Sony faces class action lawsuits

Sony/BMG, the world's second largest recording company, is finding itself in hot soup after the Digital Rights Management (DRM) software that it had incorporated in its audio CDs to prevent unauthorised copying of the music was found to have critical flaws. The company faces a series of class action lawsuits in California and New York. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a leading civil rights group for the electronic media and especially the Internet, is also expected to launch its own nationwide class action suits.

Commonly referred to as "rootkit", the software would allow unauthorised access to the PC from a remote location, effectively transferring control to a malicious user, or make the PC a "zombie" spambot. The software, XCP (Extended Copy Protection), developed by First 4 Interenet, a British based group, was found on the CD and which would automatically run when inserted into the CD drive of a PC. The rootkit modifies critical operating system settings on Windows in an attempt to prevent the copying of the CD.

Although music piracy is a grave threat to the music industry and enhanced copy protection techniques are required, such extreme intrusion into the settings of the operating system could effectively make the PC susceptible to attack from the Internet, and atleast two Internet worms have been reported which would exploit this software.

If you have bought a CD from Sony recently, chances are that your PC is a potential target for such attacks. A full list of the CDs carrying the rootkit can be found at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Personally, I like Sony for the wide range of products and choices it offers the consumers worldwide and innovation has always been its strength. However, I don't think putting software on CDs which would run without the knowledge of the user and which would open itself to attack from the Internet is exactly the right kind of thing to do, even if it is being justified as a step to prevent piracy. Piracy is bad, this isn't good either.

Beware of the keylogger

Have you checked your mail from a Net cafe on a public computer? Or even worse, have you performed online banking transactions on one? If you have, chances are somebody could have access to your email inbox, or your bank accout! Shocked? You should be. New research from iDefense shows that usage of keylogger programmers are on the rise, upto 65% from last year.

Keylogger software

Keyloggers are basically small programs that run as a background task in the operating system, and thus, invisible to the user. Once installed, they monitor and record every keystroke that is input by the user, and stores them in a file somewhere, neatly categorised by time, date and the window receiving the input. The file may be then be later sent to an email address of the person who installed the software, and voila!, he has access to all your personal details. That means every single key you have entered is recorded and ready to be read by a malicious user, and it includes your usernames, passwords and even your credit card number.

Armed with that information, that person has, in effect, stolen your online identity and he could do really bad things with it, and it would seem like you did it.

Keyloggers are normally invisible and stay that way until they are brought alive using weird key-stroke combinations or some other trick only the guy who installed it would know. Many anti-virus programs detect key-loggers but not all. However, the right kind of probing and searching would tell you if there is a keylogger installed. But then again, many don't care. Should we? With your bank accounts and private mails and credit card numbers, you probably should.

Get paid for surfing

Get paid for surfing! If you have lots of free time to do a whole lot of nothing, and you are one of those who don't mind sitting all night and clicking away, there are sites out there that claim to give you money in return.

Studiotraffic.com, one of such sites, claim to give you as much $150 per day, just for surfing sites that they show them. What's the catch, you will ask now. Yes, there is one. Free accounts will earn only as much $0.10 a day, and in order to get to higher payouts, you need to have higher level account with the site. They say that it is much like watching local TV with ads - you surf sites with advertisements, and you get paid for the trouble.

Another site, Cobrapay.com offers even more - upto $640! Their homepage is less elaborate on how they can afford to pay you this much.

Caution: The above information is for the sake of information only and should be treated as such. This blog author assumes no responsibility for the claims that the sites make nor does this post endorse any of these sites. Use your best judgement and discretion before hurrying down and signing up with these sites. Remember - There's no such things as a free lunch!