuck in without you knowing.
But one thing that can happen in OS X is your computer unwittenly sending personal data. I don't know what it's called, but there are banners that try to prompt the computer to send out data.
Thankfully there's a great program called Little Snitch that alerts you everytime that happens