Margaret, Shawn and I were just watching South Park (has anyone else noticed that Trey Parker and Matt Stone seem to be off their game this season?) when a commercial came on for the LG VX9800 cell phone. It just so happens that I’m due for a new phone sometime soon, and this ad pushed all my “gimmie” buttons.

“Oooooooooooo”, I said.

“Eh, looks like it’ll give you brain cancer,” Shawn said.

“Yeah, but holy shit, just look at it,” I mumbled, mesmerized.

“It’ll give you brain cancer!” Margaret shouted.

“It’s giving me an erection,” I replied.

That’s when she hit me with a sofa cushion.

Heard about this? Play a Sony Music CD on your Windows PC, and you’re treated to an End-User License Agreement. Click “Agree”, and Sony installs a rootkit on your computer. You’re never informed of the install, and attempting to remove it manually can trash your operating system.

Oh, but wait, there’s more! One of the functions of the thing is to render totally invisible to the OS any application or process beginning with “$sys$”. So now all the malware coders have to do is deploy viruses with names like “$sys$fuckupyourcomputer.exe” and target anyone who listened to their new Destiny’s Child CD on their computer.

Congratulations, Sony: you have given the PC community a solid, technical, fact-based argument in favor of music piracy. And people get on Apple’s case for their digital music DRM. Sheesh.

UPDATE: The first (but undoubtedly not the last) virus exploiting this security hole has been found in the wild. Yay Sony! You insolent, inconsiderate fuckers. Hope you get buried in lawsuits.