Freetard-targeting Trojan seeks to scam scaredycats A sneaky new Trojan attempts to extort money from BitTorrent users under the guise of a fictitious copyright infringement lawsuit. Malicious pop-up messages generated by the malware, which is being spread via fake files offered up for download through BitTorrent, seeks to bully victims into agreeing to pay out for a "pre-trial …
And how is the average computer user supposed to be able to tell this scam from other schemes such as those by ACS:Law? They all take advantage of guilty until proven innocent civil copyright law. Even the innocent are better off paying up than face large legal bills just defending themselves in the current climate. The Digital Britain bill may actually do some good here, with warning letters rather than straight to lawsuit. Still based on the same dodgy evidence of IP address only though.
Now that Mandelson's Digital Gangster's Charter has been washed through parliament with the rest of the legislative detritus we can look forward to a tidal wave of blackmail threats from legal firms based on nothing other than your IP address and the claim that since it is exclusive to you then you are obliged to pay financial compensation to their copyright-owning client and, naturally, reimburse the legal firm for any costs they have incurred in exposing you as a master criminal.
Now, you might think that even an intellectually challenged turd like Mandy would have realised that your IP address is an integral component of every data transaction on the internet and is therefore vulnerable to interception and misuse by the bad guys. In other words, it is as exclusive and privileged as a shit in a pig-pen
But just to pre-empt any threatening letters from ambulance-chasing lawyers and provide yourself with a stonewall defence it might be a good idea to publish your IP address on a public website such as El Reg.
68.68.108.3
Okay, so it's a free VPN, but what the hell - anything to muddy the waters of digital spying.
This is taking advantage of the changes being made in " The Copyright Infringement Laws " and as such will be able to prevent people downloading music illegally. This website has taken this to a new level of malware by stealing the law and all that it was put in place to achieve and secondly try to steal money under false pretences.
The article by John is both informative and as usually the links are excellent added to "My Yahoo Bookmarks" and will be sent across web plus visited F Secure suggest anyone interested take a look ?
Dear El Reg,
I am riting to you on this day of mourning to inform you of my approaching deth; this tiem tomorrow i will be dead from the cancer of brain. I have here the sum of 85bajillion dollrs (US ONLY) in life savings, and I must give to my next of kin before my doom, or the moneys will be losted! Please contact me soon with your bank details, date of birth, memorable word, spouse name, and copy of your passport very soon so that we can arrange for trafnser of fundings.
Please email to areyoufucking@kidding.com
If you use linux you're limiting yourslef in app choices. Lastime I checked ubuntu couldn't run cs4, henceforth I'm out there. And the only reason macs are secure is because they have a fairly small market share, couppled with a hideousley locked down and crippled os. (Yes I know I'll be flamed for this, but hey I'm an anon coward).
Therefore I conclude that windows is the only os that is supported, with enough features to be productive.
1. Unix-like file systems understand the concept of non-executable files. Asking a user to chmod a file to make it executable (even in the days when you can chmod a file by right-clicking on an icon and ticking a box) sounds mighty suspicious.
Also, Linux users are taught not to download untrusted binaries. If a package isn't in your distribution's own repository, you download the Source Code and compile it.
2. Windows trojans often convince the user that they are legitimate by mimicking the Windows UI; this behaviour is blindingly obvious when the UI being mimicked is not the machine's native one. One of my co-workers, not particularly tech-savvy (I caught him working on a spreadsheet once -- he was adding up figures with a calculator and typing them into the "total" box) actually spotted some browser-based scareware that way, and correctly reasoned that it was a scam.
do people actually believe pop ups? I am sure they will also tell me i have a virus and their reasonable priced software will remove it for me.
Downloading a bittorrent with supposed copyright music on it is not illegal if the torrent is a fake. so they cant pretend to be baiting you (as that would also be entrapment).
Still i am sure there are enough suckers out there to make this pay.
I don't understand the argument that all OSes are vulnerable to trojans. That's like saying all cars are vulnerable to breaking down. IT COMPLETELY MISSES THE POINT. Some breakdown more than others.
When it comes to malware, Windows leads by a mile! The sophistication, usability and feature-richness is unmatched by any other platform.
I can understand the argument re: market share. However, I think both market share, and easy of r00ting are both at play. Linux/Mac are a more difficult nut to crack. If you were a hacker, go for the easy work/maximum return combination. Why make life difficult for yourself?
May be just my experience, but all my Mac/Buntu using relatives don't have a problem with malware. It's only the Windows users that keep coming to me for help in cleaning out their infested PCs.
As for believing "users shouldn't believe pop-ups", are you serious? As soon as you start a new windows machine you are conditioned to accept pop-ups for all kinds of crapware AV/CD_Writing/InternetAccess/SupplierSupport.
Let's face it, if you value your privacy/security you shouldn't use Windows. Period.
Doing so is akin to sending your kids to a catholic monastry for a good educasion!
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