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.