You may or may not have heard about the latest corporate debacle from Sony/BMG music. It seems that Sony has licensed a Digital Right Management (DRM) program that must install on your computer if you try to play any of their recent copy-protected CD’s. What they don’t tell you is that this program installs itself as a rootkit. This means that it goes into the heart of Windows and manipulates the kernel to both hide itself and mask its behavior.

The Windows kernel is the core of Windows. All other programs link to the kernel to run their operations. Before you nod off on all this tech shlek, the result is that Sony loads a program on your system that changes Windows at its core and it does this so that it can hide its files and its operation so that you can’t remove it. Does Sony tell you that you can’t uninstall this software once you install it? No it does not!

So, not only have you unknowingly installed malware licensed by Sony on your computer, now Sony’s DRM makes it easy for even a novice to take advantage of this hidden monster on your computer by also hiding their files without having to know how to write a rootkit. All they have to do is name the file in a certain way and the file disappears.

To make matters worse the software is poorly written and can cause the blue screen of death. If that happens you have no idea what is causing such behavior because you and your computer don’t even know that the drivers that are causing the problem are installed on your system (as if Windows needs any help in being unstable and lacking in helpful information).

To sum up, Sony is purposely violating the integrity and stability of YOUR computer to protect ITS property. It seems to me that infecting my computer with rootkit stealthware isn’t the way to build trust or goodwill with consumers.

I personally refuse to buy anything Sony-related from this day forward. It’s bad enough trying to keep my computer protected from the seedy underbelly of the Internet, now I have to worry about “reputable” companies like Sony. Sorry, Sony, in my books you are now the infected, oozing bellybutton ring on the seedy Internet underbelly.

For more helpful info on this story check out the following links:

Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far

Security Now’s Episode #12: Sony’s “Rootkit Technology” DRM (copy protection gone bad)

This past week the city was busy pouring replacement sections of the sidewalk on our street. I think there were about four separate sections that were jack-hammered out and repoured.

Each section was cordoned off overnight while it dried. Signs were put up requesting that “Pedestrians use the sidewalk on the other side of the street.” But all to no avail.

In the dried concrete of one section are two separate names. In another section are someone’s footprints right through the entire section. Why do people do that? When I make mistakes I don’t want them to be the kind of mistakes that are set in stone! I want them to go away as quickly as they were made.

I feel for the sidewalk artisans. They work hard to create a sidewalk that is both neat and functional. They are skilled in what they do. Their workmanship is really quite wonderful. I personally love to read the year each section of the sidewalk was made. (Perhaps I need a hobby.) But, the best these tireless workers can hope for is that some of their sidewalk monuments make it unscathed past the soft vulnerable stage until they reach mature hardness. I have no “hard’ facts on this but I think the success rate is something similar to that of baby turtles making it to the ocean after hatching. Out of thousands of sidewalks only a lucky few make it. Having your worked messed up like that all the time has to be demoralizing!

Why is there so much concrete carnage? I guess some people’s drive to be remembered is strong enough that they’re willing to leave a permanent mark of civic stupidity. I understand leaving a mark. I want to leave a permanent mark as well, but I would prefer it to be a mark greater than my shoe size.

In my last blog I referenced the Body Worlds 2 exhibition that is presently showing at the Ontario Science Center (see past blog for links). Body Worlds 2 uses real bodies which have been transformed into plastic anatomical displays by Gunther Von Hagens.

Having thought about it a bit more, I think the major problem I have with this exhibit is that ultimately, I believe, it devalues human life. By putting these bodies on display much like a hunter mounts his trophies on the wall, albeit with much more finesse and skill, once again we focus on the physical, with little thought for the soul that animates.

All the participants donated their bodies anonymously — for obvious reasons. This means that, while we gaze at these once-living beings, we may be able to look at the marvel of the makeup and mechanics of their bodies, but what we can’t do is gain any kind of understanding of who these people really were. Nor can we honor their memory because who they were had little to do with the physical makeup of their bodies.

This exhibit is populated by real people. They had names. They lived. They were married, had children, and contributed to society. They made their mark by touching other lives — for good and for bad. That is the real story here.

This exhibit gives us permission to do what we shouldn’t be doing in the first place — gawking at the physical without taking into account the person. Every day we make evaluations of others based on appearance. We categorize and marginalize with our eyes — meanwhile we miss the soul.

Our society already has a major problem objectifying people — just look at the billions that are spent every year on pornography! Women are treated like object to use and possess. Their physical beauty becomes fuel for self-gratification without any thought for the humiliation such gratification requires. People with physical differences or challenges are recognized by those differences: she is fat; he is in a wheelchair. All these physical observations do is distance us from knowing the real person.

How popular would the exhibit be if it was just as skillfully made; without the use of human bodies? What drives people to this exhibit? — the quest for knowledge or the opportunity to see real bodies dissected? If it is the latter what does that tell us about ourselves?