4 ms·

>Do you think this was backed by companies? Frankly I'd be shocked if it wasn't.

by na85 5y ago

marcosdumay 5y ago
There are all kinds of crazy people out there. There could easily be somebody with a burning desire to fight IP piracy.
- na85 5y ago
  Indeed. The MPAA and RIAA spring to mind.
- serf 5y ago
  >There could easily be somebody with a burning desire to fight IP piracy. It could be some kind of Robinhood vigilante figure, but that's a hard sell for me given the already-known abusive history and tactics of the game industry. Here's another hard sell : it's the TPB people releasing it in an effort to reduce their hosting costs. (It's not, but since we're throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, why not?) Many of these video game groups write root-kit style DRM mechanisms for a living; given the (shady) history & experience at the task, it's not a far leap to assume that one of these groups would irresponsibly combine the efforts, if given enough legal ambiguity and a long enough paper-trail to make legal harassment separated from the major group. Personal anecdote : it's often talked about within game-cheating circles that mega-game groups actually take part in the ownership and funding of groups that sell third-party 'cheating' software. This new virus-writing behavior wouldn't surprise me in the least.
  - asddubs 5y ago
    >Many of these video game groups write root-kit style DRM mechanisms for a living; given the (shady) history & experience at the task, it's not a far leap to assume that one of these groups would irresponsibly combine the efforts, if given enough legal ambiguity and a long enough paper-trail to make legal harassment separated from the major group. from the sound of the article, the malware sounds extremely unsophisticated, though. It edits your hostname, sends your ip and what you downloaded to some php script, and that's it. it doesn't even persistently install itself in any way. Basically anyone could put something like this together without much skill required. Not even disputing this wouldn't come from some sort of ip-based adjacent company, but I doubt it would be written by the same people who write DRM software
- himinlomax 5y ago
  Software piracy is not a socially significant issue, it's not even divisive. It's illegal, but nobody cares about it, so you can't imagine getting any kind of white knight award if you fight against it. Well I'm sure there are people who care about the welfare of Hollywood or Redmond executives, but they tend to be Hollywood or Redmond executives.

>Do you think this was backed by companies? Frankly I'd be shocked if it wasn't.

by na85 5y ago

>Do you think this was backed by companies? Frankly I'd be shocked if it wasn't.

marcosdumay 5y ago

There are all kinds of crazy people out there. There could easily be somebody with a burning desire to fight IP piracy.

na85 5y ago
Indeed. The MPAA and RIAA spring to mind.
serf 5y ago
>There could easily be somebody with a burning desire to fight IP piracy. It could be some kind of Robinhood vigilante figure, but that's a hard sell for me given the already-known abusive history and tactics of the game industry. Here's another hard sell : it's the TPB people releasing it in an effort to reduce their hosting costs. (It's not, but since we're throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, why not?) Many of these video game groups write root-kit style DRM mechanisms for a living; given the (shady) history & experience at the task, it's not a far leap to assume that one of these groups would irresponsibly combine the efforts, if given enough legal ambiguity and a long enough paper-trail to make legal harassment separated from the major group. Personal anecdote : it's often talked about within game-cheating circles that mega-game groups actually take part in the ownership and funding of groups that sell third-party 'cheating' software. This new virus-writing behavior wouldn't surprise me in the least.
- asddubs 5y ago
  >Many of these video game groups write root-kit style DRM mechanisms for a living; given the (shady) history & experience at the task, it's not a far leap to assume that one of these groups would irresponsibly combine the efforts, if given enough legal ambiguity and a long enough paper-trail to make legal harassment separated from the major group. from the sound of the article, the malware sounds extremely unsophisticated, though. It edits your hostname, sends your ip and what you downloaded to some php script, and that's it. it doesn't even persistently install itself in any way. Basically anyone could put something like this together without much skill required. Not even disputing this wouldn't come from some sort of ip-based adjacent company, but I doubt it would be written by the same people who write DRM software
himinlomax 5y ago
Software piracy is not a socially significant issue, it's not even divisive. It's illegal, but nobody cares about it, so you can't imagine getting any kind of white knight award if you fight against it. Well I'm sure there are people who care about the welfare of Hollywood or Redmond executives, but they tend to be Hollywood or Redmond executives.