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Pirated Android App Shames Freeloaders
MojoKid writes "A pirated version of an Android app is actually a Trojan that shames someone who installs it by sending an SMS message to all his/her contacts telling them of his/her piracy. The original app is called Walk and Text, and costs $2.10 in the Android Market. The app uses the camera on the back of a smartphone to show a user a visual of his upcoming surroundings, which will supposedly prevent the user from running into the street or across a set of train tracks. The pirated version is available from unofficial Android app markets, and once installed redirects the pirate to the legitimate app in the Android Market, while also sending the SMS message to the phone's entire contact list."
...I don't have any friends! I'm so lonely :(
Don't click the link in the summary - it posts a message to Slashdot telling everyone you tried to read the article :(
Although this is a novel and some what interesting approach to pirates, i think this approach itself depending on the implementation etc.. might effectively count as breaking the law, unless the user who install the pirated software agree to a Terms of Use Agreement that explicitly mentions such actions might be possible or as a consequence if software thinks its pirated.
There are those circles (like mine) where such messages lead to high compliments.
The app uses the camera on the back of a smartphone to show a user a visual of his upcoming surroundings
Wow! You know what else does that? Eyes.
Anyone who pays $2.10 for this should be shamed, not the pirates.
http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/freeloader
"a person who is supported by or seeks support from another without making an adequate return"
Please tell me how the use of that term was incorrect.
You remind me of the client from Clients from Hell:
[I’m not a designer but the attorney hired by a designer. I’m informing the client over the phone that he’s being sued for not paying the amount specified.]
Me: “Good afternoon, my name is [xxx], representing [designer] and [company]. We’re calling about payment that has not yet been received for a project which you agreed to pay for.”
Client: “What?! Who’s suing me?! Who is this?”
Me: “As I said, my name is [xxx], representing [designer] and [company]. You have X,XXX.XX that was supposed to be paid several months ago, as agreed upon by a contract with my clients.”
Client: “Are you suing me for a website? You’re not making any damn sense!”
Me: “You owe someone a fair deal of money and you’ve made it very clear that you have no intention of paying. I have several emails from your email address responding to my clients with messages such as “sayonara, suckers” and I am calling to see if you’d like to pay your fees now, or if we need to bring this into a courtroom, which I’m sure we’re all looking to avoid.”
Client: “I don’t know who this is or what the hell you want from me but listen up: fooling someone to make you a website isn’t a crime!”
Me: “You’re actually looking at some large fines and — should this be considered a felony — jail time.”
Client: “You’re a damn lawyer, you should know websites aren’t real. A website isn’t a thing, you can’t steal it! [designer] can still look at it, it’s still kinda his!”
[Within three days time, the designer received a check with the amount listed and an additional $20.00 “for your asshole lawyer boyfriend.” The designer had to resist framing the check for the novelty.]
The app uses the camera on the back of a smartphone to show a user a visual of his upcoming surroundings, which will supposedly prevent the user from running into the street or across a set of train tracks.
Constantly show a safe environment. The truck or train would take care of the rest. That would certainly teach them to rely on an app instead of staying vigilant themselves.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Not sure how many people read through the comments on the avast! page, but something definitely smells there.
The CEO of the company that made this app sounds like a weird blend of troll and one of those king-of-nigeria scams.
* He keeps ranting about how he's going to sue avast
* He keeps shouting about how it's all a lie created by avast in order to slander his company
* He repeatedly claims that his calls to avast were blocked, even though the CEO admitted that one of his colleagues spoke to the dev.
* The only contact information for that company is found here, which you can only get to through the avast article.
* avast lists a few other red flags from this company: "checked the registration of www.incorporateapps.com and see some red-flags: semi-anonymous, no email contact, possibly eastern-european but registered in Germany, and registered through Tucows"
But yeah, something here just doesn't feel right.
Oh, come on. This is just silly.
There are perfectly reasonable arguments to be made against the use of "theft" or "stealing" in this context, because acquiring a digital good without paying for it doesn't normally deprive anybody else of that good.
But "freeloaders"? Granted, that term has various shades of meaning, but the dominant usage is equivalent to "free rider": someone who obtains a benefit without paying any of the costs involved in providing that benefit. Which describes pirates exactly. It's no more hyperbolic than describing sharks as "predators" or tapeworms as "parasites"; it's just saying what they do.
Sending unsolicited, paid SMS to the whole contact list of a person with a specially crafted trojan seems to be a more serious offence than the one-time copyright infringement of not paying for a $ 2.10 app, which actually not even qualifies as petty theft (because infringement is not theft).
Basically, the developer has created a malware/trojan version of this app and for this he might (and, in my opinion, also should) get into serious legal trouble. In other words, what a jerk...especially, if you take into account what kind of a stupid application he sells.
Now, is that really true? No, that's exactly what the software distributors want you to think. All the statistics created about the effects of piracy are fabricated.
You can't set traps for people even if the only way they would be harmed by it would be because they themselves are doing something illegal.
This does "harm" the person running the illegitimate app because it may cost them money to send all those messages plus any potential fallout from people thinking they are a software pirate.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
90% of the cracks or keygens she downloads will also install a Trojan
I'd LOVE to see the source that supports this ridiculous claim.
It may not deprive the source from selling another copy, but not paying for your copy is stealing.
For the sake of argument, let's accept that definition and see where it leads us.
Well, why is stealing a bad thing in the first place? Is it because you get something for free? Surely not, because we all get things for free all the time. I can turn on the radio and listen to free music, then change stations when a commercial comes on. I can look at public murals that were funded by taxpayers who died before I was born. I can enjoy the benefits of those and countless other things without giving a dime to the people who created them.
I get upset when something is stolen from me, but is that because the thief has gotten something for free? No. If someone could "steal" a copy of my car, leaving the original car unharmed in my driveway, that wouldn't bother me at all. In fact, if the technology to do that existed, I believe it'd be a great leap forward for mankind.
We can also compare stealing to vandalism. If someone destroys my car, he doesn't gain anything for free, he only deprives me of the use of that property. Is destroying my car therefore not as bad as stealing it? It sure doesn't feel that way. In fact, stealing it seems marginally better, since it preserves overall utility (and there's a chance I'll get the car back).
So, I have to conclude that what makes stealing wrong is that the rightful owner is deprived of the stolen property. The benefit gained by the thief is only relevant to the extent that it comes at the owner's expense.
Now, what have we done by declaring that getting a free copy of something is "stealing"? We've created two categories of stealing: the old-fashioned kind where the owner is deprived of the stolen property, and the shiny new kind where he isn't. The first kind is wrong, since it maintains the quality that made stealing wrong in the first place. The second kind, however, is not - it's a benign, almost metaphorical type of "stealing", kind of like stealing second base. All we've accomplished with this new definition is to devalue the word.
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