wine autorun utility

[Tim Schmidt]

On 6/29/06, Chris <chris.kcat at 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