Bruce Schneier is one of the top Information Security thinkers and writers out there. Here is a very telling story about Sony's rootkit that was installed when you used their copy protected music on your Windows computer. A rootkit is software that is secretly installed and potentially provides access to your system by others. This tool is very much like a worm or virus that you would consider a bad thing to be installed on your system. Sony thinks they can do what they want on your computer.

• Should Sony be allowed to install things on your computer to protect thier Intellectual Property rights without telling you? No.
• Should they be able to violate someone elses IP rights to do so by using their software against the license? No.
• Should Microsoft and security vendors (anti-virus and spyware) treat this as Malware and respond with a fix to remove the offending software? Yes, but they haven't. Microsoft doesn't want to offend the partner that can help them move into the entertainment system market. Big companies apparently stick together.

What do you think about all this? Personally, it makes me pretty mad. I'm also glad I use a Mac.

UPDATE: Ed Felten over at Freedom to Tinker has a good addition to this post, covering the possible infringement of Sony against GLP and LGLP code.

UPDATE 2: More from Bruce here.