Mr and Mrs Smith: with rootkit
p2p news / p2pnet: With the Sony BMG rootkit DRM scandal now the subject of an important new paper, Heise Online is reporting another example of the, "ever-warming relationship of copy protection and rootkit technologies," says Finland’s F-Secure.
The German DVD release of the movie Mr. & Mrs. Smith, "contains a copy protection mechanism which uses rootkit-like cloaking technolog," says the company’s blog.
"The Settec Alpha-DISC copy protection system used on the DVD contains user-mode rootkit-like features to hide itself," it states.
"The system will hide it’s own process, but does not appear to hide any files or registry entries. This makes the feature a bit less dangerous, as anti-virus products will still be able to scan all files on the disk. However, as we note in our article on rootkits, it’s not that uncommon for real malware to only hide their processes."
If you’re worried that your Mr & Mrs Smith may be bugged, Settec has provided an unistaller.
"All components of the Alpha-DISC copy protection are completely removed by the Uninstallation," it promises, adding, "After uninstallation is completed, you can keep the uninstaller on the hard drive for future use or you can delete it."
Do non-German copies also come with Settec Alpha-DISC rootkit DRM?
Stay tuned.
Also See:
new paper – MediaMax, XCP study, February 14, 2006
another example – Sicherheitslücke durch Kinowelt-Kopiersperre, February 13, 2006
F-Secure – About the Hidden Smith Family, February 14, 2006
February 14th, 2006 at 9:44 pm
No, only the german version. The german version is distributed by Sony. Abroad its distributed by the company that owns it, FOX.
February 15th, 2006 at 6:00 am
And they wonder why people use p2p networks?
February 15th, 2006 at 4:42 pm
Yes, only the German version, RTFA.
‘The German DVD release of the movie Mr. & Mrs. Smith, “contains a copy protection mechanism which uses rootkit-like cloaking technolog,” says the company’s blog.’
February 15th, 2006 at 10:06 pm
GET a CLUE!!!!!!!!!!!
February 15th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
nuff said
February 16th, 2006 at 4:29 am
I getting to be afraid to put any recent commercial CD or DVD into my computer drive. Time to quit buying them. It’s safer to download from the internet.
May 31st, 2006 at 5:22 am
It is on the US version as well – look at the label on the back, it says it has copy protection technology. After playing the movie, spyware scanners pick up rootkit.
October 8th, 2006 at 11:26 am