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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."
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 . . .
Yeah, that's rich. They have a log of everyone who received a copy of their cracked software. Guess who gets that information in a deal with the Feds?
Actually, I think this is pretty clever.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
2. The software acts with the confines of its own entity. The program does not compromise their system in any way, shape, or form. Every action it performs it performs soley for the purposes of logging an event. We are not in this to compromise downloader's systems, only to learn a little bit about who they are. It's a social experiment.
Let me ask you something, if you went to install something, say what you thought was the google search bar for your browser, and instead found out it was giving out information, wouldn't you be a bit pissed? It's doing something other than what was intended. Sure, the software you're replacing might be illegal, but nonetheless, my point still stands.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
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...
Just like Robert Morris did in 1988?
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
I wonder if his desktop software product also contains trojan code?
If any of their victims were in the UK they have committed a crime - unauthorised modification of data on a computer - which carries a 5 year jail term.
So if the US don't want to prosecute them there are extradition treaties to fall back on...