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Flight-Sim Maker Threatens Legal Action Over Reddit Posts Discussing DRM (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Today's controversy begins with a Reddit thread that noted FlightSimLabs' A320 add-on installing "cmdhost.exe" files in the "system32" and "SysWOW64" folders inside the Windows directory. The strange filename and location -- which seems designed to closely match those of actual Windows system files -- made some Reddit users suspicious, especially given FlightSimLabs history of undisclosed installations. FlightSimLabs responded on Facebook last Thursday by saying that the files came from third-party e-commerce service eSellerate and were designed to "reduce the number of product activation issues people were having." This system has been acknowledged in the FlightSimLabs forums in the past, and it apparently passes all major antivirus checks.
The "controversy" over these files might well have died down after that response. But then FlightSimLabs' Simon Kelsey sent a message to the moderators of the flightsim subreddit, gently reminding them of "Reddit's obligation as a publisher... to ensure that any libelous content is taken down as soon as you become aware of it." While ostensibly welcoming "robust fair comment and opinion," the message also warns that "ANY suggestion that our current or future products pose any threat to users is absolutely false and libelous." That warning extends to the company's previous password-extractor controversy, with Kelsey writing, "ANY suggestion that any user's data was compromised during the events of February is entirely false and therefore libelous." "I would hate for lawyers to have to get involved in this, and I trust that you will take appropriate steps to ensure that no such libel is posted," Kelsey concludes. A follow-up message from Kelsey reiterated the same points and noted that FlightSimLabs has reported specific comments and demanded they be removed as libelous.
The "controversy" over these files might well have died down after that response. But then FlightSimLabs' Simon Kelsey sent a message to the moderators of the flightsim subreddit, gently reminding them of "Reddit's obligation as a publisher... to ensure that any libelous content is taken down as soon as you become aware of it." While ostensibly welcoming "robust fair comment and opinion," the message also warns that "ANY suggestion that our current or future products pose any threat to users is absolutely false and libelous." That warning extends to the company's previous password-extractor controversy, with Kelsey writing, "ANY suggestion that any user's data was compromised during the events of February is entirely false and therefore libelous." "I would hate for lawyers to have to get involved in this, and I trust that you will take appropriate steps to ensure that no such libel is posted," Kelsey concludes. A follow-up message from Kelsey reiterated the same points and noted that FlightSimLabs has reported specific comments and demanded they be removed as libelous.
One might assume that a Flight SIM Maker threatened legal action because posts discussed DRM.
Somebody send that pompous jackass this link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
Even if these are executables are benign now, they have names that might cause folks to ignore them and their activities. So, we start off with names for their "security" binaries that those who are more cautions about such things might describe as being already at least somewhat deceitful.
And who knows what additional functionality might be added in an update?
Of course, I am sure that no software publisher would ever do anything malign like I might have unintentionally implied. I am sure that FlightSimLabs is a completely honorable company with nothing but the best interests and well being of their customers in heart and mind. So, this is all just a ridiculous hypothetical.
Check your premises.
I know that DCMA and Safe Harbor laws allowed copyright holders (and trademark holders) to get content taken down. But I thought that libel was something that forum sites were protected against. Otherwise, why is Musk/Trump/Hillary not getting every anti-Tesla/pro-Muller/anti-PrivateEmailServer story taken down from /.?
Your ad here. Ask me how!
You do not make legal threats on the Internet. It should be rule 71. Or 86.
... "please do not buy our product".
Got it. Won't touch this with a 100M pole.
Great marketing there, guys.
Is that you?
I guess the reasonable way to handle this would be a sticky post at the top and make people click through to see the detail.
sound good?
IANAL but in the USA at least, you have to prove that the statements were made with willful negligence or malice to be libelous
... the message also warns that "ANY suggestion that our current or future products pose any threat to users is absolutely false and libelous."
I wasn't aware that FlightSimLabs could see into the future.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I sure hope our 1st amendment will protect us from such garbage. Were any posts removed? If so, fuck Reddit! We need to make our internet physically indelible!
Otherwise... if all I get, is a mere *copy* of the *result* of their hard work,
I am sure they will gladly accept me "paying" for it in the exact same fashion: With a mere *copy* of the *result* of MY hard work?
The result of my hard work is money.
Or are you *sea-faring rapist thugs*, FlightSimLabs?? Because I WORKED HARD FOR MY MONEY! I worked for EVERY $100 bill. I did not just put it on the copier 10,000 times, give out $100 bills for $0.01, call that a business model, and attack everyone who doesn't accept my imaginary money!
"Intellectual property" is a crime!
The crime of stealing money without working for it, with a cheap excuse!
Usually for cocaine money, going by literally more than 50% of all the people I ever got to know in the music industry, TV industry and games industry I worked in. (I gladly give proof to back that up in court, by the way.)
if it's true.
and, this isn't the first time they've pulled shit like this.
Isn't calling us libelous also libelous?
IANAL but Reddit is skating near Defamation per se.
ANY suggestion that any user's data was compromised during the events of February is entirely false and therefore libelous
Screenshots were produced by an employee of the company depicting the compromised accounts of an individual. Not only makes this the claim not a libel but someone at the company is apparently guilty of CFAA violation.
Ezekiel 23:20
"I would hate for lawyers to have to get involved in this"
Translation: "I'm pretty sure I don't have a case here, so let me try intimidation first".
I haven’t been keeping up with flight sims for years but if I come back I’ll keep them on my don’t buy list.
file name looks like an virus if any thing they need to make so the #1 link of google is says that it's safe and it's part of the app. And also give easy to read detail on why it's named that and not say FlightSimLabsdrm.exe
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Let us laugh that much harder.
good-faith security research is an DCMA exemption! so they should take it court.
Forget being a lawyer, first work on constructing a sentence in a reasonable facsimile of English.
What is Defamation per se? or is it that you have trouble with colloquial metaphors like skating?
I kind of feel sorry for them. I've worked as an IT professional for small companies for my entire career so far, so I can understand the frustration that could come from rampant piracy, particularly for such a nice market company that probably doesn't have much in it's bottom line to begin with. Whilst it doesn't entirely excuse any bullying tactics they did against Reddit.. given some of the vitriol (and I'd even go so far as to say "rabid" for some comments I've seen) is so excessive that I could understand how upset it could make them.
Keeping in mind that even in the "furore" from back in February, whilst they did distribute malware in one of their packs, my recollection is that it was explicitly designed to only activate for a single specific user that had been rampantly pirating and distributing their software. I can understand how frustrated that piracy could make them, particularly if they were unable to identify the culprit any other way. Let's face it.. law enforcement agencies like the FBI (or their country's equivalent) likely wouldn't make piracy done against small companies a major priority. I'm not saying that it wasn't ill advised, but it seems like all too many people are using the instances to jump on a "let's insult them / they're the bad guys" bandwagon.
FlightSimLabs (FSLabs) admitted to distributing remote hacking tools, intending to use them illegally. Any company who requires normal application software to be installed with admin rights is run by morons and anyone who actually installs such outside a VM is likewise. Especially after the company by their own admission proved themselves to be a criminal organization as well as criminally incompetent.
It just looks suspicious like a virus. The naming made sense to someone I guess.
"ANY suggestion that any user's data was compromised during the events of February is entirely false and therefore libelous."
The fact that the filenames were confusingly similar to Windows filenames is not in dispute.
The fact that this confusion caused the users to believe that their data may have been compromised does not seem to be in dispute.
The fact that the users' data that is held in their brains - that is, what they reasonably believed to be true (i.e. that their computer was compromised when [if the publisher is to be believed] it was was in fact not true) - was compromised does not appear to be in dispute.
So, even if the users' data on their computers was not compromised, the events led them to reasonably believe false things, which may constitute a compromise of the data in the users' wetware.
In other words, even if they are not victims of a computer hack, they are victims of social engineering or perhaps more charitably victims of the publisher's reckless disregard for how a reasonable person would perceive their actions.
I don't know the law in such cases so I am not in a position to recommend anyone sue over this, but it might be worth asking a competent licensed attorney for advice.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
This is the company that installs password loggers on their customer's computers. Why anyone would still do business with them is beyond me.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
no, it distinctly reads as "please rape my company. burn it to the ground, internet. You don't have the LULZ, 4chan!"
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
And now conversations of your DRM are not just on reddit, they're all over the net. Welcome to the Streisand effect, guys.
Ah, the proprietary software world's version of a security audit.
It obfuscates itself like malware, smells like malware, but the suspected attacker says it's not malware. Therefore: it's safe and doesn't work against the user's interests!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Don't forget to tell them how you feel.
Let's make like a bird... and get the flock outta here.
Here's a comment that is definitely not libelous: It is my opinion and belief that FlightSimLabs founder Lefteris Kalamaras and FlightSimLabs' Marketing and PR Manager, Simon Kelsey, are both huge pieces of shit. I would encourage everyone I know to boycott FlightSimLabs software on that basis.
Do not say "I think you are an alcoholic piece of shit and should go fuck yourself.".
Say: *"America* thinks you are a unit of excrement and should go fornicate with yourself, *anonymous sources report*."
It is saying the exact same thing, but curiously, this is OK in US society bot the former is not.
I do not know why, as apparently, I am not from this planet.
Why would they name their files to so closely match official Windows files KNOWING the first thoughts anyone will have will be along the lines of trojan, malware, virus ?
Why not name the damn things to reflect the program that installed them ?
Isn't the real point here that Windows is at fault for letting the installer do it? My chocolate fulled brain is telling me it makes no sense that an installer should be able to write to a system folder.
lol, since when? This is still the American internet, tell that Eurotrash waste of space to stop waiving his micropenis around.
Sorry. You're thinking of UK Law. The US Law is very very different. VERY VERY DIFFERENT. Simon Kelsey and FlightSimLabs don't have a leg to stand up. They would lose in a US court of law and have already lost the court of public opinion.
Is this Simon Kelsey? https://twitter.com/simon_kelsey
X-Plane may not necessarily be superior, but it's mostly run by just one guy, who has his hands full with coding the simulator and doesn't have time for DRM bullshit.
Well, time to contribute more to the Open Source FlightGear and put these jackasses out of business.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
...you can prove anything, so STFU or we will sue.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
I say good on them.. go after pirates. The high seas are open and ready for cannon fire!
If anyone else is interested in the password-extraction incident alluded to in the summary, here's a writeup: https://medium.com/@lukegorman... Outstanding!
Dear FlightSimLabs Nazis,
Go fuck yourselves. I will never buy your products.
https://forums.flightsimlabs.c...
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
http://home.flightgear.org/
You meant to say 'DMCA', not 'DCMA'.
Burden of proof rests with the defendant? So they're supposed to testify against themselves? Glad he's not a lawyer!
-Myke
I am not sure who their lawyer is but...
> "ANY suggestion that our current or future products pose any threat to users is absolutely false and libelous."
Two huge mistakes with this. It is impossible for a suggestion to be libel. It is also impossible for something in the future that hasn't happened yet to be libel.
Such a statement might get their legal team in trouble for making frivolous legal threats and their wording makes it instantly apparent that this is frivolous. There's no room for interpretation or to maneuver there.
If someone had made a specific claim that was incorrect such as their machine was rooted and their data was hacked because of this when the engineers of the product and code know that is factually untrue then that would be libel.
It is not libel however to *suggest* such a thing. Attributing it to something and considering that it could be attributed to something are two different things.
Further more while they can look at the code and binary shipped to ensure there was no possibility for it to have been compromised in ways described, they absolutely can never 100% guarantee that future releases wont introduce some kind of vulnerability or bring about other issues.
In reverse though this also applies. Someone announcing that in the future it definitely will can't make that statement. No one has a crystal ball.
To be fair, every major proprietor has distributed malware and people still do business with them (proprietary software is often malware) and even people who ought to know better still choose proprietary software despite that proprietary software is inherently untrustworthy. I agree with your sentiment that one shouldn't choose to be abused but I think the fix isn't to focus on a particular proprietor or even a set of proprietors, but to see that the system of non-freedom is the real problem.
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