This man suffers from a common human ailment. He does not have the ability to see what he does as wrong. Everyone else is a rube for him to exploit. He (in his own mind) can do whatever he wants, but if someone dares try the same stunt on him, they're going DOWN.
That said, he's also a moron. He's been signed up for all that mail under false pretenses. It's mail fraud and a Federal Offense.
Yet the dim bulb is calling a lawyer to file and civil lawsuit instead of a criminal one.
Our former comptroller tried to get me fired for incompetence over one of these messages. She refused to believe that it was a banner ad, and insisted I was ignoring major security issues.
In the end she bought the software and installed it on her machine, and kept getting the error message.
As long as you are not trying to mislead people into thinking you are the other company, you should have very right to compete with them within the confines of copyright and trademark law. By the logic of option "b" above, someone named "Disney" could never go into TV, Movies or any kind of animation if they wanted to use their own name.
Personally, I think a courtesy, "We're not XYZ, they're at this URL"is a good idea, if the request is made politely, but lawsuits over a man doing business with his own name is out of control.
Under UNIX based systems where spadmin, the printer administration program, uses ghostscript, ps2pdf, etc. We're working on a new 'create PDF' feature on all the platforms we support, you can find it in the 'developer' builds today.
It works in IE, but not Phoenix (Mozilla based browser)
You have to download the installer and the MSI file, which takes a while.
I went so far as to download the files, but didn't go past the first EULA to see the really bad one that's supposed to come during the second install, so I didn't see the text in a live install myself, just in the McAfee writeup.
So I downloaded the Microsoft Installer SDK and decided to crack open the MSI install file. Accroding to Servant Salamander, the word "Outlook" was in "Friend Greetings.msi."
Then I decided, "To hell with it, it's in there as clear text anyway" and opened the install File with VIM. Here is the offending text:
1. Consent to E-Mail Your Contacts. As part of the installation process, Permissioned Media will access your MicroSoft Outlook(r) Contacts list and send an e-mail to persons on your Contacts list inviting them to download FriendGreetings or related products. By downloading, installing,accessing or using the FriendGreetings, you authorize Permissioned Media to access your MicroSoft(r) Outlook(r) Contacts list and to send a personalized e-mail message to persons on your Contact list. IF YOU DO NOT WANT US TO ACCESS YOUR CONTACT LIST AND SEND AN E-MAIL MESSAGE TO PERSONS ON THAT LIST, DO NOT DOWNLOAD, INSTALL, ACCESS OR USE FRIENDGREETINGS.
If anyone is interested, I'll e-mail out both EULAs. There's some rude stuff in there. (You agree to receive pop-up and pop-under ads and HTML e-mail for example)
Below is the original e-mail from Cheryl, for the sake of reference and forwarding:
--- Forwarded Message Follows-----
FYI...
It's not so much a virus as it is a potential worm. And it's an interesting one at that because it's a "permissive" worm. It banks on the fact that people install products without reading their EULAs. If you read the EULA they include, it specifically says that by accepting the EULA, you are giving them permission to send email to everyone in your MS Outlook Contact list!!!!! (I included the pics they sent us, but I'm not sure how many of you will actually see them).
Pretty fascinating, actually. And smart. Because people don't read EULAs! (Er, for Dad: EULA is "End User License Agreement" - and I'm guessing you and Steve read them because you are lawyers...;) )
Ilene
-----Original Message-----
From: Kronos Norton AntiVirus
Sent: Friday, October 25, 2002 10:51 AM
To: All Kronos Employees
Subject: Please read about a potential virus....
Importance: High
Potential virus as a Greeting Card ~ Please be aware of this potential threat via a web link.
Friendgreetings
iscovered on: October 24, 2002 Last Updated on: October 24, 2002 03:20:23 PM PDT Symantec Security Response is aware of a widespread E-card which appears to have the characteristics of a worm. Security Response does not classify this as a malicious threat and as such will not detect any files associated with the E-card. The installation of software associated with the E-card requires the user's permission in order to perform it's mass-mailing capabilities. By cancelling the installation of the software, no worm-like activities will be performed. The recipient would recieve an email with the following characteristics:
Subject: %recipient% you have an E-Card from %sender%.
Message:
Greetings!
%sender% has sent you an E-Card -- a virtual postcard from FriendGreetings.com. You
can pickup your E-Card at the FriendGreetings.com by clicking on the link below.
Message:
%recipient%
I sent you a greeting card. Please pick it up.
%sender%
When the link is followed, the recipient is asked to download some software in order to view the E-card.
The installer package will require the user to accept 2 End User License Agreements in order to complete the installation. The second EULA (see below) explicitly states that by accepting the agreement the end user is authorizing the software to send an email to all contacts in the Microsoft Outlook Contacts List. The email is formatted as displayed above.
If this agreement is not accepted, the installation is not complete and the software will not send a link to the www.friendgreetings.com website via email.
If I am have legal right to use an IP number for my own legal purposes, does a third party have a right to track that IP number and use the information gathered without my permission?
Yet the registration page for their forums, explicitly state that they track the IP of those who register.
If you'd read my post you'd know that I quoted the portion of the article where they say score the CD, and that I claimed tat AOL would get a slew of tech calls as a result of recycling damaged CDs.
There ARE good people, and a few good elected officials.
Revolution is always possible, if the population rises up, and there's always the chance of someone else marching in and tearing up the nation.
What is now, will pass away, for it is the order of human affairs that nothing remains forever. Knowledge will be lost, and have to refound. Freedoms will perish and rise again from the ashes of oppression. The noble and admirable among us will lead us to greater things, but only after they have saved us from total oblivion.
When, where and how the old is destroyed is unknown. It is arrogance for any nation to believe it possesses the fortitude to endure forever. As mighty and well armed as we are, we do not have the endurance of the Roman Empire, which fell in its turn.
Perhaps the order we see now will endure for a thousand years or more. Perhaps less than ten. We will not know when this will end until it has ended.
>I thought the idea was to look out for >the interests of the people who vote for you
The moment I read that line, I knew you were not from the US.
Have you seen the Robocop movies? All three? I know, the second was lame at best and the third was downright pathetic, but take a look at the way they portray OCP, the Omni Consumer Products Corporation.
Seems out of control, right?
Wrong.
The USA is not run by the citizens, it is run by the Corporations and the people with money.
Americans have been well trained to believe TV over all else. It is a nation of Sheeple, not people, sheeple. The one with the most money wins.
Most Americans know this or are in denial. Why do you think the percentage of eligible voters who actually vote is usually in the single digits?
Corporations have all the power.
And as for your belief that the same big money interests hedge their bets by donating to both parties, you're right. Microsoft gave to both the Gore and Bush campaigns, and I'd wager the cash given was roughly comparable in both cases.
Give money and you're buying access to an elected official. Plain and simple.
The concept of the USA being a democracy or republic is long dead. It's a fallacy believed by the foolish, the uneducated, the mentally challenged and those in denial.
Corporations run the nation, and the only force that can ever stand up to them are the politically connected special interest groups. However, they will never do so, because it would hurt them more than it would help them. Why would a special interest group take on a corporation and lose it's funding in the process?
The anti-trust laws exist for two reasons.
1. Give the impression that the government gives a rats ass.
2. To try and prevent a single corporation from being able to simply toss out the government. The 800 lb gorilla wants to keep all the other gorilla smaller. Of course it doesn't work that way. There are corporations with more power than the government, but the government has the guns and it maintains the laws that keep order, so it is tolerated by the ruling corporations.
Welcome to America. Be a good little consumer. Bend over so the corporations can have their way with you. Don't complain or a lawyer will get medevil on your ass.
In other news, the US launched a Nuclear Strike against China today.
Hillary Rosen had warned China of the implications of the nation's failure to address music Piracy.
"We warned them there would be severe implications, especially after our merger with the BSA brought software piracy under our jurisdiction."
The RIAA used the Digital Rights override software installed in all US computer systems to launch 12% of the US nuclear arsenal at strategic locations in the piracy prone nation.
"We have to protect the profit margins of the music industry. Musicians have a right to profit from their work, no matter what any one government wants."
When a CNN reporter brought up the potential legal implications of such a move, Ms. Rosen replied, "I don't think that's an issue. If I, or any other member of the RIAA is arrested, the President's pacemaker will automatically disconnect, as will the embedded medical devices in the bodies of half the US Senators. We will simply revoke the digital rights of those devices, thus rendering them inoperable."
In the day I had a parallel port ZIP Drive hooked up to a 386SX with 6 megs of RAM. The hard drive on the laptop went, so I used the ZIP drive as an external hard drive, booted off floppy and had everything running off the ZIP Drive.
I had Stacker running (Forget the version though) and had the whole thing compressed with maximum compression.
Did I mention that I used all this to Run Windows 3.1, IE 3.0 and Word 2.0?
And one dull, long weekend I watched it chkdsk, scandisk nd run the special Stacker version of Defrag five times on five different ZIP DISK installs.
Why five? Because I had a separate ZIP Disk and boot disk for different purposes.
School Work: DOS, Windows, Word, Telnet software (For connecting to the VAX)
A boot disk for Betrayal at Krondor
A boot disk for Quake (PC Speaker sound, YUM!)
A boot disk for, well, things my kids will never know about.
Slashdot Mirror
"Better the crap we know than the quality we don't?"
OSS Reaction to the threat "Do this or no Office for Linux":
Whatever.
Yo! Jake! Did you see my OpenOffice CD?
Yeah. It's next to the Koffice CD.
Cool. (To Self) Now where's that ZIP disk with abiword gotten to...
Clear Channel,
Making sure radio sounds exactly the same, all across America.
Listen to Clear Channel. The RIAA knows what the best music is.
You don't really need this blues, bluegrass, or other small market music.
All you need it pop, "alternative" and Soft Rock.
Clear Channel, the only way your brain will receive entertainment form here on out.
No, it couldn't.
The Editor said what he ment to say in exactly the way he meant to say it.
Lawyer? Soul?
Are you nuts?
This man suffers from a common human ailment. He does not have the ability to see what he does as wrong. Everyone else is a rube for him to exploit. He (in his own mind) can do whatever he wants, but if someone dares try the same stunt on him, they're going DOWN.
That said, he's also a moron. He's been signed up for all that mail under false pretenses. It's mail fraud and a Federal Offense.
Yet the dim bulb is calling a lawyer to file and civil lawsuit instead of a criminal one.
Glad I keep my nose out of this nonsense.
I HATE these guys.
Our former comptroller tried to get me fired for incompetence over one of these messages. She refused to believe that it was a banner ad, and insisted I was ignoring major security issues.
In the end she bought the software and installed it on her machine, and kept getting the error message.
She was an idiot.
>put a return-to-sender sticker on them, make AOL pay for the postage
Guess what bright boy?
It's NOT First Class Mail. It goes into the Post Office Dead Letter bin.
You just advised people to raise our postage rates, thank you very much.
As long as you are not trying to mislead people into thinking you are the other company, you should have very right to compete with them within the confines of copyright and trademark law. By the logic of option "b" above, someone named "Disney" could never go into TV, Movies or any kind of animation if they wanted to use their own name.
Personally, I think a courtesy, "We're not XYZ, they're at this URL"is a good idea, if the request is made politely, but lawsuits over a man doing business with his own name is out of control.
unique URLs based on DNA code
Identical Twins might object.
And let's be blunt, a 650 meg URL consisting of four characters in endless patterns is not an easy thing to rememeber.
Except Bash scripts running under Linux.
Remember, you can only redirect standard output and standard input in Windows. The other pipes are *nix only.
In Linux:
Wget -m http://www.atarimagazines.com/
In Windows:
Pay some peverted price for a GUI that kinda sorta works.
It's in the developer builds.
Under UNIX based systems where spadmin, the printer administration program, uses ghostscript, ps2pdf, etc. We're working on a new 'create PDF' feature on all the platforms we support, you can find it in the 'developer' builds today.
The full document is Here
Damn!
Wait, their license states only the laws of Panama apply!
No DMCA!
Yes!
I haven't found anything on Symantec's site on this, but I did find McAfee's page Here
;) )
p x? <extra contentremoved>
And the removal instructions
Google has a newsgroup post on the sucker
And here are some sample infection URLS for those who wish to catch the sucker or download the files for analysis:
Infect Me 1
Infect Me 2
A similar worm is described by Symantec here
It works in IE, but not Phoenix (Mozilla based browser)
You have to download the installer and the MSI file, which takes a while.
I went so far as to download the files, but didn't go past the first EULA to see the really bad one that's supposed to come during the second install, so I didn't see the text in a live install myself, just in the McAfee
writeup.
So I downloaded the Microsoft Installer SDK and decided to crack open the MSI install file. Accroding to Servant Salamander, the word "Outlook" was in "Friend Greetings.msi."
Then I decided, "To hell with it, it's in there as clear text anyway" and opened the install File with VIM. Here is the offending text:
1. Consent to E-Mail Your Contacts. As part of the installation process,
Permissioned Media will access your MicroSoft Outlook(r) Contacts list and
send an e-mail to persons on your Contacts list inviting them to download
FriendGreetings or related products. By downloading, installing,accessing
or using the FriendGreetings, you authorize Permissioned Media to access
your MicroSoft(r) Outlook(r) Contacts list and to send a personalized e-mail
message to persons on your Contact list. IF YOU DO NOT WANT US TO ACCESS
YOUR CONTACT LIST AND SEND AN E-MAIL MESSAGE TO PERSONS ON THAT LIST, DO
NOT DOWNLOAD, INSTALL, ACCESS OR USE FRIENDGREETINGS.
If anyone is interested, I'll e-mail out both EULAs. There's some rude stuff in there. (You agree to receive pop-up and pop-under ads and HTML e-mail for example)
Below is the original e-mail from Cheryl, for the sake of reference and forwarding:
--- Forwarded Message Follows-----
FYI...
It's not so much a virus as it is a potential worm. And it's an interesting one at that because it's a "permissive" worm. It banks on the fact that people install products without reading their EULAs. If you read the EULA they include, it specifically says that by accepting the EULA, you are giving them permission to send email to everyone in your MS Outlook Contact list!!!!! (I included the pics they sent us, but I'm not sure how many of you will actually see them).
Pretty fascinating, actually. And smart. Because people don't read EULAs! (Er, for Dad: EULA is "End User License Agreement" - and I'm guessing you and Steve read them because you are lawyers...
Ilene
-----Original Message-----
From: Kronos Norton AntiVirus
Sent: Friday, October 25, 2002 10:51 AM
To: All Kronos Employees
Subject: Please read about a potential virus....
Importance: High
Potential virus as a Greeting Card ~ Please be aware of this
potential threat via a web link.
Friendgreetings
iscovered on: October 24, 2002
Last Updated on: October 24, 2002 03:20:23 PM PDT
Symantec Security Response is aware of a widespread E-card which appears to have the characteristics of a worm. Security Response does not classify this as a malicious threat and as such will not detect any files associated with the E-card. The installation of software associated with the E-card requires the user's permission in order to perform it's mass-mailing capabilities. By cancelling the installation of the software, no worm-like activities will be performed. The recipient would recieve an email with the following characteristics:
Subject: %recipient% you have an E-Card from %sender%.
Message:
Greetings!
%sender% has sent you an E-Card -- a virtual postcard from FriendGreetings.com. You
can pickup your E-Card at the FriendGreetings.com by clicking on the link below.
http://www.friendgreetings.com/pickup/pickup.as
Message:
%recipient%
I sent you a greeting card. Please pick it up.
%sender%
When the link is followed, the recipient is asked to download some software in order to view the E-card.
The installer package will require the user to accept 2 End User License Agreements in order to complete the installation. The second EULA (see below) explicitly states that by accepting the agreement the end user is authorizing the software to send an email to all contacts in the Microsoft Outlook Contacts List. The email is formatted as displayed above.
If this agreement is not accepted, the installation is not complete and the software will not send a link to the www.friendgreetings.com website via email.
No tools, just my fingers.
Well, I can do it with my teeth as well, and without damaging the bra.
Hey, I can remove the damn things from my girlfriend with one hand.
Ahh, the joy of freeing those fantastic globes of pleasure.
I have a sudden craving for milk.
If I am have legal right to use an IP number for my own legal purposes, does a third party have a right to track that IP number and use the information gathered without my permission?
Yet the registration page for their forums, explicitly state that they track the IP of those who register.
If you'd read my post you'd know that I quoted the portion of the article where they say score the CD, and that I claimed tat AOL would get a slew of tech calls as a result of recycling damaged CDs.
48 hours after the CDs are returned to AOL, they will be recycled.
One Million will receive the pre-owned CD.
And the complaint calls will begin, and somoene at AOL will remember the line from the article that says:
"McKenna and Lieberman scratch the CDs so they can't be sent out again and then they loop them on string"
And AOL sends them out anyway.
Good Point.
There ARE good people, and a few good elected officials.
Revolution is always possible, if the population rises up, and there's always the chance of someone else marching in and tearing up the nation.
What is now, will pass away, for it is the order of human affairs that nothing remains forever. Knowledge will be lost, and have to refound. Freedoms will perish and rise again from the ashes of oppression. The noble and admirable among us will lead us to greater things, but only after they have saved us from total oblivion.
When, where and how the old is destroyed is unknown. It is arrogance for any nation to believe it possesses the fortitude to endure forever. As mighty and well armed as we are, we do not have the endurance of the Roman Empire, which fell in its turn.
Perhaps the order we see now will endure for a thousand years or more. Perhaps less than ten. We will not know when this will end until it has ended.
>I thought the idea was to look out for
>the interests of the people who vote for you
The moment I read that line, I knew you were not from the US.
Have you seen the Robocop movies? All three? I know, the second was lame at best and the third was downright pathetic, but take a look at the way they portray OCP, the Omni Consumer Products Corporation.
Seems out of control, right?
Wrong.
The USA is not run by the citizens, it is run by the Corporations and the people with money.
Americans have been well trained to believe TV over all else. It is a nation of Sheeple, not people, sheeple. The one with the most money wins.
Most Americans know this or are in denial. Why do you think the percentage of eligible voters who actually vote is usually in the single digits?
Corporations have all the power.
And as for your belief that the same big money interests hedge their bets by donating to both parties, you're right. Microsoft gave to both the Gore and Bush campaigns, and I'd wager the cash given was roughly comparable in both cases.
Give money and you're buying access to an elected official. Plain and simple.
The concept of the USA being a democracy or republic is long dead. It's a fallacy believed by the foolish, the uneducated, the mentally challenged and those in denial.
Corporations run the nation, and the only force that can ever stand up to them are the politically connected special interest groups. However, they will never do so, because it would hurt them more than it would help them. Why would a special interest group take on a corporation and lose it's funding in the process?
The anti-trust laws exist for two reasons.
1. Give the impression that the government gives a rats ass.
2. To try and prevent a single corporation from being able to simply toss out the government. The 800 lb gorilla wants to keep all the other gorilla smaller. Of course it doesn't work that way. There are corporations with more power than the government, but the government has the guns and it maintains the laws that keep order, so it is tolerated by the ruling corporations.
Welcome to America. Be a good little consumer. Bend over so the corporations can have their way with you. Don't complain or a lawyer will get medevil on your ass.
In other news, the US launched a Nuclear Strike against China today.
Hillary Rosen had warned China of the implications of the nation's failure to address music Piracy.
"We warned them there would be severe implications, especially after our merger with the BSA brought software piracy under our jurisdiction."
The RIAA used the Digital Rights override software installed in all US computer systems to launch 12% of the US nuclear arsenal at strategic locations in the piracy prone nation.
"We have to protect the profit margins of the music industry. Musicians have a right to profit from their work, no matter what any one government wants."
When a CNN reporter brought up the potential legal implications of such a move, Ms. Rosen replied, "I don't think that's an issue. If I, or any other member of the RIAA is arrested, the President's pacemaker will automatically disconnect, as will the embedded medical devices in the bodies of half the US Senators. We will simply revoke the digital rights of those devices, thus rendering them inoperable."
This was about nine years ago. My meory is kinda fuzzy on the specifics.
Descent on a 386sx. *Shudder* Sooooooo Slowwwwwwwwwwwwww
In the day I had a parallel port ZIP Drive hooked up to a 386SX with 6 megs of RAM. The hard drive on the laptop went, so I used the ZIP drive as an external hard drive, booted off floppy and had everything running off the ZIP Drive.
I had Stacker running (Forget the version though) and had the whole thing compressed with maximum compression.
Did I mention that I used all this to Run Windows 3.1, IE 3.0 and Word 2.0?
And one dull, long weekend I watched it chkdsk, scandisk nd run the special Stacker version of Defrag five times on five different ZIP DISK installs.
Why five? Because I had a separate ZIP Disk and boot disk for different purposes.
School Work: DOS, Windows, Word, Telnet software (For connecting to the VAX)
A boot disk for Betrayal at Krondor
A boot disk for Quake (PC Speaker sound, YUM!)
A boot disk for, well, things my kids will never know about.
A boot disk for playing with Linux.
And installs for testing shareware.
I forget what else.