Thursday, November 03, 2005

The Law of Unintended Consequences, Sony, and "The Warden"

My last posting warned of a "root kit" that Sony installs when you run certain of their audio CDs from your computer. News from slashdot shows that Sony's little program can be used to thwart other invasive schemes!

Turns out that a gaming company called "Blizzard" has a game called "Warcraft" that installs a piece of software called "The Warden" that "monitors" the use of the game to ensure that the gamers don't install "cheats" to get around the rules of the game. Since it is considered effectively spyware, they generated heat for doing this. The BBC had a story on this Monday.

Well, the same people who want to cheat Warcraft have found that the sloppy code of Sony's rootkit actually can be used to their advantage by hiding the cheats from "The Warden" -- and, of course, they are doing it!

Just shows you that you cannot keep determined people from getting around these things.

0 comments: