Check out this article. Seems Sony created software to protect their music CDs from being pirated (note: Every song has totally been pirated and is all over the net for easy download) that didn’t just hide itself, but would hide any file that started with “$sys$” in the filename.
I read an article about this “rootkit” earlier and thought “What a bunch of jerks,” but didn’t even realize the true extent of the damage they’ve caused with this: They’ve given hackers the ultimate tool to hide their hacks, ruining online gaming quite possibly forever.
The article I linked mentions World of Warcraft, but the same can be true of any game hack, including first-person shooters like Counterstrike, or the new Battlefield 2 or Quake 4. All totally ruined because their new anti-cheat measures simply can’t detect a file that’s been hidden by such a rootkit.
And it doesn’t stop at games. I’m sure most viruses coming down the pipe these days will use the $sys$ prefix so they can’t be detect and cleaned by anti-virus software.
And the cause of this bullshit? A multi-billion dollar media conglomerate didn’t want Joe Consumer to be able to copy their legally purchased music CD onto their computer.
As I mentioned, the pirates worked around this protection already. How? They simply didn’t let their CD drive do an “autorun” so the software was never installed in the first place and then copied the music just like any other CD.
Wow, that’s lame.
Phew! I’m glad I don’t play games on my computer! Well - except Snood of course. You should write to Sony.
Although - I may add - that if people didn’t cheat in World of Warcraft, the issue would be irrelevant. That’s the #1 reason I have no interest in playing online: these people are not my friends.