I just found this link at Gmail:

http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/securit...m?feed=generic

Interest declared: I hate Sony. Actually, after two years of working for a computer seller, I hate just about every computer manufacturer the company deals with. One way or the other they make the middleman's job much harder than it has to be, through needless paperwork or losing orders or shipping goods to the wrong branch. (Enough, 6, enough!)

Note: This post was moved out of the Spyware forum so others could participate in the discussion. Replies by unauthorized users in the Spyware Section is not allowed for reasons stated by Site Admin in his post, Why can't I post replies to others thread here?.
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This is a sad event. Sony should have learned their lesson 2 years ago when they secretly installed exploitable rootkits on unsuspecting user's computers (see this Nov 2005 article, Sony's DRM 'spyware' is unacceptable). Sony initially denied that its rootkit was a security risk but quickly backtracked when malware appeared that exploited the flaw. Sony ended up paying millions settling lawsuits. Part of the problem was removing the rootkit proved difficult at best and often broke folks' PCs, forcing a complete format and fresh Windows install and loss of data. Not cool!

Let's hope (1) this code is not exploitable and (2), it can be easily removed/uninstalled.