SONY BMG ROOTKIT COULD KILL US ALL, POSSIBLY

That nifty little rootkit which Sony-BMG started throwing onto people's computers to protect its copyright? It starts to look as if it might have compromised all our safety - a researcher has found the program, which opens a backdoor to hackers, on governmental and military computers around the globe. Thanks, Sony.

The "around the globe" bit is interesting, too. The intentionally-damaged discs were only distributed in the US, and yet their fingerprints are turning up all around the world. In other words: pirates have been duplicating Sony's discs, piracy-proof protection and all.

Sony will have to hope that the discovery that their gunk has got into federal systems doesn't leave them open to repercussions from the US: installing secret software on a US military network would surely get any of us a one-way trip on a shadowy flight to a unmapped government facility.

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