full-disclosure - This crap needs to stop

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Date: Mon Nov 28 23:33:21 2005
From: degeneracypressure at gmail.com (Eliah Kagan)
Subject: This crap needs to stop

Todd Towles wrote:
> Well, I agree that something should be done, but it isn't equal to the
> Sony issue IMHO. This was clearly an accident, just like viruses and
> trojans that were found in MP3 players to Dell computers (for a very
> short time). This is business, sometimes, products are "defective".
>
> Sony knew what they were doing....and wanted to play "rights" god on
> every PC in the world.

Todd is right.

It is important to differentiate between maliciousness and a really
embarrassing error. Sony *wrote* a rootkit for the purpose of cracking
into their customers' systems to force their customers to act in a way
more profitable to Sony, and to spy on their customers. It was not a
mistake.

To say that every time a company makes a mistake that hurts their
users is as bad as Sony installing rootkits on people's computers
nickels and dimes the issue of personal privacy and corporate spying
and makes it more difficult to fight true corporate maliciousness.

On the other hand, yeah, something should be done about this. It's
really, really bad when every once in a while a device ships with
malware, whatever the intention.

-Eliah