p2pnet.net News:- "Clif" and "Justin" hate piracy so much, they’ve apparently started writing programs that scold pirates when downloaded, as well as track their information, writes Karl Bode on broadbandreports.com here.

"The programs, which they’ve dubbed ‘dust bunny’ and ‘walk the plank’, are disguised as commonly downloaded ‘warez’ files" and "Their website proudly proclaims that the two programs have been executed over 24,000 times by thousands of pirates".

But, "Reading the website and the blog of the owner leaves one wondering if this is either a hoax designed to generate controversy, or a research project for a psychology grad student without spellcheck," says Bode, going on:

"Both ‘Justin’ and ‘Clif’ have stopped by our filesharing forum to play twenty questions with our forum regulars.

" ‘I’m interested in the legality of this as well … for obvious reasons … but I haven’t really seen anything directly applicable to what my software does yet,’ says Clif in a post. ‘I see this as no different than the RIAA putting scrambled versions of popular songs all over Kazaa to keep people from getting legit copies’."

Apparently, Clif & Co claim they’ve distributed the programs as popular downloads such as the Pinnacle Studio 9 keygen, TurboTax, and both Unreal Tournament 2004 key generators and cracks.

"The authors claim many of the files were downloaded despite the conspicuously small size of 204KB, says Bode, adding:

"The website for the ‘project’ argues that the tactic isn’t illegal or entrapment because the two "’aren’t reporting these people to anyone in the law enforcement field, even though we should be."’ They also claim the program isn’t malware, since "it doesn’t modify, add, or delete files other then (sic) itself."

The file does, however, try to report back without consent, "according to the duo; something that’s generally frowned upon if the recent opinions on AIM’s inclusion of Wild Tangent are any indication. The authors add that ‘it wouldn’t surprise us if anti-virus vendors labeled it as some type of malware’."

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 18th, 2004 at 7:49 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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