Metchosin -

The "industry" is still busy trying to figure out exactly what Sony's crud does to computers, but there have been no suggestions that it can harm a standalone CD player, and the only thing the CD player puts on the speaker lines should be the analog audio signal.

Playing a CD and recording the audio is a standard method of "beating" any number of copy protection schemes, and I've never heard of any passing of infections/malware that way. There's little reason to expect that the Sony thing has changed that; but until someone knows, the only correct answer is "we don't know."

Sony's worm was found a few months ago, but was only connected to Sony within the past couple of weeks. Since the company that produced this crap has numerous other customers, there may actually be other distributors using it - or something as bad. There should be lots more info available in another few weeks; but at present the concern - and the published info - is all with what the CDs do when you play them in your computer drives. People will get around to the rest of it soon, and will publish what they find.

If you want absolute assurance, you'll have to ask "God" for now. Get a direct line, because Sony has their own prophets who will claim they've talked to him ...

John