Whats Wrong with EA and its DRM: SecruROM

SecuROM has also many versions, ranging from the benign to outright malicious. The latest version (7+) which was used first on BIOSHOCK and now on MASS EFFECT and SPORE buries itself so deep in our systems that revokes our Administrator rights in our own computers (by creating a number of folders one cannot delete even with full administrator rights). In hacker lingo such control is known as "taking your Root" and because of that (not to mention at least two Security programs sounding the alarm!) there was the whole RootKit scandal. But the problems with SecuROM do not stop with irremoveble folders no one knows what they are doing in our computers.

SecuROM has always been more about data-mining and reporting back to its occasional mothership than piracy fighting. After all, both BIOSHOCK and MASS EFFECT (and from what I just read in another discussion here, SPORE) had been cracked from day one. That is why uninstalling a game plagued with SecuROM will NOT remove SecuROM - which will then play havoc with your system.

Lately, there security concerns have also surfaced as known Trojans seem to be exploiting SecuROM's backdoor access for their own purposes. In effect, installing a SecuROM-infected game in our computer will be placing your hardware and data at risk long after having uninstalled the game.

The game publishers that utilize SecuROM (such as EA) realize that they are not actually fighting piracy but use it as a pretext to bundle SecuROM with their product without the informed consent of their customers. A snooping-subroutine would require full disclosure but an antipiracy scheme can enjoy some more leeway.
Their near future plans (according to interviews given by their own executives) call for turning our computers into their proprietary consoles where we will be playing games for which we will be paying by the minute. This nightmarish Pay-per-Play future apparently depends in them first consolidating their technological hold on as many computers as possible. After all, they see us as their cash-cows and they just started herding us in.