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DECAF Was Just a Stunt, Now Over
An anonymous reader writes to tell us of the de-activation of all copies of DECAF. The creators have announced that the DECAF project was nothing more than a "stunt to raise awareness for security and the need for better forensic tools." Originally DECAF was billed as a tool to stop Microsoft's forensic tool "COFEE" and was covered here earlier this week. In addition to their message of security the authors somehow manage to interject a discussion about religion, so who knows what the real goal was.
0xDECAFBAD
Ceci n'est pas une
What are we going to do now?!!!
Wow at self righteous religious bullcrap.
This is a perfect example of a software time bomb. I hope anyone who downloaded it learned their lesson. Unlikely, since anyone who downloaded it is still using Windows.
When after reading that I reply with "WTF?"
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Result
Make people fall for my religion
I can see what they are getting at but it is a real douche thing for them to be all "shame on you!" for downloading and using software that they themselves created, provided, and handed out. I can't see a whole lot of people taking them seriously, as a result.
When I saw the original announcement of this program, I was skeptical of what it was actually for. However, I didn't see this type of angle coming! LOL, wow!
If you actually downloaded this thing, let this be a valuable lesson. Don't be gullible. This could have been a virus for your computer, instead of one for your mind.
Considering that all but the first paragraph of the article was the religious message its self, I'd say that it is pretty clear what the goal was.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
This troop reminds me of the Yes Men! Their efforts point out the flaws and absurdities in things that should otherwise not have been.
I applaud them for their efforts, since they seem to have succeeded in raising awareness. Combating and defeating COFEE on the other hand, is something left up to the user.
I think the coffee was spiked with something.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
How exactly are they going to disable it remotely, when my firewall blocks the connections, and I can always reinstall a cracked download, when it disables itself with a timer?
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Ironic that the message to be learned from a group of people pushing a religious agenda is "Don't be gullible."
Not really, I think that's one of the best lessons to be learned from people pushing a religious agenda. :)
and not even cofee based in the first place...
You're doing it wrong.
Glad that wasn't weird or anything... lol wtf
Which of these are bad? And why? I've often heard that getting a personal message out via publicity stunts is a good thing (The Yes Men) and now all the sudden it's bad, and we should pay no attention to these reprehensible people whose only method is deceit?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
True. But it's ironic that is the message they -want- you to learn.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
The Genie is out of the bottle. This has been an excellent learning experience. We now know of a couple of hundred utilities that will clean up some far away places in Windows. My personal thanks to those that made these programs.
If you just die and rot then what difference does it make how you spend your time anyway?
Come on, this is good and easy fun. Pop it in IDA, trace it down to its fail point (calls to check the date?), replace critical code (i.e. jumps) with a fixed condition (i.e. jmp rather than jge), and done. The branch can be fixed; or the entire call/compare/branch can even be replaced with nop, nop, jump. It's even feasible to replace the 4 + 2 byte call with CMP %eax, %eax and a NOP, and the branch with a JZ branch (jump if comparison is equal/zero/etc).
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Oh good, the site is down. Now we can all forget about what this moron's message was(whatever it was) and move on with our lives.
I'm a self-righteous twit, you insensitive clod!
If you just die and rot then what difference does it make how you spend your time anyway?
Because you may as well enjoy yourself while you are alive. Many bible-beating christians seem to try their best *not* to enjoy themselves while alive, because they are preparing for a wonderful afterlife.
Yes, yes, I know... -1 flamebait or troll.
We want to thank every media outlet, financial supporter, security expert, and forensic investigator that showed us support.
As you probably noticed, your copy of DECAF no longer works. We have disabled every copy of DECAF. We hope that as you realize this was a stunt to raise awareness for security and the need for better forensic tools that you would reconsider cutting corners on corporate security. Also, governments should not rely on a tool to automate the process of forensics but rather invest in the education of investigators and forensic tool experts. If we were able to assist every government agency in their computer crime investigations, we would. The problem is DECAF is just two people. As a security community at large, we need to band together and start relieving some of the burden off our government by giving back.
It also goes to show that if two people can make an impact as big as DECAF did; imagine how much positive we could all do together. Lately our media has been presenting many individual people (balloon boy, white house visitors, etc) who have been manipulating media outlets for selfish publicity in hopes of being "successful". The problem is that America has grown to be selfish, self-reliant, prideful, and a arrogant monster. We leave our marriages, neglect our kids, chase positions/status at work, chase materialistic property and only think of ourselves. In the mean time our whole country goes down the tubes.
These problems individuals are facing are not new. They are due to you trying to fill the void in your life with things of this world. Most everyone has bitter roots, some have been victimized, others are just neglected. You go through the woes of life with no life support.
I too would still be swallowed up in my prideful and selfish ways. I would still be with my addictive behaviors; womanizing, pornography, stealing, hacking, lieing, manipulating, and fighting. DECAF would have been a perfect way to feed my addictions. Instead I used it as a way to bring you a message. A message of freedom, a message of peace, a message of transparency and a message of unity. As you learn a little about me, understand I faced the same things I am speaking about. I didn't address the fruits of my life, I addressed the bitter roots of my life. Religion didn't do it for me. Catholicism didn't do it for me. Athiesm didn't do it for me. Agnostic didn't do it for me. Unity and education did it for me. Only one man gets credit for it. Jesus Christ. Once I learned Christ wasn't about that foolishness I seen on t.v. or seen in other "Christians", I realized I was missing the point. I couldn't look past the Christians to see the CHRIST. I accepted Him as my savior and then started putting Him in positions over my life. My life changed and yours can too. It was about relationship.
Romans 10:9 - "That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."
Stay tuned for the release of the forum and if you are interested in joining, please send an email to join@decafme.org
Voting them all out of office, now that's change I can believe in.
What alerted me was "womanizing." Clearly, the DECAF author doesn't know the slash dot audience. :P
Regardless, I've learned with proselytizers, the problem is more within them, than with the people they try to convert (through lying and manipulation and fighting, of course).
MS created a forensic tool. People became paranoid that this tool might expose their activities, which are sometimes illegal, and often immoral, to the light of day. Two people developed a piece of software as a form of social commentary to show how depraved modern society is, because people want to hide their shameful activities. They did a good job, up until their final explanation. If they explained their intentions more clearly, then it would have been a success. Instead, it fell short at the end. Good job, but not quite good enough.
I would still be with my addictive behaviors; womanizing...
Yeah! Right!
The closest this hacker Jesus freak gets to womanizing is when his mom brings his hot pockets to the basement!
People became paranoid that this tool might expose their activities, which are sometimes illegal, and often immoral, to the light of day. Two people developed a piece of software as a form of social commentary to show how depraved modern society is, because people want to hide their shameful activities.
So you live in a house with no walls and with CCTVs all over the place so you can be constantly monitored by the police and any other government organization? And you never have conversations with people without everyone being able to hear what you're talking about?
you are aware that it wont take long before some party comes up with a working DECAF after this point, right ?
Read radical news here
When I saw the original announcement of this program, I was skeptical of what it was actually for. However, I didn't see this type of angle coming! LOL, wow!
Few would have guessed that there was an angel coming. :)
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
If you just die and rot then what difference does it make how you spend your time anyway?
If all you need to do is accept Jeebus as your saviour to earn eternal bliss, then what difference does it make how you spend your time anyway?
"REMEMBER TO DRINK YOUR DECAF"
A crummy commercial. Son of a bitch!
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
well it seems rather suspect to me that this comes out soo long after the tool was released. As the ideas behind the program where not out of teh relm of possiblity. I think the goverment would have a huge intrest in removing this software from peoples comeputers and punishing the authors. I mean if i was an author who wrote an anti govt comp forensics tool and they came knocking at my door threating to make me disapear like the rest of the terrorist they capture i would come out and say it was a hoax and deactivate it as well. I smell the stench of a goverment hand in this... Can some body say conspiracy............
If that had been opened sourced, everyone would have seen that this wasn't for real.
"I would still be with my addictive behaviors; womanizing, pornography, stealing, hacking, lieing, manipulating, and fighting. DECAF would have been a perfect way to feed my addictions."
Except this "Christian" did those things. DECAF did involve lying and manipulation. I'd probably include hacking and maybe stealing as well. It certainly wasn't something an honorable Christian would do. We're all hypocrites at times, but I find it hard to take this guy seriously. Maybe he only stopped because he his religious beliefs conflicted with what he was doing. If so, the first step in atoning is admitting you've sinned. It's not mocking others.
If a whore whores in the woods and nobody is around to get me mah money, is a falling tree gonna have to choke a bitch?
my solution to this is coffeemate
But why do you hate the ideas? I'm a weak libertarian myself and find that personal liberty is important. Don't generalize and say all libertarians are extremists. We don't all want to abolish the government. I'm curious about your ideas since I feel a decentralized government that helps those who truly need it, while not having ideas to force upon you about religion and ethics (marriage, alcohol, etc) would be the best deal. This is libertarianism for you.
True. But it's ironic that is the message they -want- you to learn.
that's because they never consider the implications, "go forth Columbus! and find a new route to India!" "Oh sh!t what do you mean the worlds not flat?"
Offtopic lol. GOOD MOD JOB BRO Anyway, the other thing that was great is that they originally claimed not to release the source code because they didn't want Microsoft to patch around them, or some other nonsense. Everyone in the original article who said that they wouldn't trust an anti-forensic tool that was closed source was 100% correct.
Actually I find that most religious folks are more content with the offerings they're given in their lives compared to the atheists who scramble to find some meaning in their lives. My guess is that people who are a member of a religion and are unsatisfied with their lives probably have little faith in their ideology. I know it's a shame but some people are going to go down that path. It's their loss. I'm not losing any sleep over it.
If you just die and rot then what difference does it make how you spend your time anyway?
If when you're 16 someone emails you and arranges to send you millions of dollars from Nigeria what's the point of having an education?
Actually I find that most religious folks are more content with the offerings they're given in their lives compared to the atheists who scramble to find some meaning in their lives.
Then why the obsession with preaching to others and trying to convert them?
I don't know of any atheists who "scramble to find some meaning in their lives."
In shockingly unexpected news, it turns out that a closed-source alleged anti-malware software was not trustworthy.
Who would have guessed.
What DECAF giveth, DECAF taketh away.
COFEE specifically targets criminal activity. So using a tool to prevent the detection of criminal activity would only be useful if you were partaking in criminal activity. There are plenty other things that you might want to hide that are totally legal, but the tool isn't looking for those and only targets criminal activity.
Yes this is putting a lot of good faith in the tool and I am open to that being questioned, but you make it seem as if they are scanning you whole computer and posting all over the internet the picture of you the time you dressed up with all the nintendo controller stuff and a towel cape.
"All we need now a GNAA Troll."
Given the choice between GNAA and Christianity, the GNAA seem quite a rational bunch.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Who modded this flamebait? The whole frickin story's flamebait, just go with it!
I wouldn't be so sure about that. That book, 'The Purpose Driven Life', spawned tons of prayer groups and such focused around finding Jesus' personal plan for you. I guess it's possible that they actually did all find a purpose after that, but from what I can tell most are still 'scrambling' for it.
Ummmm, hello, it's not a sin if it's for JESUS.
Well, of course it is flat. Spherical Earth is just a large conspiracy. They want you to believe spherical earth so they can throw you over the border of the world if they see the need for it, and nobody will believe it. :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
You're suggesting that COFEE is able to distinguish criminal activity from non-criminal, and only allow law enforcement to use it to get forensics for criminal activity? That's some pretty f*&#ing amazing artificial intelligence in there, since the law enforcement officers themselves often have a very hard time making that distinction and it ends up having to be settled by courts.
Since Amazon is hated for pulling a single book, we obviously MUST hate Jesus now! Do not allow him to infiltrate your home, especially during the Christmas season! Avoid any place where he is treated with respect, like those "church" places.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
"It certainly wasn't something an honorable Christian would do."
There are no "honorable" Christians, because their superstition exists to empower those who would enslave the rest of us to their social vision.
The only people who speak of honor in conjunction with religion are superstitionists themselves.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Some people think Jesus Christ was the first true libertarian.
There is no word a person motivated by the desire for self-justification can't twist.
Anyway, questions of particular religions aside, when we can find a way to get past the false concept that atheism and agnosticism are somehow morally above religion, we'll discover that there is no way to keep religion out of a conversation.
Refraining from using religion to troll is another matter, but there may even be an appropriate place and time for using religion to troll.
Your biases are showing.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Somehow, I get the impression that they didn't want DECAF to be taken seriously.
From the start, even.
As for the thing about salvation and Jesus, well, for example, Jesus said (paraphrased), "You should learn the truth. Learning the truth will make you free." Putting that into context for you, truth is about reality, and COFEE was/is not about reality, and their DECAF was an unreal response to security snake-oil.
Poorly implemented, perhaps, but I read the message as something like, "You're not free if you trust someone whose primary purpose is to sell you more and more software to do things that really can't be done."
Maybe I'm reading things into it, but then I never downloaded DECAF, and I don't have any Microsoft software at all on my computers anyway.
"Don't keep buying the snake-oil when you know it's snake-oil." seems to be a really difficult message to get across.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Well, he claims to have rejected modern churches and atheism to find religion via his own path. Doesn't sound very gullible to me.
Well, actually, there is no hard evidence that COFFEE itself (or the caffeine in it) will stunt your growth, but since it is the caffeine that is suspect, decaf should not have any affect. http://ezinearticles.com/?Bowtrol-Colon-Cleanse-Review---Does-Bowtrol-Cleanse-Work?&id=2926555
The tool didn't send data to decafme, didn't open any backdoors, isn't really disabled for anyone with half a brain, and was a stunt but never a hoax: Reactivate DECAF in two minutes: http://praetorianprefect.com/archives/2009/12/reactivating-decaf-in-two-minutes/
. I would still be with my addictive behaviors; womanizing, pornography, stealing, hacking, lieing, manipulating, and fighting. Since when hacking is a bad thing? Or pornography? I will give it you stealing and womanizing. but hacking?
> The problem with libertarianism is it has a very narrow definition of what government services protect liberty and freedom.
The real problem with libertarianism is that it's barking up the wrong tree (and almost makes a religion of doing so).
It's not the quantity of Government that matters so much. It's the quality of Government that matters far more.
Picking a Government based on quantity is more foolish than picking a place to eat based on how many/few workers it has.
There is little advantage to the citizens between having a small corrupt government that works with huge corrupt corporations to milk the citizens, or having a huge corrupt government milking the citizens.
There are many examples around the world where a government has proven itself capable of managing things better than most corporations. Not all governments are good at the same things, or bad at the same things - because governments are made up of people. So one government might decide to do some stuff internally, and another government might decide to leave it to a bunch of external organizations to bid for and yet another might even help form an independent organization to handle it. A good quality government would make such decisions better than a poor quality one.
If you don't know what the real problem is, you are unlikely to solve it.
When too many voters don't know what the real problems are, you are less likely to get a better government.
Oh, lord, what would happen if the GNAA and Psycho-Christains where the two choices on the ballot...
Columbus did not believe that the Earth was flat. No one other than the uneducated peasants had thought that for hundreds of years. The greeks had accurately measured the size of the Earth thousands of years earlier. Columbus believed that the Earth was much smaller than everyone else thought and so it was possible to sale to India with the provisions that ships of the day could carry. If America had not been there, he would have run out of food in the middle of the ocean and starved to death.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Well, now we know why it works so well on XP.
(Read that as Chi-Rho, as often seen on altars)
DECAF + C0FFEE = 13560989
This makes more sense than the target article.