On 6/29/06, Chris chris.kcat@gmail.com wrote:
If you notice, Sony got into a lot of trouble over that. And the problem wasn't autorun. The problem was that the disc installed the rootkit anyway /even if the user said no/. The same exact thing would've happened if the user had to browse the CD and double-click setup.exe, or whatever the file was called. Should Wine disable running .exe files because they may install rootkits on users' machines? Of course not, because that would be couter-productive to what Wine is trying to achieve. It's the same thing with autorun. It may or may not cause problems, but it's the user's responsibility to take proper care of their machine. It's just as true in Windows as it is in Linux, or any other OS.
Of course. You're right. Everyone's computers _should_ run arbitrary code from any un-authorized source automatically without the user's knowledge or permission. I was wrong.
The fact that Windows ran _anything_ upon inserting a CD meant to contain audio only is crap. I understand that Sony exploited a 'feature' of Windows. It's all Sony's fault. Blame Sony.
Problem is, that philosophy pushes the trust all the way out to the people who want to install rootkits on your computer. Bad idea. Better to trust Wine not to do anything to endanger your computer without your explicit attention.
--tim