Pre-history of the Sony rootkit

An old email thread shows the early efforts of the authors of Sony's infamous rootkit. In 2003, Ceri Coburn (to whom first4internet.com is registered) appeared as a novice programmer in a technical mailing list, asking questions about how to cripple CD drives.


Subject: CDAUDIO Filter Driver Dynamic Load
ThreadID: 42117
From: ntfsd member (xxxxxx@first4internet.co.uk)
next msg
Date:Fri, 28 Mar 2003 10:06:30 -0000 (quoted)

Hi,

Is there a way that I can get the CDAUDIO filter driver example in the
DDK to load and unload dynamically? I have used the addfilter app in
the DDK to install it but the driver does not load until the next
reboot.

Thanks
Ceri

Link (Thanks, Quality!)

Update: More "how do I break computers?" newsgroup postings from First4Internet programmers are available through Google Groups. (Thanks, Jason!) (More here)

Previous installments of the Sony Rootkit Roundup: Part I, Part II, Part III

(Cool Sony CD image courtesy of Collapsibletank)