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XXX xxxxxxxx, xxx x xxx XXXX xxxx.MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCCOCTOBER 2006
Was it only last year that Sony took its
most recent step toward complete corpo-
rate insanity? Perhaps you were affected
personally by Sony’s Extended Copy
Protection (XCP) system, better known as
“the Sony rootkit.” It wouldn’t be a surprise:
Sony shipped 4.7 million CDs loaded with
the rootkit—a well-hidden, auto-installing
DRM application designed to keep you
from ripping the CD or transferring songs
to any portable device that Sony deemed
unacceptable (including the iPod). That was
bad enough, but XCP also caused some
serious problems in Windows when you
tried to remove it: Namely, it could delete
your CD-ROM drivers and could render
your drive useless.
When this was all revealed onHalloween 2005, months
after XCP had been intro-
duced, Sony’s response to
the rootkit problem read like
an example of how not to
handle a PR crisis. Thomas
Hesse, president of Sony-BMG’s digital
music division, stated on NPR: “Most
people, I think, don’t even know what a
rootkit is, so why should they care about
it?” Turns out, people did care, and though
Sony argued that XCP did not represent
a security fl aw, the ensuing fi restorm of
criticism forced Sony to release a patch to
remove XCP’s cloaking features, but this
led to even more headaches. Sony required
consumers’ email addresses to send them
the uninstaller, and then claimed in thelicense agreement that the addresses could
be sold to a third party. The uninstaller itself
didn’t work properly, and it in turn disabled
critical security features in Windows.
Four months later, Sony fi nally said it
would “temporarily” suspend the use of
XCP, but not before the company was hit
with at least 20 lawsuits, including fi lings
from three states and the country of Italy.
Sony’s code is reportedly now being used
as a learning tool for malware creators. Well
done, Sony!IBM Deskstar 75GXP
That’s not a moon...
IBM’s 7,200rpm hard drive, featuring
up to 75GB of capacity, arrived in
2000 to rave reviews. Performance
was fantastic in early benchmarks,
and reviews were glowing.
Then the drives started failing,
invariably heralded by an infamous
“scratch, scratch, scratch” noise.
Though no specifi c cause has ever
been pinpointed (at least not pub-
licly), the blame has centered on the
Deskstar’s unique use of glass instead
of aluminum for the platter media (IBM
claimed this allowed greater data den-
sity and stability at high speeds). The
resulting problems earned the drive the
apropos moniker “Deathstar.”
IBM eventually sold its entire hard
drive division to Hitachi, which is now
handling the class-action lawsuit over
the product.Tech Tragedies
Sony Extended Copy Protection
Hey, I got some sweet freeware with my J-Lo CD! In a way, the Sony root-
kit debacle was divine
justice for people who
like crappy music. In
another, more relevant
way, it was evil.Kenwood TrueX
It’s true that this drive really sucked
Matrox Parhelia 512
A more apropos moniker would be
the sub-ParheliaThe Matrox Parhelia 512 arrived on the
market mere weeks before ATI’s giant-
killer 9700 Pro, and it was the compa-
ny’s last best attempt at regaining some
market share in the lucrative 3D market.
The Parhelia was initially promoted as a
DirectX 9 card, but it soon became clear
that this support was only “partial,” and
as new games were released, perfor-
mance didn’t meet expectations or the
games simply didn’t work. On top of its
lofty $400 price, the architecture itself
turned out to be subpar. When the 9700
Pro arrived, it kicked the Parhelia in the
nuts so hard that Matrox abandoned the
consumer videocard market for good.the product.the product.As CD-ROM spindle speeds
approached 10,000rpm, users start-
ed to wonder if the end was nigh:
Vibration and noise were preventing
drives from spinning much faster.
Kenwood fi gured the solution was to
add more lasers (a beam split into seven
parts, rather) to read multiple tracks
simultaneously, thus obviating the need
for faster rotational speeds.
Problems weren’t far behind for the
“world’s fastest drive”: It could barely read
CD-RW discs, and it had issues with many
commercially pressed discs too. Then the
drives started dying, and shortly thereafter
came the class-action lawsuit. The result?
Kenwood stopped making computer com-
ponents altogether, followed by another
payday for the lawyers.the rootkit problem read likeHesse, president of Sony-BMG’s digital license agreement that the addresses couldIn a way, the Sony root-
kit debacle was divine
justice for people who
like crappy music. In
another, more relevant
way, it was evil.Sony Extended Copy Protection