this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2024
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So the OS just runs any program on a cd you just inserted?
It was an earlier time!
It's called autorun. I don't remember if back then the default was to run without warning or ask the user, but if it was to ask the user - which sounds reasonable - do you think most people wouldn't just learn to click "run" without a second thought?
On Windows, it used to be the default to just run, yes. Made a good infection path for viruses.
Mac OS X could open up a generic dialog that asked if you wanted to drag and drop the app to your hard drive to start installing it. Linux depended on the distro, but generally GUI-based distros would open the file manager to the CD path if they did anything at all.
Well if you have a music CD you shouldnt expect programs on there, but if they say its just a player probably people will belive, cant check any non open source thing
And especially when you're indoctrinated to believe that it's evil pirates that will add viruses to the cracked software. You don't expect a legit lawfully received CD from a large and well trusted company to contain something bad, do you?
I remember for a brief period of time CDs came with media players that had custom skins and band related extras in the late 90s, maybe early 00s? I remember it being a factor in which CDs were considered cooler, because the ones without that just came up in the default media player. So it wouldn’t have seemed out of place at all to a lot of people at the time to let it run a program even though it “only” has music.
As people said, auto run was the default, but there were systems in place to prevent silent or malicious software from auto-installing. Sony basically coded a virus rootkit that circumvented the Windows security mechanisms, as well as the mechanisms of all the popular 3rd party anti-virus programs. They knew what they were doing was fucked up, but they don't care.