Just when you thought it was safe to buy Sony CDs

I thought that I might have called this one a little early.

The geniuses at Sony who brought you XCP are at it again. In a story that reads too familiarly these days, Sony and the EFF have announced a vulnerability in the MediaMax DRM software.

Before you wolves begin the next round of Sony boycotts, let me point out a few key facts here. First, Sony admits to this one right up front. Second, the media is rarely clear on what kind of exploit they’re reporting on; in this case it’s a privilege escalation exploit. This means the code can only be exploited by an existing unprivileged user to gain administrative privileges.

The bad news? You don’t have to install the software to be vulnerable to this exploit, as reported by the EFF.

This wouldn’t annoy me so much if it actually addressed the problem, but all such software really seems to accomplish is aggravating casual music enthusiasts while acting only as a minor speed bump to people who are copying music. I’d also sympathize more with the labels if their rhetoric about artists making money off their music was, you know, real.