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Anti-piracy Vigilantes Tracking P2P Users
brevard writes "From SecurityFocus comes news that a pair of coders with a deep hatred of software pirates have gone public with a months-old experiment to trick file sharers into running custom spyware they wrote that scolds users and phones home to a server. They circulated the program disguised as sought-after downloads like Unreal Tournament 2004 and Microsoft source code, and they have a website that updates in real time whever someone executes it. They've logged IP addresses for over 12,000 'pirates' since January. The EFF says the vigilantes may be committing a crime."
That's what they are essentially spreading. There's asses should land in jail as soon as possible.
Indefinitely Detained US Citizen
... until about 30 seconds ago. Now it just sorta smokes.
I guess what they say about examining the hex code for any file you download to look for suspicious strings seems really valid now.
And if you don't see any, run an unpacker and see if there is anything embeded.
Of course, you could just avoid running software someone else gives you....
Yeah, not for long...
Out of curiosity, which crime would they be committing?
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
They are committing a crime.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Who's to say these guys aren't mixing in IPs of people, who, for example, might have flamed them on message boards? I'm sure their end game is to get a job offer from the RIAA and MPAA . . .
Dang it!
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
Isn't that fraud or false advertising? And aren't they encouraging piracy in a way by making more hits come up everytime someone searches for a particular app? On a related note, isn't it illegal to sell grass to someone while saying it's marijuana? Aren't the penalties the same? Why should this be any different. Charge them with piracy, slander for posting your IP, and being sleazy bastards for beating MS/SCO to this idea.
It'll be about two more days now till someone alters the code and delivers a REAL malicious payload through the damn program.
They say they are tracking software pirates.
But realy pirates don't use p2p apps for warez.
That's kiddie crap.
More like they are tracking 14 year old's with a cable modem.
try IRC, now if they could track that, it'd probably blow their minds.
A virus that wipes off Windows, and says on boot up.......
Jajaja j00 Philphy W1nd0z3 1u5e|', W0|_|70 j00 lykkke 2 1n5477 03814|/| 700|\|1)(???!??!! OMG WTF LOL!
I believe most of us feel angry when reading about these vigilantes. I know I do. However, I would encourage all of us to remember that if these vigilantes were, say... tracking down spammers... then we would be extatic.
Yes, I'm aware that there's a difference between pirates and spammers. But keep in mind that the RIAA probably sees P2P users the same way that we see spammers. Annoying, a growing threat, and obsessed with large penises.
What I can't understand is why people would continue to share these programs once they realised they contained a trojan... The authors stopped sharing them because they found users were propogating them well enough anyway.
Surely any sane person would delete corrupted/malicous downloads from their shared directory?
Microsoft source code why would anyone download that anywayz? microsoft is a virus, one of the most dangerous
I write software for a living. There are places when it should be free. And there are times when it shouldn't (like when It goes to keep my lights on and my car running) I dont think it's wrong to download something even if it is say a copy of a game or music. There is nothign wrong with downloading it to me. It's when you actually use it without the license that it's wrong. Now I know poeple are going to say who downloads something and doens't use it. But honestly what if that happened? If someone had say 6000 mp3's they have never listened to but just had the data on disc? What makes that illegal exactly? It's not like it's owning stolen items. It's 0's and 1's in it's basic form. Just because it plays on an mp3 player doesnt' mean it's an mp3. You could run it through another piece of software and get today's weather data. Trojaning something like this is so disrespectful to others privacy. They definatly should be punished.
There exists some positive integer N that you are the Nth person to read this signature.
- to never share someone elses trojan. That could lead to a disease somewhere where you usually don't want any irritation. ...
*also
There are a variety of Warez websites on Freenet which, while operated anonymously, have established a trustworthy reputation (which is cryptographically enforced by Freenet's "subspaces" mechanism). The operators of those sites value the reputations they have established, which provides a strong disincentive for them to distribute trustworthy software.
You may not like it or agree with it (I sure don't) but right now it's the law. If we don't like a particular law (such as copyright) then we need to get our elected officials to change it.
they have this great hatred for slashdot
and the need for a new server
*resistance is futile, or fuzzy, i dunno*
As clifgriffin, I speak for myself when I say that "vigilante" is not a word we ever claimed. We aren't raging against internet piracy or p2p. We're just doing a social experiment...to see how a program spreads, who downloads it, etc... Kapersky has flagged it as a Trojan, though I still stand firm in my belief that this is in no way a trojan as it does nothing even slightly malicious. I don't think we'd have the "Trojan Horse" analogy to fall back on if all the soldiers in the horse had done was send back a message saying they'd arrived. :D
clifgriffin > blog
If I download some random file from kazaa and run it, I'm the only one to blame for what it does.
Its just irony that some of the filenames they used would contain illegal content if they were what they claimed to be.
Piracy = copyright violation Piracy != theft
The EFF says the vigilantes may be committing a crime.
Vigilantes are, by definition, committing crimes.
A vigilante is a private citizen who acts outside the law, taking the law into their own hands.
Some people (e.g. the vigilantes themselves) see this as a Good Thing -- enforcing Justice, where Justice would otherwise go unenforced.
Others (such as myself) see vigilantism as the roots of rebellion and chaos -- acting as a private government, in defiance of duly constituted authority.
Not that I have a hell of a lot of respect for duly constituted authority. Most of the cops I've met have been decent people, however, there's a long, sad history of cops acting as vigilantes, outside the law. Not to mention police states, governments run by mobsters, etc. etc.
-kgj
-kgj
Oops, guess its a bit early in the morning for /.
I don't much care one way or another about the issue of going after software pirates, as there are some major assholes on both sides of the issue. But the problem with this approach is that if there are bugs in the antipiracy software it could end up screwing up a lot of people's systems and causing major expense and loss of time and effort. Moreover, it looks like people could convert this into intentional malware by renaming it, so that someone looking to download freeware documents on, say, the history of microprocessors, could end up with this crap on his machine. So I object strongly to the means, though I am ambivalent about the intent.
the software's not disguised as actual pirated software, but the keygens and cracks. AFAIK, those are in much more of a legal gray area than actual pirated software. Theoretically, if someone legitimately owns a piece of software, and they're on another computer, and they have the original installation media and they forgot their cd key at home, it wouldn't be terribly illegal to load up a keygen so they could play a round or two.
Or hell, even take the Baldur's gate series. I bought every single game in the series, and I still crack all of those games since I don't want to have to put the cd in when I play. What about somone who has their GUID banned by punkbuster? I don't believe they have any right to stop me permanently from playing a game I bought online...what if I just use a keygen and get another key?
Anyways, there's really not much of a case for what these people are doing. Besides, if they like vigilantes so much, what do you say we show them what a DDOS looks like?
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
And again, mac users don't have to worry about their malware.
"We are not doing anything wrong. We're allowed to share with our friends."
That's right! A guy with 17 million friends can't be wrong.
The article is pretty light on that point. I think anyone who downloads "UT2K4 Keygen.exe" or "Photoshop Full.exe" knows exactly what they are trying to get, and they know the risks of what they are doing. And therefore, if someone wants to write an app that phones home and tells the companies that someone is trying to use a crack, what's the harm?
SmashTech - No smashing of tech involved
I make no call either way, but they are allegedly committing a crime by tricking people who are without a doubt attempting to commit a crime. Hmmm....
I know a lot of Slashdotters won't but a jury will have trouble with this one. :)
Agile Artisans
For those of you attempting to probe the moral questions of this project.
What if my software, downloaded with no warranty from Gnutella, displayed the weather conditions in Kenya?
I'd have their IP, and I could even safely retrieve the ID with legitimate pretenses.
However, since my software rebukes the downloader for downloading a file that appeared to be a crack, it is a Trojan and a danger to the peoples of the free world.
Just a thought.
clifgriffin > blog
Does anyone have the keygen for the latest Mozilla (Linux Version)?
Oh, and OpenOffice. I need the keygen for OpenOffice. I think mine is about to expire.
Oh. Wait. I'm using Open Source.
Feh. Whatever.
"...In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true..."
real pirates use Usenet!!!
isn't illegal, now is it?
Downloading and using software X while you don't have a license for software X is illegal.
(I mean, they pretend their 'morally good troyan' is a keygen/crack for UT2004, and claiming that anyone who downloads that, or is searching for a keygen/crack is a 'software pirate')
That is the dumbest thing I've ever heared... what the hell is wrong with you. I'm not Pro-Copyright guy or anything stupid but ... what the hell?! You just live in your own little world... :-/
If you see a webite you don't approve of, get it slashdotted. Legal DDoS at it's silliest :)
Good. Glad it is. Even though that's probably against the DMCA or the UCITA. Both of which should die too anyway.
But, that's not the point. It would be nice to reverse-engineer it to go and inject php, start prodding the little bugger for cracks in the display.php engine, and let the server take itself down, by deleting whatever it has access to.
That'll teach them to propagate viruses along P2P. Or piss them off. They're a couple of kids my age (around 19), they'd be so pissed if their software DoSed itself.
Or we could just slashdot them.
IANAL, but this is certainly illegal. It is akin to a sting operation, like when you open your car door for the hooker on the street and it turns out she's really a cop and you are arrested for soliciting & prostitution.
You can't drop dollar bills on the road & then arrest citizens for stealing when they pick them up.
Using temptation to get at potential thieves does not constitute law enforcement, unless I guess you are the FBI or somesuch.
Technically - if you reduce it down to its basic components - you have a point. But apply this to other ares of life and you start getting problems.
A car is, by your rationale, just a collection of iron, rubber, various textiles, and some other metals. These are in turn just collections of random molecules. You can collect molecules just by digging in the ground! What makes a car special?
The point is that a car is special because it requires input - design, construction, imagination and engineering. You can't just throw a bunch of molecules together and come out with ca r, any more than you can just hammer on a keyboard's 1 and 0 keys and come out with a full dvd copy of the latest movie. It's not that it's just basic components that causes the problems, it's the fact that it has been created.
Hence the thing called intellectual property. Yes, it may just be a collection of 1s and 0s to you, or to anyone else, in all its bare glory - but the point is that it's somebody's collection of 1s and 0s. You can't contend that it's as much yours as the person's who created it just because it consists of basic components, any more than you can contend that the latest car on the street is as much yours as the company's who created it.
Spyware?
Good
Whack
I understand your arguement, but in most eyes, mine included, if you conciously spend the time looking for and downloading something, you are for the most part interested in running that.
Unless you are privately archiving random applications, just in case someone with a legal license may need them.
This same arguement could be used on anything.
"No officer, those 5 bails of pot are there simply to get them off the street, nothing illegal will be done with them."
but is it wrong? It doesn't spread itself, others spread it. When you download a piece of code off of a p2p network, you take a risk that it isn't what you think it is. Obviously, these people are rather intelligent, and it appears that they aren't evil, and just want to teach certain lawbreakers a lesson. And although it is vigilante in the sense that they are stepping outside of the law, they're not doing anything harmful. Now, if they were formating someone's hard drive when the executable was launched, it would be different, but this is just a small rebuke.
Props to these guys for sticking up for whats right.
Skill is successfully walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls. Intelligence is not trying. -- Anonymous
Their public web display of current tracking information has already been /.ed. Wonder if it took out their database as well? :P
" If we don't regulate ourselves, the government will."
This is about the stupidest argument I've ever heard...
"Yes, we have free speech, but we should limit it or the government well".
Well junior, then you don't have free speech. You either have it or you don't. You're one of those who is glad we don't.
As to self-policing warez, the government doesn't give a shit about warez. Only Adobe and Microsoft do. Oh and you. Now you're all scary important.
I'll bet you think porn is evil, DJ's talking about "anal" should be banned, and if we all just prayed to jesus, our problems would be solved.
I'd call you a moron, but the moron union just called and they're laughing at you.
I've said many times on Slashdot that if you want P2P to be taken seriously and not be labeled as a haven for pirates, you need to actively engage in discouraging the use of P2P for illegal file trading. These guys are actually doing that. Good for them. At least they're not acting like some hand-waving Slashbots ranting about how no one takes P2P seriously, all the while refusing to acknowledge that the majority of data transfered on P2P networks is copyrighted, and furthermore refusing to do anything about it.
My favorite comeback line: "Maybe we should outlaw knives because someone might do something illegal with them!" -- completely off-target. Right now, the situation with P2P isn't that a minority of people are using P2P networks to trade copyrighted materials, but that a minority of people are using P2P networks for trading non-copyrighted materials. Until P2P fans actively pursue and discourage the use of P2P for illegitimate uses, P2P will continue to have a bad rap and be pursued by copyright holders.
NP
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Most of the people I know who do this stuff have specific contacts - i.e. they are maybe 2-3 hops away from the initial distributor.
Additionally, even if they are a few more hops away, they know and trust who they download from. Its not like they go and do a filesearch...most people know who they download from. And so when these l33t people get a trojan, they let their "clients" know.
It's interesting that this story should break at the same time that Wired News is running a story (or rather another story, they ran the first yesterday) about Perverted Justice an organisation that takes it upon itself to expose perverts hunting for children in chatrooms. The techniques and tactics of the two sets of vigilantes are completely different, but both are examples of what are in effect user regulation of the online environment.
I've finally got around to changing my sig
That's what they (the "victims") are essentially spreading. There's asses should land in jail as soon as possible.
Sorry, that's not my personal view (I don't believe in locking people up for small-scale copyright infringment) but it is the view of some, such as the content creators whose property is being infringed on.
I just find it ironic that just changing the subject line of your message from "Trojans" to "Illegally distributed software" gives us a whole new look at this issue: after all, most of the people engaging in P2P distribution of copyrighted material live in countries where it's illegal and probably punishable by a jail sentence.
The majority of people here seem to be engaging in double think: messaging people who engage in P2P copyright infringement that what they're doing is wrong and publishing their IP addresses is a Bad Thing, yet tracking down the online behaviour of spammers and then publishing their real world addresses (without any consideration for what might happen as a consequence) is a Good Thing.
Can someone please explain to me how one is so wrong yet the other is so right? (Preferably without resorting to the kind of language that you wouldn't use in front of your mother?)
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
We only collect this information if they click the button.
If they use any other means of exiting the program (ie, Alt+F4) it simply exits.
Yet again, it all depends on what they do....we don't collect anything without them making defined, deliberate actions.
It is not my belief that we are required to tell them that we logged the fact that they clicked "I'm Sorry. I Promise Never to Do it Again."
I would also stress that this information is harmless to them as we proved only that they downloaded a file with the same name as a crack...nothing that poses any kind of threat at all to them.
clifgriffin > blog
Interesting analogy you have there. I'm not sure about the law elsewhere, but in the UK it is not illegal to smoke weed. It is illegal to possess it, and in order to smoke you have to be in possession, but smoking a joint is not illegal in itself.
I can't tell yet since the site seems to be down or crawling, but wouldn't the software companies get involved if your blatently advertising code / keys for download?
Whether they are the files that they say they are is another story (let the downloader beware, I guess). But you would think that companies would go after them (even if they claim to be good guys) with the same rigor that they are going after others?
Yes, vewwyy intwastink.
At www.jsventures.com they're peddling something called "ProxyShield" which I've not heard of before. Certainly they're not ticked off that their product isn't selling well, eh? Not that anyone would give enough of a shit to share it on P2P nets.
Name: gso31-106-207.triad.rr.com
Address: 24.31.106.207
Anyway, LARTs to abuse@rr.com will prolly get 'walktheplank' axed real quick like.
This is pretty funny. The more successful the program gets, the more this pair is creating a potential distributed denial of service attack on their own web servers.
Sometimes I worry that I'll develop Alzheimer's disease, but no one will notice.
Behold: Walk the Plank and Operation Dust Bunny
.NET installed and thus couldn't run the C# binary.
.NET.
Note: Due to responses by certain detractors, we've updated our legal section (again) to further clarify our stance.
Apparently, this is becoming more and more newsworthy. Security Focus called today and interviewed me. Here is the resulting article: http://securityfocus.com/news/8279
At the start of this year, we (Justin and Clif, Clif and Justin) decided to start a new project. We declared war on illegal file sharing and pirates. The goal was to waste their time and bandwidth while tracking them and how the file moves around.
Results Pages for the Impatient: Walk the Plank Status Page | Dust Bunny Status Page
Walk the Plank, You Pirates!
The first version of this was more-or-less a test to see if it would work. We created a program in C# that would pop-up a message scolding the user. When the program closes, it would "phone home" to our servers, giving us the filename, how long the program ran (run time), and their IP address. We entered the information we collected into a database.
We copied the binary then renamed it to a bunch of warez-like filenames that we found via Jigle.com and searching different P2P networks. We put it up on the Gnutella file sharing network and waited. Within minutes, we had downloads. However, we didn't have entries in the database. The next day we came to the conclusion that people didn't have
So we rewrote it in C++. Once finished, we replaced all of the C# binaries with the C++ binary. Again within moments, we had downloads and this time we have entries in the database. Goes to show the penetration of
After about two weeks, we noticed something: The file was spreading without our help. We stopped sharing after we realized this and the file kept propagating, and propagating, and propagating. In no time flat, we wasted over 16 hours of pirate time.
Screenshot: (Top: WTP, Bottom, ODB)
The Next Step: Operation Dust Bunny
The original idea we had went beyond simply logging filename and run time. We wanted to track who got what file from who. So a month after WTP, we wrote Dust Bunny. It was a two-binary system that would read the Pirate ID (PID) encoded in itself, send it to a server, then grab a unique PID returned from the server, and rewrite the ID that is encoded in the binary. Using this information, we could see who got what binary from who.
Written with one person using Visual Studio 2003, another using Dev-C++; one binary in C++, the other in C; and only one person knowing how to code in either language. It was a challenge since the "rabbit" (the GUI program) had to include the "eye" (the program that contacted the server and rewrote the rabbit) for execution. Plus the eye needed an offset that could only be gathered once the rabbit was compiled with eye included. Thanks to TightVNC and a lot of trading of information, we got through it.
Just to be safe, we added a "kill switch" to the eye. If the server returned a special ID number, the eye would delete the rabbit. This way, in case it got out of control as WTP did, we could stop it. Also, if someone renamed it to a filename we didn't like, we could add that filename to the "evil filename list" on the server.
After it was completed, we replaced all the binaries with the new version. Once again, they started to be downloaded instantly. The next day, we already had redistributions -- someone downloaded a copy from someone other then us. We could tell since we were logging the PIDs. It didn't take long until we had multi-branch trees of pirates.
We decided after one month time of sharing Dust Bunny, we'd stop and let it propagate on it's own. That marker was around March 9th, 2004.
Current Status
By now, WTP has racked up over 62 hours in wasted pirate time. Dust Bunny is well on its way with 20 hours. Dust Bunny has around 3,500 unique pirates and over 6,200 ex
And now someone posted their web adress on slashdot...
Maybe we can link the threat in the article and the name of the Article Poster for them 8)
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
it might be worth pointing out that clicking on one of those links registers that as your vote.
(I clicked on 'Good', 'cos it's the first link and I wanted to see where it goes, and now I can't click on 'Whack' to undo my unintentional vote. Oh well).
Say an idiot employee downloads & runs this crack/warez/whatever at work. Unauthorized and all that, but that's his ass. Now, this software is reporting home to somewhere. Let's assume the idiot's sysadmin finds out. The employee might get sacked, but who do you think will get charged with hacking (cracking) the corporation's network?
You got it. Just the costs of verifying that it DIDN'T do anything else, didn't alter or delete any of the data on the computer, didn't transmit any of the potentially sensitive data and (if paranoid enough) rebuild the system is going to rack up to quite a bit.
If they give them one count of hacking for each machine on their incredibly self-incriminating list, I imagine even the minimum penalties would add up to life. So I would be very worried if I was them...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Wow!
As the AC said (why's he modded troll?)
walktheplank.ath.cx resolves to 24.31.106.207 AKA gso31-106-207.triad.rr.com. The domain is reg'd to Clifton Griffin. www.clifgriffin.com also resolves to the same IP.
Cliffy baby, hope your lawyer is good, cause I bet the EFF won't take your case.
Was that an intentional part of the design? Or did you guys just overlook the ALT-F4 shortcut when you designed the program?
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
This makes me really angry!
No, not the guys or their program, it's you lot. Yes, you complaining about "infiltration", "trojans", "illegal use of the 'victims'' computers" and so forth.
What's the matter - someone doing something to break up your cosy little gang of illegal copyright infringement?
So what if it's just cable-connected kids they're tracking - it's still infringement and should be punished, or at least discouraged. I'm all for this.
there goes my karma...
Ydco co
Probably "entrapment". An equivalent situation would be if the local law enforcement decided to leave a palette of boxed electrical goods on the street (let's say laptops or toasters), but which had wireless surveillance cameras built in. Once turned on, the machine would then broadcast images of the users back to headquarters. The authorities would then claim they had captured photographs of known thieves. Is that fair?
Here is a link to a dslreports thread where the authors of this software chime in:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,9707744
They seem to have dropped out of the public eye. Aren't those two ever going to be charged under the DMCA for circumventing protective measures, or under the NET act for unauthorized access of others' data? Why is the USG publicizing cases against grey hats when there are already high-profile black hats known to be working in official capacity?
These are just the type of guys who think it's grand fun to fake an alert box saying "your internet connection needs to be optimized". In that sense, not much to see, we should move on. More of their kind inhabit companies that try to install spyware on your machine too.
I disagree with their definition of "trojan". If a user inititated a download, they argue, then it's not a trojan. To take a random example, the makers of Winzip would love to replace "7zip.exe" with a "smart" application like theirs, which says .. Oh, don't go for this rotten free unarchiver, try out our wonderful product.
Finally, it's an act of utter irresponsibility on their part to post these IP addresses out on the world wide web. Yes, I agree. What they did was very very clever. They may have valid reasons for grandiosely "declaring war on file sharing". But I think that posting IP addresses, locations and filenames onto the public eye transformed what they did from a "clever social experiment" to an exercise in maliciousness.
Now, by the same token, if I should disagree with what they did, should I post their names, email and contact numbers for anyone to see, right here on Slashdot ? Nope. I would not stoop so low.
Wired has one on a vigilante group that goes after perverts in chat rooms that prey apon children. As much as I admire the intent of every day people to keep things clean, decent, and honest. I also have to agree with points in this other article where law enforcement is being hampered by scaring off the bad people to go deeper underground and the problem just gets burried and not delt with completely. Next thing you know you have a problem thats 10x's worse then before since it wasn't handled properly to begin with.
In the case of the software vigilantes. They're in for a world of legal hurt I think even though their basic intentions are good.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
and they have a website that updates in real time whever someone executes it
not anymore...Software piracy is wrong. At the same time, invading someone's privacy is also wrong. Put 'em behind the bars along with the pirates.
I'm not sure what they're doing is breaking any laws (US at least). How is this different from a web bug or other spyware? If it opens up a particular tracking page on their site (ip logged), then I don't see this as being a back door or trojan. Privacy is a concern I share with a lot of other slashdotters, but I'm not sure what laws are being broken. If people are really bothered by it, maybe we should start a campain to get a bunch of people to use the program. What are they going to do with millions of ip addies?
Tech News, Reviews and Tutorials
And his site is exposing code including SQL queries.
Microsoft making Visual Studio affordable to students though. I would hate to think they coded all this on a hooky copy of .net2003...
Although having said all that, i'm not running a firewall atm, but then i'm behind NAT and not doing anything dodgy (and feeling lucky, punk!)
Sygate Personal Firewall and Kerio (sp?) seem to be favourites last time i checked.
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
AFAIK, it's only entrapment if the LAW tries it.....
They are distributing some software they wrote, so they are free to distribute it as they like. They are disclosing publicly available info. on their site - all they are doing wrong is (possibly) some copyright infringement as they called their application UT2004.img (or something)
Troc
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
It's a story about some laboratory mice, that weren't very nice...
One of my favorites was the "Billy-Bo-Bub-Brain" episode... Very funny stuff.
Animaniacs was 'for kids' but had so many strong adult references that most of the jokes would have completely missed by anyone younger then around 20 when the show originally aired.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
The only thing corporations hate more than software pirates is virus writers.
Don't vigilante's get their butts slammed in jail? (no pun intended, though, hmm I am sure their potential fellow inmates probably don't like them either). :)
This is not too far from some of the people who wanted to test airport security by sneaking on knives, guns, etc. Those people got slammed by the law, hopefully these two will also.
-A
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Stand up for your beliefs.
Piracy != Theft.
Remember, by some's interpretation of law, the linux distro that you speak of has SCO's illegal code in it.
It may make you feel warm and fuzzy inside to post things like the parent, but a lot of IP and Copyright reform is desired by the public.
Now on to a bigger issue. The files with the attached trojans are misleading. You are assuming that a Keygen is understood to generate a key for unlocking the program. How are you to assume that this is not the evaluation copy of MS Office that can not save files that Microsoft hands out at presentations? How do you know that this is not the 64 bit version of Windows XP that is free to use right now?
It is an assumption that really you can not make. Now the biggest question is whether or not my cellular bill is going to go up when I am charged by the Kbit for Internet Access on my laptop that is constantly spamming my IP?
Don't you need like, uh, a life?
Seriously, you care a little too much about this? Who cares if people pay for Microsoft Office, other than Microsoft. I can't find a good reason to give Microsoft any money for any reason.
Thank heavens the world has you around to keep things straight.
> Sounds like a couple of guys who wrote a crappy shareware program,
Wow, most people don't read the article, fine, but you didn't even read the summary! Wow, what amazing ignorance. You give atheists a bad name.
That doesn't appeal to me either (the "getting paid" part is, of course, reasonable, but the "tracking what I do" part isn't)
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
Bollocks. The equivelant situation is the one that actually happens, where law enforcement leave an unlocked car in a car park. Along comes a car thief, actively looking for one car out of many to jack. He picks that car as being the most attractive, jumps in, the doors lock, and he's collared. Good luck arguing that the unlocked door turned him into a thief.
Same here. You have to go looking for these files. You don't just stumble across them, and you don't just accidentally download them, any more than you, as a non car owner, can accidentally search through a car park and then accidentally fall into a car that isn't yours.
The EFF do a lot of good, but on this issue, they can suck my dick. They need to pick the right fights. This isn't one of them.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
If this was in fact a "social experiment," I have a few questions:
If this was a genuine social experiment, these questions have already been answered, somewhere. Otherwise, I think we can chalk this up as a prank designed to embarass people.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
I think you might be incorect
Mar 18 2004 05:11:22PM XX.XXX.XX.XX Netherlands 6 Lord Of The Rings The Fellowship Of The Ring (2001).CD2.DVD SCREENER.DVL.ShareReactor.avi.exe
Although admitedly most of hte downloads do look like keygens.
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
A bunch of software pirates complaining about illegal online activity!
Oh the irony! It is great! Way to go guys!
Ah well - I am a software developer - I pay for the software I use and expect people to pay for mine (well, my company's anyway) in return so that I can put food in my son's mouth.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
<head>
<title>Operation Dust Bunny: Deployment Status Page</title>
</head>
<body style="margin:0">
[1]
Offhand, I'd say today we're not tracking *anybody*...
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
That link http://walktheplank.ath.cx is a dynamic DNS re-router for people on Cablemodems / DSL etc.
:D
Ouch, I almost feel sorry for them
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
IANAL, but I would recommend to shut the thing down right now and hope for the best. Not sure if contacting a lawyer is much help this very moment - the time to do that was before unleashing this code on the world. As it is, you might want to spend time on finding a good lawyer, I wouldn't put it past the FBI to break down your door in a few days. Your mileage will vary.
Can't afford winxp? Get a linux distro.
Cheers, will do!
Can't afford video games? Get a job. blah blah blah...
Oh wait, I thought games and Linux were mutually exclusive?
Oh well, back to pirating Windows.
Don't get me wrong, I agree with what you're saying, but if it was so simple to just run Linux for everything, people would do so.
Fact: most games don't run on Linux. The good games that do are First Person Shooters (Enemy Territory, Quake x, UT). All other games that come to mind, suck.
Thus, people will continue to pirate Windows.
How many cracker can a cracker who cracks crackers crack?
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
So what they have done is written more a program, which installs something unbeknownst to the user ( isnt this illegal?) and it phones home to a server ( isnt this harvesting and also illegal? ). I say throw the book at the PRATS!
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
I dont think it's wrong to download something even if it is say a copy of a game or music. There is nothign wrong with downloading it to me. It's when you actually use it without the license that it's wrong.
:P
I'm sorry, but you're a spastic
Isn't this equivalent to selling rat poison but telling people that it's cocaine?
I'm pretty respectful of most copyrights, but this just seems wrong.
the approximate number of lions and tigers in Kenya, or the trajectory that might be followed if Kenya were to urinate on Norway?
Thinking of booking with "Holy Crap. Lions!" Tours.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Can someone please explain to me how one is so wrong yet the other is so right?
Vigilantilism is wrong. Period. Rule of law is characterized by a state monopoly on justice. If you don't like rule of law, there are plenty of countries where it doesn't apply.
Or, in a language your mother would use: Two wrongs don't make one right.
would this not be the next logical step?
So basically they are advertising that someone is downloading what people might term as copyrighted material. They are defining who these people are by there IP address. The legal owner or user of that IP address may not be the person download/uploading that material i.e. they could be using a proxy, using a place of work, public connection (airport wifi,'net cafe,etc).
I dont know if Id like to be falsely accused of being a software pirate.
These 2 are annoyed at Piracy so they do something illegal themselves I hope they get punished hard for being hypocrites
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
I don't feel angry about those vigilantes, but that's not to say I'd approve of what they are doing. I'm simply not affected by it, much in the same way I'm not affected by someone setting up tripwires in a semi-restriced area where I have no business going anyway. Do they risk hurting innocent people? Maybe; I don't know because I won't go anywhere near their code, and I still don't consider myself "innocent". I'd invite them to try hitting me. They can post my IP address all they like; I simply don't care.
We are in agreement here, but I find another question more interesting, namely is there a difference between vigilantes and spammers?
My line of thought being, if these people (the vigilantes) make excessive use of the resources and gullibility of others just to make their point with respect to piracy and P2P software known, aren't they (rather than the pirates) the ones to be likened with spammers in the first place?
Spamming isn't primarily about stealing, it's about being seen, often by means of stealing. Piracy is about stealing without being seen. Vigilantism is (in this case) about being seen by those accused of stealing. Now I have to rest my case, before I bring in my friend Chewbacca...
While we're on the analogy kick, this is like Joe Nobody modding his car to look like a Ferrari, leaving his car deliberately parked and unlocked in a highly visible car park, hiding in the backseat with a camera, and waiting. When the unsuspecting 'thief' comes along, he snaps a picture and turns that over to LEO as proof of the thief's guilt. In US courts, this is a) Entrapment and b) Vigalantism, and is not admissible in court.
.ISO of some cracked game. It's not very easy to avoid.
On the other hand, an LEO who tapped a PC like that would himself be guilty of wiretap without a warrant, or illegal entrapment.
And you don't have to go looking for these files. Just try to find a Mandrake ISO without getting at least one misnamed
You can have it fast, accurate, or pretty. Pick any 2.
Even if we assume that these vigilantes are doing nothing morally wrong themselves at what point should they be responsible for opening a security hole in a system which can be exploited by other more malicious stalkers? Can these vigilantes show that their code is 100% secure such that only they can make use of the resources that it provides?
Spyware and malware and P2P programs and instant messaging programs may not be malicious in and of themselves but they're all coded by half-hacks who aren't very interested in security. Do they properly check their buffer overflows, input validation, or ensure perfect alignment with a proper handshake protocol?
I think not...
Let's say that the law would tolerate the vigilante retrieval of stolen property. At what point is the vigilante liable for leaving the backdoor open?
Let's say that malware and spyware and spammers really are nothing more than advertising methods used to boost the economy (which can be argued as "good"). At what point are the authors of those progams liable for the malicious attacker or stalker who relies on them to identify easy targets?
Let's say that posting signs for your candidate on someone else's front lawn would be legal. Are you liable if a serial killer decides to pick his targets based upon lawn signs?
Implications are more than just one step removed from the source.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
Yeah so, yet another program calls home, and the tin foil hat brigade come out - it does nothing dodgy, and serves them right for wanting a dodgy serial number.
;)
:D
People whinging and complaining about this piece of software should perhaps go out and buy the game.
Your all lucky it DIDN'T format your drives
I downloaded the demo, and cant wait till payday
liqbase
yeah i bet noone sent them the shareware fee for their crappy software.. so they decided to do a fake crack. .. or even a game i dont want to keep the cd in the drive for to play it.
THIS ISNT A NEW IDEA someone who made a fucking GAMEBOY EMULATOR made a fake crack for it, which WIPED PEOPLES PALM DATA.. he later claimed it was 'a joke that got released by mistake'
ive had to use 'warez codes and cracks/keymakers' no-cd cracks for games I BOUGHT but lost the cd case for
having a crack isnt illegal.. its only illegal if you use it to warez something - these guys and their stupid trojan dont prove that at all... and if the crack theyre trojaning isnt even a real crack.. then theyre just 'outing' people who downloaded a FAKE crack. wow!
I had no money, but I wanted to learn, and to be a part of the whole digital revolution.
Now I am older, making money based on those skills, and I own legit copies of the programs I liked. Is the world a darker place because of this? No. In fact, I'd say that the world is a more literate place because of software 'theft'. Everybody now has the tools they need to communicate more fully.
And guess what?
The software companies aren't suffering. They lose no physical material when a piece of software is 'stolen'. It's not like cars or widgets.
Further, individuals who 'steal' software usually don't have real pressing needs for it; they just want it out of curiosity or for some minimal use which does not justify a multi-hundred dollar ticket price. --Such users probably wouldn't buy copies if it was not easily 'stolen', so the whole idea of 'lost' sales is, I suspect, largely a myth.
And when it comes to games, (which are certainly different from application software), the fact that millions of copies are sold more than makes up for 'lost' revenue. The cost of piracy is worked into the ticket price of a game. And games are no a vital or useful commodity to begin with, so gamers deserve to pay top dollar for their fix. I have no sympathy there.
In any case, if software companies sold their programs for lower amounts of money, or made them affordable to kids at the outset, they wouldn't be griping about theft at all. This has been demonstrated in the Chinese DVD and CD market where piracy is common place and large 'legit' producers have had to lower their over-inflated prices to compete, which having done so is keeping them very firmly in business.
The only people complaining are those who are greedy and those who are caught up in arm chair moralism.
-FL
In just the past two days, Unreal Tournament 2004 keygen and cracks have become popular filenames.
/.ed. Cute.)
I pre-ordered the special DVD edition of UT 2k4 about 2 weeks ago. $42 and change. I get it home, pop it in a DVD drive on a different machine in the network, mount the drive on mine, and install. Try to run it? *BZZT* "Wrong disc inserted." Many people on the official forums had the same error with the game in a drive on their local machines. Crack -> piracy? No. It's been rather long established that at least a few paying customers will have problems with the cd check. I can't say about UT2k3, but in the original UT, they removed the cd check in an official patch since so many had problems.
Although I was smart enough to get it from somewhere reputable. They could have gotten something a LOT worse than an IP tracker.
I could have been holding the legally purchased, pressed media, wearing the free headset and finding a place for my free Atari shameless-self-promotion stickers while these people posted my IP address (or even more information, I didn't actually go to the list to see) with a pirate label. (note: On their site, the images of the popup say "don't worry your secret is safe with me", and now the list has even been
Yarr indeed.
and you have to be a Grade-A USDA Prime cut DUMBASS to download it. Most of the times I've seen it, the file size is under a megabyte, and titled something like "DIABLO 2 ISO.exe" or "FREE STOLEN XXX BRITTANY SPEARS FUCKS PARIS HILTON OMG IT PWNZ0R.exe" or the like.
Unless they've gotten suddenly smarter, and started imbedding it in an ISO image along with dummy files to look like the actual game download, they're not going to catch the majority of pirates, who are smart enough to know that UT2k4 isn't going to download in five minutes.
Finding a way to list anyone who has ever been accused of stealing a chocolate bar as a child(*)?
(*) - Mentioned since CASST believes all satellite pirates begin by stealing chocolate bars as children. THey then grow to be lonely single adults who steal cable to watch movies (not porno for some odd reason) [Can someone tell me where all the cable they steal goes? I mean, it only costs $49 a box, I can't imagine there's really much of a black market for RG-6/U -- how much does one need to sell to afford cable TV?]. They then continue on to be wealthy fathers with a good relationship with their kids that steal satellite signals. [You'd think the uplink stations would have learned to stop people hacking the satellites somehow by now, eh?]
Now, of course, the big question here is: Are you prepared for the backlash that could happen if you have ever been discovered pirating, even by a way as innocent as using a trialware for 1 extra day past "expiry"? Judge not lest ye be judged isn't just a boring phrase from an old book: They're words to live by.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
If I post links to the page labelled "Celebrities as you've never seen them!" or "Hot game cracks!", is that a trojan?
If I add client-side script that logs the time you spent on the page and passes it as part of a URL request when leaving the page, is that a trojan? If yes, what client-side script wouldn't be?
To me, if something is a trojan or not seems to be a matter of the author's intent, and the end-user's expectations--both of which are tricky to measure. What I would be curious to know is: how many people ran the program, saw the message, then relabelled it and stuck it back in the p2p stream for the next guy?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Bollocks.
I agree. The same thing happens in our city. There was a wave of delivery truck lootings for technology companies, so a sting operation was set up. Regular trucks were filled with cops hiding behind empty boxes. The truck would be parked outside the company, with the driver getting out and walking to the reception. On occasions the looters would go by, try to see if the truck was unlocked, and then try and lift the goods.
After being caught, the defence lawyers tried to argue that this was entrapment.
Screw that, according to Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, & crew they're committing acts of cyberterrorism.
Yes, my only tool is a hammer. And you're starting to look like a nail.
... it's called a sting.
Can I get a Hurts Donut anyone?
i'm amazed that i survived - an airbag saved my life.
The site no longer updates - we've slashdotted it :-)
"Actually, I think this is pretty clever. "
Renaming a malicious file as something attractive and leaving it to entrap people has to be the lowest form of cracking.
Here.
:-)
ie: x is of y.
z is of y.
Therefore, x must be of z.
Mathematically:
3 is a factor of 12
4 is also a factor of 12.
Therefore, 3 must be a factor of 4.
Although I do think you're just trying to make a point through absurdity.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
The article is pretty light on that point. I think anyone who downloads "UT2K4 Keygen.exe" or "Photoshop Full.exe" knows exactly what they are trying to get, and they know the risks of what they are doing. And therefore, if someone wants to write an app that phones home and tells the companies that someone is trying to use a crack, what's the harm?
Especially since Photoshop does phone home (doing online registration)...
Current electronic trespassing rules do forbid "exploratory" hacking into someone's system. This basically was a set of honeypots on P2P systems to disseminate a trojan horse piece of software. The "phone home" part of the trojan gave our vigilantes access to system information they didn't ask for access to -- the seconds count of how long the dialog was open for, for example -- and displayed the victims' IP addresses and countries of origin on a public Web site. They're deliberately misleading people into giving them access to system info. "Exploratory" seems to fit the "phone home" function. Where's your beef with that characterization?
The excuse that "We only made minor changes, to see if we could" doesn't wash against the exploratory hacking standard, either -- and these people went past that and created a deliberate nuisance, so they can't even try it.
Whatever their motives are, they did commit that crime. If they'd used a different delivery method -- posted their trojan on a code library -- you'd see that.
These are some really screwed-up, screwed-over kids. Imagine they'd tucked a mild vomit-inducing medicine inside packages labeled "Jello Pudding" and then gave the stuff away -- on the grounds that supposed black marketeers were giving away the real thing, undercutting Jello's legit profits. "Hey, all it did was waste the user's time and annoy them a little" isn't going to cut it. How do you think Jello's going to feel about that? The letter from Microsoft's legal department should be nasty.
Not to mention the moral aspect. They think they're fighting evil with evil. Welcome to ends justifying means.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Come on guys...
.NET runtime... and then they go in great lenths to explain their software... that is probably just a couple lines long...
First, they wrote that little software in C#, but they found out that people didn't have the
No news here, move along...
dont forget to remove the spaces the lame filter adds, i would paste a link but as usual the paranoid slashdot filter breaks the urls (strips characters) if they are href's
magnet:?xt=urn:bitprint:EUAVH3PCNLYMZXKN5BCV6TY
ed2k://|file|malware.exe|208896|5996
"I don't need to ask your permission for jack"
I agree. Reminds of last night...I had to take a dump, and this guy left his car door open, so I went in and took a dump on the seat.
I didn't need to ask his permission for Jack. Or even a duke.
A sting operation is legal, I think you may mean entrapment
Pakistanies?
and what's this brain.exe ?
They purport to have a list of pirates...
What they have is a list of people that downloaded something that most likely isn't a copyrighted work written by them (and admittedly made available freely online by themselves).
Not only that, they're infringing on the trademarks of the software they purport to be in order to run this little experiment, and a case could also be made that they're doing damage to the name of that software by associating it with their invasive software without consent from the actual publisher of the original work.
I'm all for protecting a product with the laws that are in place, but the laws shouldn't be taken into people's own hands with invasive and untested software.
An interesting analogy may be chasing speeders on the highway. If someone tailgates you and it pisses you off then trying to "chase them down" or doing other similar things is illigal because it endangers everyone there. Yes, the police have to exceed the speed limit to chase down bad guys, but they are trained and licensed to do so. These guys are trying to take law into their own hands, but that's not how it works.
These guys are being nice. There are programs that install SPAM servers and DDOS programs along with all kinds spyware. The only thing I download are ogg, pdf and txt files on a linux machine. Anyone with a Windows box has to be insane to use P2P to download software from g-d knows where and from whom.
Tried that. Didn't work. Balked when we realized how expensive senators were.
... e.g. kiddie porn? If it were there would be a very tangible benefit. Unfortunately, there would also be very tangible lawsuits and the criminal lawyers would have a field day.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Ahh - So vagilantes are people sharing css decoding code...
And people circumventing DRM in Xbox'es.
No, I believe the analogy does not apply.
Sharing css decoding code, circumventing DRM -- these actions are not private justice. They are (in the eyes of those who disapprove) criminal activities -- the actions of an outlaw.
A vigilante is a citizen who takes action against a criminal. ("Criminal" in the eyes of the vigilante.)
Outlaws commit "crimes". Vigilantes punish outlaws.
-kgj
-kgj
A little late on this comment, but couldn't a defense be: "Well I WANTED to download the fake UT2K4 that's a trojan and phones home.. I heard it's a neat program" It seems like anyone "caught" this way could say that.
And Neither do Linux users, and we can play UT2004. :-)
Kosh: "Understanding is a 3 edged sword, your side, their side, the Truth."
it would seem AOL blocks anything on the *.cx domain by default
so no users on AOL can access it
Entrapment only applies to law enforcement officials, and only means that the police officer cannot pressure you to commit a crime, and then turn around and arrest you for it.
Here's the legal definition of entrapment.
And "vigilantism" is, so far as I know, not a crime, as long as you don't do anything illegal in your vigilante efforts. However, the "evidence" you produce would probably be mostly worthless from a prosecutor's point of view.
You may not like it or agree with it (I sure don't) but right now it's the law. If we don't like a particular law (regarding the unauthorised use of a computers resources) then we need to get our elected officials to change it.
they re not using pr0n to spread their trojans...
-
And it doesn't matter how screwed up the system is. You're not going to be praised. You're going to be punished.
How the heck do you think this is entrapment? For that matter how is the pallet example entrapment? I'm a law grad and I will tell you NEITHER is entrapment.
:)
#1 For it to be entrapment you have to be talking about government agents or a real close relationship to those government agents so as to be virtually indisinquishable from them.
#2 For an entrapment defense to work you have to show the authorites enticed you to do something that you would not have done absent the police enticement. IE just leaving a pallet of goods unattended is not enticement. The guy who steals it is going to lose if he tries an entrapment defense under those facts.
PS...I signed up for an account but my password hasn't been mailed yet...I will be PsiSilverthorn when ever it gets to me
Let's be honest. If these guys were, say, DOSing the RIAA or SCO websites, they'd be hailed as heroes. But harrassing Warez users on the sacred P2P networks? Oh, THOSE ASSHOLES.
Lots of self-righteous anger about the evil of this being a Trojan, and abusing MY PROPERTY and such, and.....hey, these complaints sound familiar. Where have I heard them before, hmmm?
For the people outraged about this, isn't getting hosed downloading warez comparible to, oh say, getting robbed in a crack house?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
In God We Trust, Others We Monitor
Wrong or Right, Cracking requires a pretty skilled person. Now that this is out in the open I don't think they can trust any data that gets sent back to their Real Time List. It should be pretty easy to figure out the call back server and protocol and fill the list with whatever they feel like.
-----
only means that the police officer cannot pressure you to commit a crime
-----
Hypothetical situation: A police officer stops you in the street and demands that you stop to answer some questions. You are in a hurry and ask if he's conducting an investigation. His response is negative, he's just lonely and wants to chat. You ignore his pleas and continue on your way.
The police officer arrests you for obstruction of justice. Additionally he uses the obstruction of justice as reason to search your person and finds a pack of cigarettes without the wrapper in your coat. He writes up an additional ticket for possession of contraband goods (cigarettes without the appropriate tax stamp).
Note: This isn't a hypothetical situation but REALLY DID HAPPEN.
So please, quit talking about legality. We live in a subjective police state and no lawyer really cares unless there's a potential to get rich quick.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
As I stated below your example is NOT entrapment. For entrapment defense to work you have to show you would not have committed the crime absent the police enticement. An unattended pallet of goods is NOT enticement even if it was placed there by the police. Nobody talked you into stealing it. You would lose BIG TIME if you tried that defense in court!
PsiSilverthorn
It strikes me that somebody who downloads something from an 'untrusted' computer, and then runs the component. Obviously accepts all the warnings of their firewalls, that the component is trying to open a connection to the internet, then wonders why it didn't 'generate a license key to UT2004'.
These people really need to be taken offline as they probably consitute the biggest threat to the Internet with regards to click happy crazies who believe that installing trojans, virus et al... is something they were born into this world to do.
I think this is a VERY interesting social experiement. Sure it may be illegal, but still - its very interesting.
Considering legality though, did you know when you installed MS Oulook, that if I sent you an email that you read in HTML format, I could log your IP address? Does that mean MS have written some software that they know can be used to 'phone home' that they are doing something illegal?
Discuss...
"and they have a website that updates in real time"
Not anymore!
I was going to say the same thing. I guess it updates in slashdot time: lagging like good old EFNet. :-)
However, you may loose your ability to countersue in civil court for damaages due to the intent on your part to commit a criminal transaction.
Just like the drug dealer, he's still commiting a crime by selling, regardless of the crime you committed by purchasing..
The Feds could also demand their logs..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Zone Alarm (http://www.zonelabs.com/) or Norton Internet Security (http://www.symantec.com/) prompts you if any program wants to access the internet (add more as you see fit but these I have used). Trojan attacks like this hammer the requirement of these products along with a good firewall. And yes Unix and Mac owners are left out. Another Question would be: How would you configure your firewall to prevent leaks like this?
Can't afford winxp? Get a linux distro. Can't afford Office? Get OpenOffice. Can't afford video games? Get a job. blah blah blah...
...
:-(
Can't get your copy of Unreal Tournament 2004 to recognize your CD-ROM drive because of the reterded CD-Protection crapware it has?
If your answer to that is "get a new drive" or "get a new computer" I say screw it, I'll crack my legally purchased copy of the game, like I did with UT2003.
Which sucks, it's still in pre-order, why did the americans get it before us europeans?
---- Take the Space Quiz!
Piracy is just a means to theft. Just like having your buddy steal something for you then you steal it. You're still party to theft.
There are ways of "stealing" things that don't involve shoplifting.
As for SCO's claims they are just that. Anyone can claim shit. I have yet to see any proof that SCO's rights have been violated [recall they did release linux under GPL themselves...].
As for the "legit uses" claim [e.g. keygen, demo copy of winxp].... well too f'ing bad. Who are you to say I can't "test out" my latest virus?
You want a demo copy of windows? Contact microsoft. Want a keygen? Buy the software [or in the case of disabled key protected games do without! Don't support them, keep the key in a safe place, etc...]. Seriously, this is like getting advil from "that guy on the corner".
Let's not forget the rights of the producer. Suppose I wrote a game then I distributed a "copy" on Kazaa with a virus in it. I'm trying to protect my interests by hampering pirates of my software.
Who are you to say I can't do that? I mean I'm not forcing my virus on people. They're actively trying to violate my rights!!!
Self-defense all the way.
Ok how about this, mr. liberal, I'll go visit you and try to pick-pocket ya. But don't try to resist because that would be "wrong".
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Return it, don't sponsor it, call support, etc...
That's like saying "my car's v8 is a little out of tune so I'll just steal another off the lot". Um no, you raise the issue with the person who sold you the defective product.
As for the inability for it to read it... um yeah annoying [so far only my laptop cd-rom has caused any sort of trouble]. A 50$ desktop dvd-cdrw drive should be able to read just about anything though so really this is a minor issue anyways. Certainly not an excuse for the 99.9% of the other pirates out there.
Besides as per the license terms of the producer you're not entitled to it that way anyways. Make your own game and put that on P2P if you're so into "sharing".
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Neither is entrapment. Entrapment can only be performed by someone with authority. These guys have none. Secondly, your example is a common bust. (although they don't do it like you said)
Entrapment for example is when a cop asks you to break a crime and then busts you for it. They're allowed to bait you (look at when they bust johns going after hookers) but they can't be the ones to suggest the criminal activity. The key difference is whether the person was predisposed to doing the crime.
Entrapment
Keep clicking here .
I've got it open in one tab, and every so often give their server a few more kicks in the nuts^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H my support.
Automobiles should be rigged with self-destruct explosives in the event of theft?
It really all comes back to this: Once you have accepted money in exchange for something you have NO RIGHTS WHATSOEVER to think that you still control the something that you sold. Any laws, regulations, or rules which try to negate this very basic natural fact are going to cause problems.
If only the majority of the population/government would understand this and quit pandering to rich brats who whine about their intellectual property.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
That's like saying "my car's v8 is a little out of tune so I'll just steal another off the lot". Um no, you raise the issue with the person who sold you the defective product.
No, it's like saying "my V8 is out of tune so I'll buy some tools and alter it myself".
---- Take the Space Quiz!
I agree with what you said about lack of games for Linux.
;-)
That's more reason [not less] to adopt Linux. Quite frankly most windows games suck anyways. My friend just bought Battlefield: Vietnam, he has 512MB of ram, 5600FX [GeForce from MSI], 2Ghz Athlon running WinXP. Let me tell you what "lag" is like..... arrg...
When I get a chance I'm going to buy UT2k4 because of the Linux support. I won't buy these Windows "enabled" cpu hog games [cuz they suck]. If I really want a game not on Linux I'll buy the PS2/Xbox version anyways...
If people just stopped for a second, realized that "the newest hip game" is just a remake of last years "newest hip game" and waited for developers to start making Linux ports you wouldn't have to pirate windows. With the money you save on MSFT hassles you can buy a few games a year
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
"Automobiles should be rigged with self-destruct explosives in the event of theft?"
Last I checked a virus on a home PC won't kill people. Note that some cars do have LoJack which allows cops to track you... is that violating the thiefs rights?
Um your views on "rights" are also troublesome. You're saying if I buy a 12$ paperback I now have publishing rights?
The only people who whine about IP like you do are minor little pathetic non-producers. If I spend time to produce something like a program, book, etc I should expect to have some rights over the distribution. I mean how else do you make money?
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
There's a lot of people saying that because the people downloading these files have been breaking the law they deserve everything they get.
So far as I can see though they haven't actually broken the law themselves. They have downloaded a file with a particular name, this file is not illegal to download or use on your computers so I don't see any crime being commited there.
On the other hands the program writers are almost certainly breaking the law by running spyware etc on your computer without your permission.
I'm not saying I agree with stealing stuff of P2P because I don't but I am saying that in the case the downloader has done nothing wrong.
"No, it's like saying "my V8 is out of tune so I'll buy some tools and alter it myself"."
..." game.
Um no it isn't. You don't download keygens and full copies of programs off P2P to "tune up" your software. You do that to pirate it, to violate the rights of the producer and to be a little prick.
Seriously it comes down to spending power. If you think cd-keys are too much hassle, do without the program. Put the money you would spend on that into a high interest bond or something [well gather enough to buy a bond first...] and cash it in later.
You really don't need the "latest hip re-make of last years latest hip re-make of the year before latest hip re-make of
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Can you spot the shoot-self-in-foot-notes?
..what, outlook? Got it! Thanks for clearing that up!
1. No data is collected by our software that isn't already collected when our software is downloaded. The only personally identifiable information that we have would be the executer's IP address. However this information is freely available at time of download and is completly public information.
Uhm, wait, but collecting IP addys is data. And you also collect what file they were trying to download, and where/who they got it from? I'd say building a track list of a 'social' network of where a file goes and by how/whom is plenty of data.
I'm sorry,but thats a load. Get a better legal advisor, next!
3. We dissagree with the notion that this is a "Trojan".
A trojan horse gains access to a system through deviant methods. Not through user initiated downloads on a P2P network. Secondly, a trojan horse by definition has a payload or attempts to give the author access by working from the inside. Our program is aboslutely dormant unless specifically and purposefully executed by the downloader. And the program is riddled with cues to what the contents might be. For instance, the company name is "C.R.A.P. Citizens Raging Against Pirates". Not what you'd expect from a "legitimate" crack or keygen.
Okay, lets see, its not a trojan, yet its a trojan. It's not a trojan because it comes from a p2p network, and not
Okay, great idea, really, very funny! But WTF are these guys going to do with all this when, say, MS steps in with a great big legal order of doom saying 'we want to know everybody who thought they were downloading the windows source code'? Are these people even thinking that far ahead?
And I love the broad thinking that anybody downloading a keygen is a pirate, What, these guys never lost a Cd key before? Yesh. Get a grip kids.
Points for some very crative programing, but they lost points for not finding something better to do and not thinking ahead a few more feet of them.
My new top secret key -> C>N|KB
I call bullshit. If the police officer is not conducting an investigation, it is not obstruction of justice. Thus, he would in reality have no reason to search your person. Thus, the 'evidence' would not stand up in court.
Of course, it would be hellish, being arrested, going to jail for a while, waiting for a trial, the whole criminal justice[sic] experience. Still, once the main evidence is thrown out on basis of an illegal search of your person, it should be easy to prove your innocence, even if you were guilty of possession of contraband.
Gotta love the US legal system
(I live in Canada)
they have a website that updates in real time
should read:
they had a website that updates in real time.
Sure you have publishing rights. Good luck with distributorship and marketing. You may be able to buy Stephen King's latest novel for $12 but I highly doubt that you'll have any luck in copying, producing, and selling it to any extent that the original publisher would even notice.
Quit hassling the public with your ghost-chasing FUD.
You're wrong about people that whine about IP. Everyone whines about IP. The only people who can afford to hire government Guido enforcers (ie. buy politicians, influence laws, afford lawyers) are those that stole their golden goose from someone else.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
Um, what if you OCR King's latest novel and put it on your website? You can reach a huge audience, it can be transformed into Ebooks for virtually anything, etc...
I'm certain King's publishers wouldn't appreciate that even though you can do it with patience and a 49$ scanner.
As for "enforcing IP" what do you think lawsuits are about? If I catch you violating my rights you'll find yourself in court. I don't have to be a rich sob to sue you. I just have to be able to prove it. I think you're just spreading random rants in the hopes of looking intelligent.
You fail it.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
The EFF says the vigilantes may be committing a crime
,'agent sue'; strange ), i told her my question, she gives me a phone number of some other agent. i leave a message; yatta, yatta. a day later, i get a phone call back. yup, its not allowable; the g-men have a monopoly on it. funny thing, no one at the fbi gets phone calls on what the law is. so it took some listening, and talking before anyone could state what the law was. now for the punch line of this rabbling story. i go back to this 'client' and tell them what i've done. low and behold, that project is scrapped. but i get another project that will take a year, with bonuses! i love being bribed to be friendly, it pays!
guess what fans, its called 'wire tapping', its going to be interesting when some 'g-men' get wind of this. so get your popcorn and drink ready, there's go'na be more on this one, most likely on c-span. what would make this even funnier is if some relious zealots, and g-men wanna-bees are in the mix.
on a more business related note...
ol' papa bear was once asked by a telemarketer type to create a program that snoops the network for various types of user information. being out of a job for over 6 months can cause you to lower a lot of things. not being a lawfully, and a knowledgable person; i called the fbi about this request. some sweet sounding gal answered the phone at the county seat fbi office, ( she giggled when i refered to her as
Um no it isn't. You don't download keygens and full copies of programs off P2P to "tune up" your software. You do that to pirate it, to violate the rights of the producer and to be a little prick.
Woah, way to go Mr. Assumptions. Why exactly can't I just rip out the CD protection code off the program I paid for? It's far more convenient for me to just install the whole thing in my 120 Gb hard drive, stash the box with the CDs safely and be on my merry way. I don't have to throw a tantrum, call the software company 100 times and make a revolution to change the system so that programs come without CD protection. I can simply spend 5 minutes downloading a tool and getting rid of it. Or I can put the keygen with the game in the hard drive so that I don't even have to worry where the manual or the box will end up.
What you're presenting here is a fallacy known as the False Dichotomy. The world is not "either you get the crack to pirate the program or you return it if you don't like the CD protection". After I paid for that software I'll modify it as I see fit to make it more convenient for me to use it, be it cracking the CD protection, installing 100 zillion mods or even cheating the crap out of it so that I can headshot the bots every time I want to. And I'll be damned if I let anyone tell me what I can or cannot do in my computer with the software I paid for.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
The police do this all the time. They have cars with GPS systems in them that they drop off somewhere and wait for somebody to steal. They dress up female officers in short skirts and have them go stand on street corners. They put on a raiders jersey, pull their pants down to their knees, cornrow their hair and go hang out in dark alleys. In each of these cases when some stupid ass comes up and, steals the car, propositions the "hooker", or attempts to buy "drugs", the person in question is arrested, convicted and sentenced.
ANY lawyer worth his salt would not have a problem defending this case. The officer in question did not have any sort of probable cause for the stop. This would be a TERRY type of situation. IE the officer can do what's referred to as a 'Terry Stop' if they have some articulable suspicion that a crime is being committed or about to be...IE the officer sees a guy standing around outside the window of a closed store and he keeps looking over his shoulder. The officer then may approach him and ask for identification, etc. He may even be able to get away with a brief patdown of the subject.
But in your example the officer has nothing and just asked questions of the subject randomly. The subject was free to go at anytime. He did not have to say anything to the cop nor did the cop have probable cause to arrest or to do a search. The case would be thrown out.
PsiSilverthorn
I would also stress that this information is harmless to them as we proved only that they downloaded a file with the same name as a crack...nothing that poses any kind of threat at all to them.
With the latest laws passed in the EU allowing companies to raid pirates, this IS a threat. You've gathered intelligence illegally, but since you put it in the public domain, you've done software companies in Europe a giant favor! They can now go to the ISPs of any European IPs on your publicly available list and demand user information. Mind you, this is REGARDLESS of whether or not they were downloading the crack with intent of any kind of fair use. Arguing that "cracking is cracking" is not valid because you have no idea what is legal and illegal in all countries.
Also, considering the fact that companies in the US have been suing the pants off of anyone that they have any proof of violating their copyrights (a legal approach, though heavy-handed), you've probably given them enough publicly available probable cause to allow them to seek subpoenas.
Remember: claiming you've done nothing wrong and actually doing nothing wrong are two different things. You've gathered private information (illegally) and spread it about publicly. Even if the former was legal, the latter is unethical.
Then contact the developer of the game for the cd-key removal tool. Oh wait....It really is that simple though, if the game doesn't work you complain to the person who wrote the game [or you bought it from]. If there is no resolution that's when I'd say a hack is called for.
The point is that 99.9% of P2P is pirated content that the downloaders don't have the right to access. The producers should have a right to fight back by poisoning P2P apps [or at least their own apps on P2P].
If you've been wronged write a keygen and stand behind it [e.g. host it on your site]. When/if you get called on it just tell the opposing council "how about a counter-suit of fraud to go with your lawsuit?".
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
"What if" "what if" "what if". What if the world was fair? You could OCR it but you're not going to get that many people to sit in front of their monitors to read it. People that read books and novels read books and novels for a reason. If there was a market for novels on-line you'd see it already.
And yes, you do have to be a rich SOB to sue me. The time that it costs you to track me down, file the paperwork, and keep up-to-date with all of the proceedings is far outside the ability of even the above average citizen. Unless you're a rich SOB you're too busy working hard and paying taxes to know that I'm stealing your IP from halfway across the nation. Additionally, unless you were a rich enough SOB to take the time and money out to file for the copyrights/trademarks/patents then you'll never be able to prove that you owned the property before I started producing it.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
----
ANY lawyer worth his salt
----
Any lawyer worth his salt is working on bigger cases than this. Public defenders don't give a sh*t. In all reality public defenders are looking to side with the police in the interest of advancing their social status within legal circles. They could give a rat's crap about some guy who got harassed.
Everyone talks in terms of the ideal world. Does anyone ever consider the _real_ world?
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
So your conclusions is people shouldn't have IP rights because assholes like you could just violate them easily?
Hmm... seems american to me.
It might be cold here, we might have a french province but at least.... oh fuck it I'm ordering pizza...
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
They say they aren't reporting your information to the police, "even though [they] should be." Should be for what? Downloading your dustbunny program? Is that illegal now because you seem to be purposefully giving it away.
What would these tools be telling the cops?
"These people downloaded our program."
"Is your program copyrighted?"
"Umm, no, but it is mislabeled!"
Morons.
"The crows seemed to be calling his name, thought Caw."
I, for one, know that I will NEVER purchase UT2004 now because of this. I get the feeling that these guys' arguments are simply too stupid to be real. They MUST be getting payoffs from the copyright holders to be getting this information and posting it publicly. Now the actual copyright holders just have to check out the list, see if it was the download was for one of their programs, and BOOM, they now have publicly available probable cause for suspecting someone of infringement.
Don't buy anything from the makers of UT2004 or any Microsoft products! They're behind all of this!
This reminds of Zeropaid.com attempt to stop childpornographers by host fake child porn images (the images have misleading names and contain text message instead of child porn) posting the IP of anyone attempting to download the images.
To my knowledge downloading the fake files (software or otherwise) isn't prosecutable offense, however I think distributing what is basicly a trojan is.
My conclusion is that IP rights are meaningless unless you're already wealthy. I've had my intellectual property stolen over, and over, and over again simply because I can't do everything. I can't spend the time developing the idea AND spend the time registering the idea with the proper authorities AND spend the time keeping track of who else might be using the idea AND afford the legal backup to ensure that it's protected. It doesn't take much thought to see that our democratically elected Communist system is weighted in favor of the wealthy.
Don't play the patriot card. No one else is reading this and, until this great nation of the USA returns to some semblance of a republic, I personally don't care.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
That is such BS! There is nothing wrong with Public Defenders. In fact in some situations they may be preferable. IE they will have money to do investigations, etc that might not be available if you use a private attorney and can't afford to pay for the investigations yourself. In any case the situation defined above is NOTHING! A lawyer straight out of law school and taking his first case would be able to defend that situation. That's basic Bar material. If the lawyer can't defend that situation then there is no way he should have been able to pass the Bar.
PsiSilverthorn
It's interesting to see a third party pop up in a war between lawmakers and the internet underground. I don't see them getting a lot of sympathy seeing, as the've ticked off both groups.
So wouldn't you argue that poisoning P2P is a good self-defence for poorer developers?
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Then contact the developer of the game for the cd-key removal tool. Oh wait....It really is that simple though
Sure is. 10 logged calls to tech support with UT2003, I could have cracked it right away but wanted to make a point (since the number was free, I've seen others that give a 0.80/min tech support number, heh). The tech support came down to this "it seems like you have all your cables plugged in correctly, there's nothing we can do to help". One of them suggested I should wait for a patch.
The point is that 99.9% of P2P is pirated content that the downloaders don't have the right to access. The producers should have a right to fight back by poisoning P2P apps [or at least their own apps on P2P].
The point is that the producers (or the "vigilantes" in this case) don't have the right to attack P2P users, much less under the assumption that everyone uses everything for illegal purposes. That's what the law is for, not their own "justice system". And that 99.9% really looks like something you pulled out of thin air.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
Apparently you've never been involved or else your Mommy was blowing the public defender's best friend.
Of course the situation should be defendable but there's no initiative for it. If the public defender pushes the court to find in favor of the citizen then there's going to be an investigation within the police department. Once it's legally validated that a citizen's rights have been violated then there's all sorts of room for a damages suit against the department. No public defender wants to stick his foot in that.
Public defenders don't do any investigation. Their possibility of promotion or moving to a more respectable position is based upon number of cases handled and the outcomes. When they handle more cases with fewer problems and no snubbed noses or bruised egos around the courthouse they have a better chance of moving up in their field.
It's office politics. Nothing against the poor Joe on the street that spent the night waiting for someone to throw bail.
EVERYONE knows how things are supposed to work. Start thinking about the way they do work.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
OMG!! You have been watching toooo much TV dude! and you talk about me not living in the real world!. BTW..I'm a lawyer...I HAVE seen this stuff.
PsiSilverthorn
This is not quantum science folks. If the checksum (typically MD5) does not match what you expect, delete the file. If no checksum exists, ask for one!
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Just because IP functions as a meaningless pyramid scheme doesn't validate an armed revolution. I'm anti-aggressive. Poorer developers should sit back, fold their arms, and wait until someone compensates them properly up front.
/. articles from work. :-)
Which is what I'll probably be doing in about 2 months if I keep posting politically oriented
I don't care anymore...
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
If you're really a lawyer worth his salt perhaps you'd like to contact me [/.ID]@hotmail.com.
Maybe you'd like to make some cash because I have a number of incidents like this that are supposedly easy to defend.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
doesn't this sort of thing violate the new cyberterrorism clause of everyone's favorite love to hate Patriot Act? Especially since it IS like a trojan.
/.-effect. Works every time.
and by the looks of it, they got hosed...well...their server did. Good ol'
Yes, sit back and get ripped off...
OR mess around with stupid kids computers and teach them a lesson...
Hmm...
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I don't stand up for it installing spyware, but if it just pops up a message with a black pirate flag and says you have been logged...the only thing that is harmed is the privacy of a criminal.
If they start using this information for blackmail...that is illegal!
No, unauthorized modification of a computer is a crime, in both the UK and the US (and probably most other developed nations' jurisdictions).
What we have here are felons (system crackers planting trojans on people's PCs) who are compromising the privacy of individuals who have committed civil offenses (copyright violations). The seriousness of the former crime is much greater than the seriousness of the crimes of their victims.
That having been said, the FBI has protected murderers who were on their payroll (including sending an innocent man to jail for the murder committed by one of their informants), who turned evidence against people guilty of far less. So the alluded to by others remains: given the current political climate the feds are likely to overlook the felonies being committed in the interest of persuing the civil offenses being committed against their primary constituency, namely the copyright cartels.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
12.5% social security, +federal tax, +state tax bringing it closer to 33%, then 6% sales tax, and alcohol tax, and gas tax, and electricity tax, and registration fees for the vehicle, and water tax... add it all up and you lose about 55% or better every month to taxes and government surcharges. All of that on top of a job which requires a Master's of Science in chemistry and three years of experiences but only pays just enough to keep me eating rye bread, spinach dip, and drinking water.
That's a rip-off. What's the difference?
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
I think that's a great virus (some code that propagate himself and does unwanted things on people computers) since it does something constructive: it fills a database.
...
Personaly i'd prefer a virus that automaticaly shares *.avi and *.rar on p2p, but that's just like, my opinion...
Anyway the drawback is that it does NOT do the job authors wants it to do: it can't bring any piracy evidence, as the only evidence here is that you TRIED to download some illegal file on p2p, which obviously didn't work.
So this can only matter if it's considered illegal to share file NAMES and someone could be sued for offering/downloading a file called, for instance, 'Windows How-To.txt' because it contains the name of a copyrighted material.
In fact this virus can only do one thing: evaluate how fake files spread on p2p networks, how fast, how it goes around the world and around the nets.
And this is, i think, a great project. Fake file sharing is a pretty amusing subject, (perhaps one day internet will be done due to billions of kazaa'ers transmitting portions of fake files to each other, with the use of their faster and faster broadband connexions), that's why i kinda like this virus
But sadly, as always with i-dont-know-how-stuff-works guys that try do more than they can, the only ones that suffer are the lil ones on the far bottom of the pyramid that can't even manage to get their hands on a legit copy of a popular game keygen without getting a fake file and having their computer trojaned...
that his mystery partner is Fritz Hollings? He's from South Carolina, after all.
Thank God for ignorant, arrogant little shitheads like this one. Isn't it great to see someone with their head so far up their asses that they actually take the monopolist's side of the argument?
Let's trojan this asshole's computer, and plant Britney Spears MP3's, put him on P2P and let him feel the wrath of the RIAA.
Well, this mutherfscker should be on all of our shitlists. Let's make sure he NEVER WORKS IN OUR INDUSTRY EVER! Let him flip burgers for $5.50 an hour, the pompous asshole. Of course, I know that he'll probably get a job at Big Champagne, or one of the other hypocritical companies that prove that P2P is really a huge marketing machine for the RIAA, that helps them track their audience and helps them increase revenue.
To the fucking morons who designed this dumb fucking application in their attempt to gain 15 minutes of fame:
... "Arrrrrrr.. Avast ye, matee! Bend over and prepare to be boarded!" In Federal Pound-Me-In-The-Ass Prison.
HEY, FUCKTARDS, CONGRATS. YOU'RE LOGGING A TON OF PROXY ADDRESSES.
Yes, I'm quite sure that all 5000 users behind an AOL proxy are just thrilled you're calling them a priate.
Something tells me the only pirates you're going to meet are going to be saying something like
Grah. Asshats, both of ya.
I disagree, they're both wrong.
First, the right to protect your rights is a right. All to often law enforcement has this attitude that the common people "shouldn't worry their prety little heads off" and that only they should have any power or authority, only they should defend rights by force, and only they will have good solutions. Bull, when they act like this - they really need to be put in their place.
Second, I would be hard pressed to believe that copying a file violates anybody's rights. I'm not saying it can't happen, but the fact is that the Internet has got to be one of the least coercive social forums ever created since the birth of human kind. Now that all these vigilantes are choosing to hang out there smells alot more like problemed people who are looking for rational sounding excuses to act violent, than a true buring desire to secure the safety of information and children.
Before going gung ho, maybe these people should renember that old saying "those who live by the sword, die by the sword"
"So if I download a cracked version of a game I legally own that purports to let me play without the CD, I'm being treated like a crook, and someone's logging my activity. Screw them!"
You do realize that you don't have to download the executable to get a crack. I downloaded a no-cd patch for one of my games, and that's ALL it was. So a "piracy" argument wouldn't have a leg to stand on, unlike a full executable.
I bought the 6 CD set. I have 2 computers that play games, one is for when people wanna come over and LAN. I have to disconnect the internet from all the computers on the lan because UT2004 contacts Atari and checks the keys in multiplayer, but that's fine. Kudos to Atari for having the hosting game proxy key checks... I actually had to alter my firewall rules.
The reason is, they are treating people like criminals for downloading cracks. As many previous posters have said, merely downloading a crack does not mean you are guilty of pirating (i.e. Innocent until proven Guilty). These vigilantes are bypassing due process of law and acting like the Eye in the Sky of the software world. Well, last time I checked we hadn't entered some surreal alternate universe, and we still have protections under the law. Notice I'm only speaking of cracks. I do not see a legit purpose for keygens.
Also they are distributing something that looks like a crack that is really a trojan. AFAIK, trojans are illegal, no matter what their purpose is. It would still be illegal to give someone a trojan if they didn't know what it was, that would allow you to remove all the spyware/viruses/adware from their machine. If they aren't illegal, they should be. Someone upthread said that it was illegal in the U.K.; I'm not aware of a similar law in the U.S., but there should be one.
Trojans are bad, mmmkayyy?
He buys his CD's, DVD's, and Video Games from the store just like every one else. Except for CD's. He's boycotting the RIAA. For the one CD he's absolutely had to have, he had his brother burn him a copy, which is fair use. (He isn't an indie music fan)
I personally don't use P2P. All of the stuff I need I can get off the web. And I buy my CD's used, and rip them.
You mean they had a website ;) and we probably just cost them a 10x increase on their hosting bill this month!
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
From their page: So, to the pirates out there who think this is in some way illegal, it's not. However, what you do is illegal.
Actually, downloading a filed called UT2K4keygen.exe is completly legal. If you have the game, you can also have a keygen (AFAIK this is legal both in Europe and the states).
Secondly, you could never get a person convicted for piracy because he DLed a file you created and allowed him to DL from you, regardless of the name of the file... atleast not in europe...
I am almost tempted to download their program, figure out the site it contacts and what format it sends the information in and write my own just to fill their database with crap.
I don't care about warez too much one way or the other, but I would like people to feel safe downloading software that no so-called authority has unauthorized download of.
One solution of sorts is all of the major p2p programs have hashes for different files (the best being tigertree hashes). So all you need then is have a group with a good reputation give a list of hashes and then PGP sign it or whatnot. There are web sites like Bitzi that list hashes for a file in the different hash formats (Gnutella, Kazaa, EDonkey), along with user comments and the like. So there are definitely mechanisms where you can easily get a hash to compare the files against the OK of a trusted person or group, be the software "authorized" or "unauthorized".
Well, now that we've got the insult out of the way, how are software pirates supposed to be responsible for you not making any money? Have you ever made anything worth selling?
And no amount of lying is going to change the facts. Your software is spyware. It sends the IP address in such a way that explicitly or by reference it contains the fact that the user downloaded a file - information that the user did not authorize to be sent to you or to be posted to the network.
If this were done within the confines of the browser it would be one thing - but it is a reasonable expectation that these files don't phone home.
Kill youselves. Do society a favor.
<CmdrTaco> CD sales went up in Australia
<Hemos> cool lets get an article up
<Hemos> we'll call it "File-Sharing Increases CD Sales"
<CmdrTaco> lol
<Hemos> seriously. file-sharing is good. distributing someone's intellectual property is good
<CmdrTaco> hey, did we ever get dailyslash shut down?
<Hemos> not yet. you know some people actually think we have a double-standard for declaring them illegal?
<CmdrTaco> rofl
<CowboyNeal> hey guys
<CmdrTaco> hey
<Hemos> hi
<CowboyNeal> some guys ar posting information on pirates
<CmdrTaco> fuckers
<Hemos> yeah, nobody should post information on people breaking the law
<CmdrTaco> dude nobody's breaking the law
<CmdrTaco> they're INCREASING CD SALES
<Hemos> oh yeah
<CowboyNeal> i'll get an article up and call them "vigilantes"
<CmdrTaco> lol
<Hemos> that'll get the discussions going...more page hits
<CowboyNeal> ya
<CmdrTaco> it sucks that people can't participate in the mp3 culture movement by illegally distributing other people's product
<Hemos> i know
<Hemos> hmm
<CowboyNeal> ?
<Hemos> isn't that a contradiction, since we expect everybody to follow the licensing restrictions of a GPL.TXT file and raise a piss if they don't?
<CmdrTaco> rofl
<CowboyNeal> haha
<CmdrTaco> yeah expect everyone to follow the GPL...
<Hemos> ya, i know..oh well, nobody said we were perfect
<CmdrTaco> whatever gets page hits
<michael> i'm perfect
<CmdrTaco> you scare me
A spammer pushes their wares onto you, which is clearly a bad thing, but it's not like anybody forced the people who downloaded the files that contained this trojan to do so. It's not like person A in your example is shoving files down person B's throat, is it?
Are people here (not you specifically, Walkiry) really suggesting that downloaders aren't responsible for the consequences of their own actions? Generally speaking, are they really "victims" of anything but their own greed?
And aren't "it's their own damn fault" and "they should have had a decent firewall running", etc, the standard lines that most Slashdotters arrogantly reach for when it's non-technical users (AOLers, "Windows lusers", or whatever derogratory label we're using today) being hit by trojans, etc?
Caveat emptor is great advice, especially so when you're buying blind and what you're buying is being freely given.
So this whole story and related discussions leave us with yet more examples of Slashcrowd hypocrisy. I swear that the Slashdot motto should be changed to "Hypocrisy for Nerds. Double Standards that matter."
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Did you get legal advice before doing this? You could be completely wrong about it not being a crime.
Even if you did, you are getting so much exposure that you are bound to end up in court. Even in the best of all possible worlds, the legal fees are going to ruin you.
Bad point. You do realize that game companies release demo's for a reason? If you don't like the demo, I doubt you're going to like the full game.
So the "I'll download a full, cracked version to get a feel for the game" doesn't hold up, and makes you look like a "I want something for nothing" type of person(1).
(1) Same with all the other software out there.
Damn, and I thought I was just being subversive by having this in my pocket.
I think everyone should have an ACLU Pocket Card on Police Encounters. I'm tempted to make some more and start handing them out.
Nathan's blog
What they are committing with their trojan horses is clearly a crime under federal law. Plus if it happened to me and I'd notice it i would sue the hell out of them.
REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.
Did you read the article?
.exe from these guys and you are 100% innocent, won't get logged on their site. Don't misinterpret what they are saying.
...and that folks, is where they begin to log your IP.
You can easily download their ware and you WON'T be logged on their site. You must OPEN IT. If you are in fact OPENING it than that proves intent (you are, afterall, 'using' it in the computer software sense).
You can download any
Running software cracks and/or warez = INTENT
Is how many times one of the creators has been modded down and labelled a 'troll'. ;^)
.snicker.)
http://slashdot.org/~clifgriffin
(Though to be fair, he did get a couple of up-mods as well... but still... he's a troll.
'Life is like a spoonful of Drain-O, it feels good on the way down but leaves you feeling hollow inside'
They can make their money doing tours!!!1!!!!111!L0lllll!!!!
Obviously, spam IPs are handed out on message headers, while these people used a software tool to get them. But IPs aren't all that hard to snag; they could just have easily taken pirated software, re-zipped them with a password, and then packed them into another zip file with a readme.html containing the password. That readme.html would have an image tag, iframe, or other server request to give the IP. User loads up readme.html to get the password, IP is logged, and in the passworded zip file is a corrupted file that is the right size, but won't execute, so it looks like "legit 0-day" but isn't. These vigilantes wouldn't be guilty of distributing anything, and they would still have the IPs of the downloaders.
So, I agree that the use of the spyware oriented sw is not cool. But as much as I think they are jerks, I can't fault them for just reporting IPs and their opinions about them. IANAL, so I have no idea about legality of this, but if MAPS is legal, then so is this.
Michael
Yeah, its not like you could can register with fake info and direct it at someone you hate.
Yeah, thats a good excuse. Well, back to playing my warzed UT2004 that I never intended to pay for in the first place on my warzed copy of XP.
Yeah, I bet those little pirating warze kiddies are also trying to DoS it with all the infected machines they broke into.
"disguised as ... Unreal Tournament 2004 and Microsoft source code"
UT2004 and Microsoft source code are trademarked. Distributing something that isn't the product, but bearing the mark, is a serious trademark violation. Interestingly, the Lanham Act, that governs trademarks, requires the owner of the mark to vigorously defend the mark from such acts of dilution/confusion. Or lose exclusive rights to the mark. So unless UT2004 owner Epic Games and Microsoft attack these bootleggers, stopping their fraud, Epic and M$ will lose their exclusive trademark rights. It's a win/win scenario for software users when animals attack other animals.
--
make install -not war
How is this any different than any other spyware program? Bonzi Buddy, Morpheus, KaZaa, etc, etc, contain reporting spyware. How is this any different?
So it doesn't have terms and agreements. Big deal. If they added Terms and Agreements that said it was not a valid crack but indeed may report minor PC information would it make it ok? I think it's a rather interesting idea.
Once again, what makes this any different than other hidden spyware applications?
-Tolerate my intolerance
Hmmm. If I offer someone a bag of marijuana (presuming its possession to be illegal in the locality this takes place) and it turns out to be dried lawn clippings, can I be prosecuted for fraud? I doubt it, but luckily I'm not a lawyer.
I do know you'd have a pretty hard time getting someone to prosecute. I think in most of the United States private citizens can't bring a criminal case themselves. I know there are places (e.g., the United Kingdom) where that's not the case. [At least my exhaustive research of John Mortimer's work suggests that.]
Let's say I drop on a copy of BackOrifice, and "accidently" rename it to "Paris_Hilton_Video"..
Am I now guilty of some form of digital luring or *entrapment*?
~m
"Yes, I have a Disaster Recovery Plan. It's called my Resume"
One way or another.
The only reason the unprecedented blatantly-unjustified restrictions on every human on the planet currently survive in public opinion, is that everyone infringes on these copyrights and they are not enforced.
One of two things is likely to happen:
A) The status-quo continues for a long while, where most infringe on copyrights, and a few fund the companies that keep these restrictions running - until Free Software and increased infringement squeezes out almost all Copyrighted software out of existence.
B) "Trusted computing" (more accurately described "Treacherous computing") actually enforces Copyrights on most humans in the planet. The public, suddenly suffering the true consequences of copyright, will quickly change its opinion on copyrights and they will not survive for long, if politicians want to stay in office.
Those programmers that distribute the malicious software on P2P networks are just examples of the moral decay society has been experiencing in regard to Freedom of information, backed by the media companies and their successful name-calling campaigns ("copyright infringers are pirates, thieves", etc).
Fortunately, people do value this freedom and will vote for it if they can no longer infringe on it - so our freedom is most probably safe.
i.e. "Nobody Knows Me" by Madonna
OMG!11! dude; LOL!!! a l@wy3r!!!
Sure you are, asshole..
Let me remind you that calling up Darl McBride and reminding him that he is an asshole is also considered vigilantism. So is subscribing known spammers to mailing lists. Morality isn't as black and white as you appear to beleive.
I don't call up anyone to remind them they're an asshole. And I don't approve of other people making such calls. Ill-mannered insult is the sport of barbarians, not the act of a lawful citizen.
Black and white morality? I thought my various qualifiers about "in the eyes of", etc., expressed my moral ambiguity.
-kgj
-kgj
It's amazing to see how many people on slashdot are having problems with this. Is slashdot just made up of a bunch of kids who think it's cool and ok to steal software and make illegal copies of other copyrighted materials? Maybe some of the people here didn't understand that the fight for freedom wasn't for illegal activities! It was for the freedom to trade LEGAL files. File sharing itself is good. Trading music and pirated software illegally is BAD BAD BAD. Mod me as troll or flamebait if you want to. Just grow up!
"he drew his sword Ringil that glittered like ice... and he wounded Morgoth with seven wounds..."
If they're grabbing the public address the host appears on to the Internet as, they're grabbing a lot of proxy addresses - and thus accusing everyone behind the proxy of being a "pirate".
If they're looking at the interface address on the machine before "phoning home", they've crossed into the domain of network intrusion, since the private address space the host sits on is NOT public information (the "public" information is the Internet-routable gateway for the NAT'd/proxy'd host).
I'd have no qualms about calling in the FBI on these guys if the're posting the address bound to the NIC on a NAT'd/proxy'd host. Essentially, they know the address of the host and the gateway, therefore they've got two key pieces in any attack.
Sounds like someone didn't think this plan through too well. Either that or the idea of a 300lb. guy nicknamed "Crusher" (doing 15 to 25 for manslaughter, of course) calling them "sweetie" appealed to them.
Slurp that 15 minutes of fame up.
My take on these lamers.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
So, basically, these guys are idiots. All someone has to do is rename the file on the network, and then some innocent person will download a legit looking thing (such as a tutorial or freeware app). I think what these guys are doing is the wrong way to go about making p2p legit.
"n. in criminal law, the doctrine that evidence discovered due to information found through illegal search or other unconstitutional means (such as a forced confession) may not be introduced by a prosecutor. The theory is that the tree (original illegal evidence) is poisoned and thus taints what grows from it. For example, as part of a coerced admission made without giving a prime suspect the so-called "Miranda warnings" (statement of rights, including the right to remain silent and what he/she says will be used against them), the suspect tells the police the location of stolen property. Since the admission cannot be introduced as evidence in trial, neither can the stolen property." I had to be very careful of this when I was a detective.
-cp-
President Bush to Liberate Alaska
So basically you're telling me that you couldn't have gotten the demo off a magazine CD? And in some places I've seen computer shops give out demo CDs.
" I was handed a (copy of the) full version of the game by someone that said "Here, check this out." and I did. And I loved it. "
Drug dealer: "Here kid, try this. It's good."
Hmmm...I don't know. Should I try it or not? Your call.
What a refreshing story. Just when I'm ready
to give up hope, there's always something,
however small, that helps restore my faith
in humanity.
I remember a few years ago there was a sting
operation that nabbed a bunch of fugitives
by running a bogus sweepstakes. The
criminals were lead to believe they'd won
superbowl tickets and when they showed up to
claim their prize, they were arrested. Some
of these idiots were so dumb and brazen that
they were still asking for their tickets as
they were being carted away.
That's how I think of the criminals who are
complaining about this prank -- only they're
not being carted off to jail, where they
belong, but just being gently reminded that
there's a difference between right and wrong.
I wonder. Who out there would be nasty
enough to give the P2P criminals what they
really deserve? Hey, having your hard drive
wiped is better than doing time.
So everybody is shrieking: "Jailtime for the vigilantes!"
Well duh. Vigilantes generally break the law to be vigilantes.
But they do it for a reason. I didn't get through more than 90 of the highest modded comments, but I saw very little honestly asking why somebody would choose to go outside the law like this.
Hint: read the definition in the link above.
Another hint: read the part in parenthesis.
Now my question: is it true? Then why can't anybody admit it?
Since you seem to enjoy posting other people's addresses... do you mind yours being known? After all, it IS public information, right? Clifton Griffin 503 Piedmont St. Reidsville, North Carolina 27320 And does Mr. Leinecker know about your little project, and how because of your affiliation it could give his company a bad name? I just figured since posting addresses all over the place is one of your hobbies, the rest of us should join in!
I BUY all my software. I really do not like searching for the CDs of the games I play. I will use no-CD patches.
Sad part about this is that I bought SimCity 4 and then later the Rush Hour add-on. I had to go to a pirate site - just to use the software that I legally purchased.
A better protection method would be what StarDock Systems use. Constant free updates and patches requiring your original key. Lose/ destroy the media? No problem. You can download the entire game/ program from their servers.
Most idiotic thing software publishers do - they but the CD-Key on that lousy plastic case. - the ones usually thrown out after original CD is placed in binder. Now if US manufacturers would adopt the European way of using DVD cases for software. Much nicer that cheap plastic cases that break.
Remember, for every CD you purchase, you give the RIAA that much more power. RIAA = SCO = IP terrorists. Any questio
I think the submitter of this story was trying to get them slashdotted, to make them pay!
ALWAYS use VMware for running untrusted apps. Also make sure that VMware instance has a Personal Firewall installed.
It appears they've been Slashdotted out of excistance, or at least the site hosted by freewebs.
Hey Taco,
We smoked their server today, but it seems to be shut down rather than struggling valiently to service the onslaught. Cowards! I can't smell the smoke or hear the platters whine as they overload swap. More importantly, I suspect we're not really racking up the bandwidth charges I'd like for them -- can you please schedule this article for duplication several times over the next month or two?
Thanks in advance,
Java Ape
So... do you REALLY trust those generators?
How do you know that the software companies are not doing so already with their own products so that they can get a list of users/ip addresses that are willing to use key generators of their products. This would give the software companies an idea of "where" to look for/ crack down on.
This can also be an easy way to distribute "special" keys that can then easily be detected/disabled suddenly by a patch... [all pirated versions would have the same "set" of pirated keys that would make it MUCH easier to disable them suddenly and all at once with a required "protocol" or "minimum service pack" patch....
--
Time is on my side
offering copyrighted programs for download is breaking the law regardless if they're the actuall programs. otherwise it would be legal to commit fraud. i could sell MS office for download and just have this trojan on there. price doesnt change if its fraud. it being trojan versus the real thing doesnt change the fact im infringing on copyrighted material.
Unreal Tournament 2004 is not a real Unreal Tournament 2004 but a fake, I can downlod it as many times as I want legaly? And then execute the file. Have my IP show up retared amount of times. Just for fun
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Lets see how you like it bitch
Registrant:
Blogzine
503 Piedmont St.
Reidsville, North Carolina 27320
United States
Registered through: GoDaddy.com
Domain Name: BLOGZINE.NET
Created on: 01-Sep-03
Expires on: 01-Sep-04
Last Updated on: 02-Sep-03
Administrative Contact:
Griffin, Clifton Cliffgriffin@jsventures.com
Blogzine
503 Piedmont St.
Reidsville, North Carolina 27320
United States
3364327174 Fax --
Technical Contact:
Griffin, Clifton
Blogzine
503 Piedmont St.
Reidsville, North Carolina 27320
United States
3364327174 Fax --
Domain servers in listed order:
NS.INFINITEVISION.NET
NS2.INTREX.NET
i hope the spammers enjoy Cliffgriffin@jsventures.com Cliffgriffin@jsventures.com Cliffgriffin@jsventures.com Cliffgriffin@jsventures.com
ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?? now im a vigilante too. YAY. time to go register some magazine subscriptions!
So basically people are too lazy to be ethical, or moral? Message coming through loud and clear. And people wonder why the planet's going down the crapper.
As far as the drug dealer line. Basically saying "he offered, I couldn't refuse" is a poor excuse.
I agree that key-gens and full programs aren't necessary if you've purchased the actual program. Patches to remove annoying features(1) is in a seperate catagory altogether.
(1) The only exception is using a patch to convert a limited to a full, but then if that get's out of hand? Companies will just put out crippled "go out and buy full", instead of the present one which is for the convience of their "will not abuse a privledge" customers.
As for the key? Get yourself a labelmaker and put it on the CD. Less chance of losing it, and makes it easier to sell.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that you're white.
Close enough: I look white, I live a white life.
Strictly speaking I'm a mongrel: a mix of Latvian, Scotch-Irish, and Plains Indian.
-kgj
-kgj
Can someone please tell me who is specified as the people authorized to track software pirates?
When we pulled off the various Usenet Death Penalties, all sorts of media called us "vigilantes". Only Rob Pegoraro from the Washington Post seemed to understand that the word means "someone who assumes or usurps a power invested in a recognized authority". Since there is no one specified as responsible for tracking software pirates via P2P (although there are reporting agencies like BSA, and although publishers CAN undertake this on their own, no one is specified as the authority) then they are NOT vigilantes. Even the EFF got this wrong, and they're the ones that need to be most right about it.
Regardless of methodology, these are not vigilantes, these are just volunteers, same as anti-spammers.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
"You intentionally waste bandwidth of innocents (the ISPs)"
[falls out of chair laughing]
Oh now this is rich. When P2P'ers run full throttle 24/7 eating everyone elses resources. Then when someone calls them upon it, they're violating the P2P'ers rights. When someone else supposedly uses it (minimally at that), then it's wasting bandwith of innocents.
"you break into a computer system without invitation"
And willfully running a P2P program with "UT2K" in the search bar with the expectation (1) they're going to get a full version is?
(1) before you pull a "but I'm just getting the demo", you can get the demo through regular means.
Just because you think everyone else is stupid, doesn't mean all of us are.
"steal computing time"
To borrow a euphemism " clock cycles just want to be free".
You know, I wonder why there isn't any viruses which tries to imitate P2P downloads by replacing files in a P2P folder, including filesize so as to not alert porential downloaders of their malicious content until they're already downloaded (and too late).
Where is this place going? Is /. now a manual DDOS?
Disagree, all right (I do too), but doing something like that on purpose is not right either. Two wrongs don't make a right you know.
So!!?? If you say "this box is full of money" so I take it, and it turns out to be a bomb, you're somehow not responsible since I willingly took it after you lied to me about what it is? That's stupid (and not how the law works).
It's more like this:
I have a bag of money which is labeled "If you're the guy who keeps stealing money from people, please take this extra money!". Inside is a note that says, "Hey, asshole, don't steal money anymore!", and a wireless camera which snaps a photo of you.
I think you'd have a difficult time arguing that you took the money because the label said to and are somehow being denied your rights by the mislabeling of goods for trade.
all it takes is a clever person to reverse engineer thier little program to something more malicious to frame them.
beautifully put.
LOL, it does equal intent...intent to what you don't know. Intent to reverse engineer the file they knew wasn't the real keygen because the md5 checksum didn't match, just to see how it ticked? Just curious as to if it was a virus or not ( they opened it on a computer they didn't care if it trashed just to see what it did ), opened it because their friend down the street renamed it to HotBabeScreenSave.exe and emailed it to them as a joke? Do you see the big picture now?
I can't afford a sig!
Punkbuster doesn't just issue GUID bans for cheating.
This is a true story...happened the first time PB had to update. I hopped in this game, and boom, team spectator. I didn't know what happened, so I just hit join game. I played for five minutes, boom, back to spectator. It was printing warning messages in my console, but I didn't think to check unitl after the third time I got booted...then it booted me out of the game clear back to the title screen. I tried logging in, and it flagged my 100% legit purchased cd key with a GUID ban. I had to get a new one!
Before you accuse me of cheating, why don't you get your facts straight. I don't need any kind of cheats to kick your ass six ways from Sunday....if you doubt me, just send a PM and I'll hop on A51's instagib and fry your ass till you whimper for mercy...bitch.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
Read.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
Hello
? sid=2 92&mode=thread&order=0
Spanish' internauts association did it at:
http://seguridad.internautas.org/article.php
(in spanish, sorry)
Antonio
http://www.demalaga.net/
Well, it is technically a Trojan and it sounds like they forgot to put in the legal blather that keeps the spyware people from getting busted, BUT it also seems pretty clear that anybody who is in a position to file a complaint would be foolish to do so.
Also, I should point out that it would be fairly easy to do this legally (i.e., just bury the the permissions in the legal blather that the installer throws up) and that the real copyright owners could do a similar thing.
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
You, sir, are utterly full of shit. Show case law to prove your point, or get in the queue to suck my dick.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Just ask slashdot, someone here avocated Alcohol 120%'s "legal uses," and in the same post suggested they download a warzed copy.
Try posting a question about it in one of the various piracy articles, the slashdot "free warze!" supporters will be kind to help you out for all your piracy needs.
WTF, did we get taken over by the greedy whinny selfish brats at various piracy supporting sites?
Consider attractive nusiance law. If you own a pool, and a kid breaks in and uses your pool and hurts themselves, you can be held liable. You'd have to prove in court that you took reasonable steps to keep other people from using your pool. A court would have to determine whether your effort was reasonable. In this case, the trojan could be considered an attractive nusiance. The programmers obviously weren't making a reasonable effort to keep it from being downloaded (quite the contrary) and can be held liable for any damage that it does.
I love the phrase 'attractive nusiance.'
It perfectly describes some girls I knew in college.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Just out of curiousity, how'd you get 'a number of incidents like this'.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
...when you use UCITA to then go and dig through everyone's machine that you think might have your random $10,000 100-line program. W00!
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
S.342.1 Unauthorized Use of Computer
342.1 (1) Every one who, fraudulently and without colour of right,
(a) obtains, directly or indirectly, any computer service,
(b) by means of an electro-magnetic, acoustic, mechanical or other device, intercepts or causes to be intercepted, directly or indirectly, any function of a computer system,
(c) uses or causes to be used, directly or indirectly, a computer system with intent to commit an offence under paragraph (a) or (b) or an offence under section 430 in relation to data or a computer system, or
(d) uses, possesses, traffics in or permits another person to have access to a computer password that would enable a person to commit an offence under paragraph (a), (b) or (c)
is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years, or is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.
Definitions
(2) In this section,
"computer password"
"computer password" means any data by which a computer service or computer system is capable of being obtained or used;
"computer program"
"computer program" means data representing instructions or statements that, when executed in a computer system, causes the computer system to perform a function;
"computer service"
"computer service" includes data processing and the storage or retrieval of data;
"computer system"
"computer system" means a device that, or a group of interconnected or related devices one or more of which,
(a) contains computer programs or other data, and
(b) pursuant to computer programs,
(i) performs logic and control, and
(ii) may perform any other function;
"data"
"data" means representations of information or of concepts that are being prepared or have been prepared in a form suitable for use in a computer system;
"electro-magnetic, acoustic, mechanical or other device"
"electro-magnetic, acoustic, mechanical or other device" means any device or apparatus that is used or is capable of being used to intercept any function of a computer system, but does not include a hearing aid used to correct subnormal hearing of the user to not better than normal hearing;
"function"
"function" includes logic, control, arithmetic, deletion, storage and retrieval and communication or telecommunication to, from or within a computer system;
"intercept"
"intercept" includes listen to or record a function of a computer system, or acquire the substance, meaning or purport thereof.
"traffic"
"traffic" means, in respect of a computer password, to sell, export from or import into Canada, distribute or deal with in any other way.
R.S., 1985, c. 27 (1st Supp.), s. 45; 1997, c. 18, s. 18.