While I don't condone Sony's actions either (its actually hard to get on Sony's standpoint from any moral ground, given that they apparently violated other people's copyrighted software to protect their own), the issue remains that it is always dangerous to install software from any source you do not inherently trust. One might argue that the real problem here is that, because of who Sony is, people did inherently trust them and they violated that trust.
That said, I'm afraid I'm waay to cynical to trust Sony (or any other content holder). I have disabled autorun on my CD player in my computer, and have ripped (for personal use) almost 1500 CDs. But, I don't let CDs install special viewers or anything else to access "additional content." For that reason, my computer has no spyware and no rootkit. But, the tracks are available to me through my computer audio set-up.
Don't throw the baby out with the dishwater. Just be a smart computer user.
That said, I'm afraid I'm waay to cynical to trust Sony (or any other content holder). I have disabled autorun on my CD player in my computer, and have ripped (for personal use) almost 1500 CDs. But, I don't let CDs install special viewers or anything else to access "additional content." For that reason, my computer has no spyware and no rootkit. But, the tracks are available to me through my computer audio set-up.
Don't throw the baby out with the dishwater. Just be a smart computer user.