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Distributed Computing Program Hidden in Kazaa

Posted by timothy on from the of-course-it's-still-20020401-but-still dept.

The_THOMAS writes: "A federal securities filing Monday revealed that the hugely downloaded Kazaa P2P (file sharing) software contains a piggyback program which will create a second, new, network controlled by Brilliant Digital. They plan to awaken the software, already on millions of computers, within the next four weeks. The program will be used to host and distribute other companies' content and may be used for distributed computing. Read the details here."

3 of 469 comments (clear)

  1. sad but true - it's real AND messy by ted+danson · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's legit, irritatingly enough.

    The program hides itself in different locations all over your hard drive, including copies of itself in your OS root and /system32 folders (if you're running Windoze)

    It's a bitch and a half to purge. There's no unistaller, and it's got dozens of registry entries to manually erase.

    (Search for 'bde' and 'b3d' on your HD and your registry to make sure you get it all.)

    I can only imagine the looks on people's faces when a gigantic 3D Cameron Diaz appears on people's computer screens and commandeers their system.

    --

    if he ate spinach, he'd be called spinach danson.

    http://rockout.org
  2. Re:what a joke! by 0xB · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm not sure if this is an april fools joke or not

    It's in their annual report and I don't think the SEC like jokes.

    --
    0xB
  3. Re:The USA PATRIOT Act to the Rescue! by Sancho · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you're using Kazaa, you did consent. Read the EULA sometime.

    4. Upgrades and Access.
    (a) You acknowledge that BDE may from time to time provide future programming fixes, updates and upgrades to you ("b3d Updates"), including automatic updates to KaZaA and other software bundled with KaZaA, through automatic electronic dissemination and other means. You consent to such automatic updates and agree that the terms and conditions of this Agreement will apply to all such b3d Updates.
    (b) You hereby grant BDE the right to access and use the unused computing power and storage space on your computer/s and/or internet access or bandwidth for the aggregation of content and use in distributed computing. The user acknowledges and authorizes this use without the right of compensation. Notwithstanding the above, in the event usage of your computer is initiated by a party other than you, BDE will grant you the ability to deny access.

    Of course, EULAs have yet to be stress-tested in our court system, but are *you* going to have the money to win the court case?

    Erik