5 ms·

Would blocking in firewall prevent it to install trojans? I thought once something is running it's too late.

unnouinceput 5y ago
And that's why you install questionable software in a virtual machine that you absolutely monitor with every available tool under the moon first. See where it goes, what it exports and brings back, check for file modifications it does with a file monitoring or file difference tool. Also repeat this test 365 times, one for each day of the year - pretty sure automation comes to mind. And only then you can say with a 50% error margin that the thing you downloaded is safe :P
- stavros 5y ago
  I just use Sandboxie instead.
- nottorp 5y ago
  Actually the various torrent aggregators usually have a comment section and if you don't download 0-days it's already vouched safe/unsafe by the time you get to it.
wruza 5y ago
I believe that’s not against trojans, but for the legal safety (the game can’t call home and tell its/yours ids). As of trojans, just use well-established, curated torrent forums instead of faceless rarbg/kat/pb alikes.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  Still risky. Any piracy of mine stopped once I had enough disposable income (and Steam etc. came along) to more conveniently buy the game. Which is an interesting commentary on the supposed lost sale for every pirate copy: when I couldn't afford it, there was no potential sale actually lost. I certainly understand budget-driven piracy though. Anyway, if you're running pirate copies of any variety, I'd recommend a sandbox of some sort. VMware Player is free, and in my experience faster than VirtualBox. It won't passthrough a dedicated GPU though so it would only be good for older games. you'd need Workstation Pro to get that. Or a Linux distro like Proxmox that runs a bare-metal hypervisor.
- deepsun 5y ago
  Honestly, I don't know any well-established and curated forums (except for rutracker, but that's Russian, and mostly movies and music).
  - aasasd 5y ago
    I, ahem, heard that Rutracker also has games, and that it's pretty alright about marking content in English. Plus there's Google Translate for when the posts aren't that easy to grok.

And that's why you install questionable software in a virtual machine that you absolutely monitor with every available tool under the moon first. See where it goes, what it exports and brings back, check for file modifications it does with a file monitoring or file difference tool. Also repeat this test 365 times, one for each day of the year - pretty sure automation comes to mind. And only then you can say with a 50% error margin that the thing you downloaded is safe :P

stavros 5y ago
I just use Sandboxie instead.
nottorp 5y ago
Actually the various torrent aggregators usually have a comment section and if you don't download 0-days it's already vouched safe/unsafe by the time you get to it.

wruza 5y ago

I believe that’s not against trojans, but for the legal safety (the game can’t call home and tell its/yours ids). As of trojans, just use well-established, curated torrent forums instead of faceless rarbg/kat/pb alikes.

ineedasername 5y ago
Still risky. Any piracy of mine stopped once I had enough disposable income (and Steam etc. came along) to more conveniently buy the game. Which is an interesting commentary on the supposed lost sale for every pirate copy: when I couldn't afford it, there was no potential sale actually lost. I certainly understand budget-driven piracy though. Anyway, if you're running pirate copies of any variety, I'd recommend a sandbox of some sort. VMware Player is free, and in my experience faster than VirtualBox. It won't passthrough a dedicated GPU though so it would only be good for older games. you'd need Workstation Pro to get that. Or a Linux distro like Proxmox that runs a bare-metal hypervisor.
deepsun 5y ago
Honestly, I don't know any well-established and curated forums (except for rutracker, but that's Russian, and mostly movies and music).
- aasasd 5y ago
  I, ahem, heard that Rutracker also has games, and that it's pretty alright about marking content in English. Plus there's Google Translate for when the posts aren't that easy to grok.