Rootkit On Startup

[Captain Badger]

I bought civ 4 on its release day in the uk, and have had no problems with the original version or the patch (aside from one ctd). i have just installed a new spyware removal/protector program, entitled Spycatcher, published by Tenebril. Now whenever I load civ 4, I get a warning message from this program telling me that a a rootkit is being installed on my machine. Is this courtesy of civ 4, or do I have a bigger problem?

 

[camnel]

From what I've read on the web, Spycatcher tends to label anything it is unfamiliar with as suspicious and let you figure out if it is legit or not. If you are concerned about a rootkit, download rookitrevealer from Sysinternals and run it. Have nothing else running and don't touch your computer while it runs, or it may generate false entries. Rootkitrevealer was created by Mark Russinovich and what he discovered the Sony rootkit with.

Cam

 

[Joaorv]

What's a rootkit?

 

[phybre]

It's an over-used term in the media for the last month or so. It's going to be the next Big Thing To Be Afraid Of On The Internet, with Sony's unethical copy protection practices. Of course StarForce hasn't been in the news for it yet, although their malicious, un-removable drivers are just as bad.

Just another move in the war over the legal question of intellectual property. Ultimately a losing battle.

 

[timmyo]

What's a rootkit?

Rootkit is a virus app that lives between the O/S kernel and your apps and when you do a virus scan it tell it that everything is just fine, very nasty thing!

 

[rbird]

It's an over-used term in the media for the last month or so.

What's REALLY overused is this kind of garbage software, by companies like Sony and spyware pushers. We need MORE media attention on things like this. But that's off topic for this forum.

To the original poster: Your security software is picking up the "hidden" application which comprises the copy protection for Civ4. It is a system process which sits in between Civ4 and the operating system. If you pop up your Task Manager while Civ4 is running, you'll see a process with a funny name beginning with "~" -- that's it! It will refuse to run the game if you have a DVD-R drive (perhaps only certain models?) or certain (perfectly legal) software that SafeDisc doesn't like. Not quite a rootkit, but it definitely does share some of the same characteristics. There are plenty of rants about SafeDisc, if you care to search this forum or the web in general.

Bob