$100 DLC Comes With Password Stealing Malware for DRM

techguymaxc said:
It's definitely late, but you have to remember that most people have little to no awareness of or interest in flight simulators or their communities.

Also there was a more recent incident with an FSLabs representative attempting to silence discussion about their behavior on various forums (reddit and fselite) by threatening legal action against the moderators/admins of those sites.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/06/flightsimlabs-threatens-reddit-mods-over-libelous-drm-posts/

Real salt of the earth type folks there at FSLabs.
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Still sleazy as all out.

Fuck these people. (The devs, not the users)
 
DigitalGriffin said:
Anything that makes changes to the registry requires admin privs.

This is a quite common practice to windows to updating components and installing drivers.
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I do not consider those "applications". Granted, there are many ill-behaved applications out there. The installers can request admin privileges and the user can agree to allow it. That is not the same as the application requiring admin privs to actually run. If an application actually needs admin privs to run, then that is a very poorly written application worthy of scrutiny.
 
BSmith said:
No application should.
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Let's all go back to program using .INI files instead of the registry to store stuff... Actually. I am all for this. The registry becomes a huge massive, bloated, corrupted datastore after so long.

And there are applications that are going to require admin access.... How are you going to do a full system backup without having admin access? There are also a lot of other applications that are going to need admin access to do things.
 
cyclone3d said:
Let's all go back to program using .INI files instead of the registry to store stuff... Actually. I am all for this. The registry becomes a huge massive, bloated, corrupted datastore after so long.

And there are applications that are going to require admin access.... How are you going to do a full system backup without having admin access? There are also a lot of other applications that are going to need admin access to do things.
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Ok, it is obvious I should have defined "application". I do not consider system utilities applications, in this particular context.

A user should never be able to do a full system backup. That is a security problem.

No properly written user application should need admin access rights. That is just sloppy, lazy programming (yes, I am looking at you Intuit) or something looking to do something nefarious.

Installation is a different matter. It is not uncommon for software to need admin rights, in Windows, to do a proper installation. After that, there is no reason a properly written user application should need admin rights.

System utilities should be run by the administrator and not the end user.

If you want to argue an end user should be able to run anything, then we can stop talking now.
 
Dead Parrot said:
I doubt that a License Agreement allows a company to circumvent Federal and State Computer Crimes laws, especially when unrelated software is being compromised and passwords to 3rd party sites are being stolen via a computer network.
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What about penetration testers? Normally what they do violates Federal and State Computer Crimes laws. However, they have permission from the company they are penetrating to break into their systems. If users are not reading the EULA and it states in the EULA about the DRM/malware, and the user agrees, then they have permission.
 
NeghVar said:
What about penetration testers? Normally what they do violates Federal and State Computer Crimes laws. However, they have permission from the company they are penetrating to break into their systems. If users are not reading the EULA and it states in the EULA about the DRM/malware, and the user agrees, then they have permission.
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Man I hope you don't work in the software industry. Or government.

Attitudes like this are precisely why crap like this happens.
 
Viper87227 said:
A EULA is not a get out of jail free card. You can't circumvent the law by putting a clause into a EULA or other contract.
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Actually, EULA's can circumvent or nullify laws.
17 U.S. Code § 117(c)

(c) Machine Maintenance or Repair.—Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner or lessee of a machine to make or authorize the making of a copy of a computer program if such copy is made solely by virtue of the activation of a machine that lawfully contains an authorized copy of the computer program, for purposes only of maintenance or repair of that machine, if—
(1) such new copy is used in no other manner and is destroyed immediately after the maintenance or repair is completed; and
(2) with respect to any computer program or part thereof that is not necessary for that machine to be activated, such program or part thereof is not accessed or used other than to make such new copy by virtue of the activation of the machine.​

(d) Definitions.—For purposes of this section—
(1) the “maintenance” of a machine is the servicing of the machine in order to make it work in accordance with its original specifications and any changes to those specifications authorized for that machine; and
(2) the “repair” of a machine is the restoring of the machine to the state of working in accordance with its original specifications and any changes to those specifications authorized for that machine.

​
Back in...about 2005, I worked as a PC technician and we, for just over a day, used Webroot's Spysweeper. We would install it on a system in for service, scan and clean the system, then uninstall it (as stated in the law above). Eventually, the key was invalid due to too many activations. I called Webroot customer support to ask why. I quoted the law. I was redirected to legal. They told me that by agreeing to the EULA, that I grant Webroot permission for that part of copyright law to not apply to their products I/ we purchase.
 
NeghVar said:
Actually, EULA's can circumvent or nullify laws.
17 U.S. Code § 117(c)

(c) Machine Maintenance or Repair.—Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner or lessee of a machine to make or authorize the making of a copy of a computer program if such copy is made solely by virtue of the activation of a machine that lawfully contains an authorized copy of the computer program, for purposes only of maintenance or repair of that machine, if—
(1) such new copy is used in no other manner and is destroyed immediately after the maintenance or repair is completed; and
(2) with respect to any computer program or part thereof that is not necessary for that machine to be activated, such program or part thereof is not accessed or used other than to make such new copy by virtue of the activation of the machine.​

(d) Definitions.—For purposes of this section—
(1) the “maintenance” of a machine is the servicing of the machine in order to make it work in accordance with its original specifications and any changes to those specifications authorized for that machine; and
(2) the “repair” of a machine is the restoring of the machine to the state of working in accordance with its original specifications and any changes to those specifications authorized for that machine.

​
Back in...about 2005, I worked as a PC technician and we, for just over a day, used Webroot's Spysweeper. We would install it on a system in for service, scan and clean the system, then uninstall it (as stated in the law above). Eventually, the key was invalid due to too many activations. I called Webroot customer support to ask why. I quoted the law. I was redirected to legal. They told me that by agreeing to the EULA, that I grant Webroot permission for that part of copyright law to not apply to their products I/ we purchase.
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So because some company's legal department told you "by agreeing to the EULA you waive your legal rights" you just believed it and that settles the matter?

By this way of thinking, signing a piece of paper that says "I have the right to punch you in the face whenever I want and you can't sue me", you can't sue me. Not how the legal system works in the U.S. Contracts (which is all any EULA really is) are null and void if they contain provisions that are illegal. It's as simple as that.
 
techguymaxc said:
So because some company's legal department told you "by agreeing to the EULA you waive your legal rights" you just believed it and that settles the matter?

By this way of thinking, signing a piece of paper that says "I have the right to punch you in the face whenever I want and you can't sue me", you can't sue me. Not how the legal system works in the U.S. Contracts (which is all any EULA really is) are null and void if they contain provisions that are illegal. It's as simple as that.
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A little mom and pop computer shop usually does not have the resources to challenge that. Instead, we used one of the free ones at the time.
 
It's very possible you could be giving up your right to sue or make claims against a company with a signed EULA.

It is not possible for a EULA to protect the parent company from criminal charges.

If you violate espionage, theft, or other criminal laws, that's not considered a crime against the person, that's considered a crime against the State and / or the Federal Government. They didn't sign your EULA and can and will prosecute you.
 
M76 said:
Just because I leave the front door open, doesn't mean you can come in without an invitation and rummage around in my fridge.
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pfft.

you wanted it... you might as well have put a sign on the coffee table that said 'put your feet up here'...


/s
 
M76 said:
It's not in spite of being a niche community it is because of it. Since it's a niche product they know they can pull virtually anything and the fans of such simulations have nowhere else to turn to. But spyware is going too far even for them.
It's usually only second rate products at highly inflated prices, like with the Train Simulator products.
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One guy on the reddit thread states he works for a government department that uses not only the flight sim, but they have the DLC in question. I can only imagine they won't take to kindly to this.
 
Ok, all of this info seems to be about four months old... repercussions?
/FBI? EU?
//insanely criminally illegal activity by the devs
//two wrongs never make a right (but three do?)
 
Threatening Reddit..yea that should work out well for them...Reddit is the mob, right or wrong if you draw their ire and don't back off you will end up losing.
 
cyclone3d said:
Let's all go back to program using .INI files instead of the registry to store stuff... Actually. I am all for this. The registry becomes a huge massive, bloated, corrupted datastore after so long.

And there are applications that are going to require admin access.... How are you going to do a full system backup without having admin access? There are also a lot of other applications that are going to need admin access to do things.
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Don't laugh. .NET encourages .config files.
 
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