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Anti-piracy vigilantes track file sharers
Kevin Poulsen, SecurityFocus 2004-03-18

A pair of coders nurturing a deep antipathy for software pirates set off a controversy Thursday when they went public with a months-old experiment to trick file sharers into running a Trojan horse program that chastises users and reports back to a central server.

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Anti-piracy vigilantes track file sharers 2004-03-19
Anonymous (3 replies)
"I think there's an awful lot of presumptions going on about who's downloading these files and for what reason," Schultz says -- an attorney or a journalists might download software in an investigation, for example. "Even if it's the case that the people who download this are trying to get illegal files, two wrongs don't make a right."

Indeed two wrongs dont make a right, and in this case there could very well be innocent people being posted on that site without being able to defend themselves..

I didn't read anything about how the website tracks people who have been tricked into downloading and executing the software under a different name or description, but I am going to go and read up about it a little more. If someone can obtain and reverse engineer the software to attack the creators site, then the sky really is the limit on how much they can retaliate. Changing details is something people have been doing since day one where file sharing is concearned.

Just as a very poor example lets say you go looking for something like Telnet.exe because you want a telnet client, and you are looking for a freeware one. If you find a match saying "Telnet.exe Desc:Free telnet client" and you download and execute this which in turn reports you as being a software pirate.. Your going to feel MORE than a little violated.

Of course, as I said, I'm sure they have already thought of this as it still happens and has happened since the birth of file sharing.

PS: I don't use file sharing software, and this is a perfect example of why. The 'cure' now seems to be as bad as the disease. To me this is another nail in the PTPFS coffin...

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Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/articles/8279/25426#25426
Good for them 2004-03-19
nosebreaker.com (1 replies)
Good for them? - Questionable Ethics 2004-03-20
Anonymous (4 replies)
Good for them? - Questionable Ethics 2004-03-20
Anonymous (1 replies)
Questionable Ethics? it's everywhere 2004-03-20
Anonymous (1 replies)
Questionable Ethics? it's everywhere 2004-03-21
Anonymous (1 replies)
ROTFLMAO! 2004-03-19
Penguinisto
Breaking the law 2004-03-19
Anonymous (1 replies)
Breaking the law 2004-03-23
Anonymous
Anti-piracy vigilantes track file sharers 2004-03-19
Anonymous (1 replies)
Anti-piracy vigilantes track file sharers 2004-03-19
Anonymous (1 replies)
Anti-piracy vigilantes track file sharers 2004-03-19
Anonymous (1 replies)
This is stupid, here is why. 2004-03-19
Anonymous (1 replies)
This is stupid, here is why. 2004-03-20
Anonymous
Anti-piracy vigilantes track file sharers 2004-03-19
Jim Reading tomshardware
Anti-piracy vigilantes track file sharers 2004-03-20
Anonymous (1 replies)
Definatly illegal, definatly a virus 2004-03-21
Legal software user (1 replies)
McAfee agrees 2004-03-23
Anonymous
Why ? 2004-03-23
(hidden)
Downloader beware. 2004-03-24
Anonymous
Anti-piracy vigilantes track file sharers 2004-03-25
Darkness(TrustyFiles user)
Anti-piracy vigilantes track file sharers 2006-08-23
Buddha in Cayman







 

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