Hello guys, how are you? Maybe this is a silly question, but I'm curious. Could a company infect your machine because you downloaded their illegal program or cracked it, as a form of "revenge"? Because if I remember correctly, a long time ago I read that a company had taken these measures with a number of people who downloaded movies illegally, since this well-known company only provides streaming and does not offer the option to download movies. The news said something like, around 10 thousand or 100 thousand people had found a way to download them, and this company had retaliated by infecting their machines. I'm not sure if it's true or not, and to be honest, I don't remember the source where I read this news to know how reliable it can be. But well, the question is, from a legal standpoint, can they infect your machine? And from an illegal standpoint, that is, on their own initiative, could they also do it? Just curiosity.

 

The original Operation Flashpoint game had a feature where your gun aim would be all over the place if you used a pirated version. So I guess that they are allowed to disable a programme if it was pirated. But I imagine that it would be highly illegal for them to do something that would damage your hardware or operating system. If this happened then it is more likely to be the result of cyber criminals using altered cracks to steal your personal information.

 

Asking 'for a friend'?

No, they can make their own software behave in any way so long as it does no harm to you or your system, but of course what might be deemed harmful might have to be determined in court.

If a running process began taking up a lot of resources, it might be argued that the resources were needed due to the need to track the pirated software activity, or etc.
At least that is what I would argue if i wanted to fuck with people using pirated software.

I would argue that the bouncing penis images that appeared on the desktop randomly but frequently are NECESSESARY in order to monitor the cracked software.
For the end-users' own protections, of course.

 

Last edited: Jul 12, 2023

Not if it were for a friend or for myself I would ask it directly. I read it once many years ago and it kept me thinking. They are things that you read and you are left thinking how rare some things can be. Do you dare an example, once I read a news item from Spain about a Man who downloaded the source code of a game and then created "premium" accounts for his friends , and wow the FBI fell on him and they broke down his door something like that, as if he were a terrorist, and that news is real because then I looked in various places to see if it was true. So the point is that sometimes you read things that are out of the ordinary, another case is of a man who collected rain in a bucket in a field, and they took him to prison for stealing water, so the news that you read stays in your head. head and then you wonder, is it true? is it so? How far can certain large companies that have great interests and power go. Because if they can put someone in prison for collecting rainwater, who knows what else they can do, do you understand what I'm saying?

 

It has left me thinking, because this answer, in addition to being sarcastic and funny, has a logic and a possibility of being true. And I will think of you out loud. Suppose I download "My Compressor" illegally, then the "My Compressor" company detects that I and other users have it and decides to put a penis that moves from one side to the other on your screen, bringing the cpu to 99%, and (I don't know if it's possible) it causes damage to the system or physical damage to the PC. Now here comes the "Magic" questions, how do I sue a company that I "ripped off" (so to speak), could I? What would the argument be? Mr Judge, I downloaded this and didn't pay for it and it damaged my PC. Well maybe it can, suppose a good lawyer says that I didn't know and blah blah, now the company argues that this penis was necessary to monitor "My Compressor" if it was illegal or not, end of story? Both parties have been "damaged in some way" and as a consequence maybe it would be at hand. Which leads me to think as a conclusion that, if it is possible that the company can do it. (I just think out loud, on a rainy day resting at home )

 

Could they do it? Probably. Would they do it? Rather not. You would have to have some serious issues to do something like that. In my opinion, the possibility that people could find out about it, and it would damage the reputation of the company, is far too great. If you are in charge of a company, you should have enough self-control to not do something that could possibly harm your company, especially because there is zero chance that it would benefit your company in any way.

 

causing malicious harm to another's computer is a crime regardless of whatever those people did first

 

All that really varies, is what they actually call the charges. it could be Mail Fraud, for email. It can be "Accessing a Protected Computer" or something like Wiretapping, etc. Same outcome. Some little "telemetry information" with an IP address on it is not a valid reason. There is no chain of custody on the data, and they could just make that shit up about anyone they want.

I even saw a note about this on some pc plugin release's nfo file recently. "you don't want your telemetry sent to France". Very scary stuff.

 

Last edited: Jul 12, 2023

i guess your friend has some unwanted visitors.
Try Adwcleaner. It´s free and very fast and finds and kills unwanted Visitors.

 

The first answer to your question - "could they?" The answer, sure they "could". The mechanism that they "could" employ to gain access could simply be via the Intel management engine. Unless one takes steps to ensure that IME is turned OFF (or at least rendered impotent) on an internet access device, anyone with a active internet connection (wired or not) is "vulnerable". One could also effectively block that kind of attack via your network's internet gateway firewall by blocking the ports typically used by the IME protocols. However, if we're talking about portable devices, once those devices were taken out of the protective cocoon of your local network they would once again be vulnerable (unless IME was switched OFF on the device itself). The big PITA is not all machines are created equally in this category. Many computer main boards don't employ controls that allow one to switch this garbage off. And since IME lives inside the intel processor on any given system there are no tried and true methods for turning it off in the majority of cases unless there is provision in BIOS or UEFI for doing so...

The second answer to your question - can they do this legally? Absolutely not.

The take away here is via IME anyone "could" theoretically gain access to your systems and plant something there or simply look around. Unless one takes the proper steps to protect oneself from the pitfalls of IME where millions of intel processors have been compromised since around 2007-2008, the vulnerability is always there and available to be used by anyone.

 

Last edited: Jul 12, 2023

Again, the same thing, guys. It's not a question with a double meaning. If I had any doubts about my PC or any infection, I would ask about it. I have openly discussed the VSTs I use, and if I ever had a problem, I have also talked about it here. As I said before, this question arises from a news article I read once about a well-known streaming company that we all know (I won't mention it because I don't have the link with me, and it would be controversial). These things stay in my mind and today I decided to ask if it was possible. Strange things happen in the world, and sometimes different countries have different policies. For example, in Argentina, downloading illegal programs is not "illegal" per se, not even buying them. You can go to Mercado Libre, and there are plenty of sellers. And when I say "illegal" in quotes, it's because it's not that it's legal, but they won't come after you like they would in other countries. So, going back to the same point, because of these variations and seeing that news article, which if I remember correctly was from the United States, I asked myself, is it possible?

That's an interesting point, I hadn't thought about it, and it's the 'reputation' of the company. Maybe even if they could do it, and even if it were legal in some country, it would be seen as unfavorable.

 

It would not matter what you "downloaded". The unauthorized access of the protected machine would be all you would need to prove, or a malware sent/uploaded, etc. If they had proof and recourse about something you downloaded, they wouldn't have to break in or damage a computer. They would want to get money. This "hacking stuff" is what they could try, but that would be because they can't do anything else than it, and they already know it.

You proving what they actually did (especially as an individual), would also be rather difficult for you. Especially if they were successful, system log files are usually the first thing to be deleted by a competent attacker.

You could do some rainy day reading about IDS/IPS. Intrusion Detection Systems/Intrusion Prevention Systems. The most commonly deployed open-source one is Snort. https://www.snort.org

 

As I said before, I'm not speaking for myself, I don't currently have a virus problem, I did have it a while ago but it was because of a Youtube link (I think that was it). I only download from the sister site and from the Russian torrent that I trust widely, I hardly use Vpn, sometimes I use one because it gives me "free internet" (it takes data from other social media packages). I'm not worried about that, it's just curiosity. And I think that it would be very difficult to prove that a company could damage your system, and you would have to have a big bundle of money to be able to hire someone. For example, I usually have problems with my telephone company for different reasons that they do not comply with, and I go to "consumer defense" but I have enough evidence to go to a lawyer and make a claim, but do you know what it costs to make a claim? ? And do you know the evidence that you must gather to really have something solid? And I think that this can also be transferred to other aspects, how can someone prove that their machine was damaged? (hypothetically speaking) they could also claim that their machine was damaged by their illegal download, I think it would be difficult to prove something like that, and it would take a lot of money. The article you shared is interesting, I read it a bit.

 

Proving damage would be quite difficult. Since you are not a business, it's probably quite difficult to prove that any downtime you might incur even has a monetary value to it. It's pretty hard to say a few hours of downtime to restore a machine is worth thousands of dollars. If you had to take your computer to some repair shop or whatever, how much money are you even talking about, a few hundred dollars max? No attorney is going to even waste their time with that.

Say they are 1 digit incorrect about the ip address of the target and accidentally shut down a factory's Oracle server. Or impact a SCADA system. You could be talking about a few hundred thousand dollars. Production stops, and a couple hundred workers stand around getting paid to do nothing. That is wildly different from you having to reinstall Windows or MacOS. Your "next big hit song" isn't going to have the same payout which you can prove. It's pretty difficult to prove anything about a pc with a blank hard drive. Maybe a copy of the "infected" file can be taken apart using Autopsy. You'd also have to prove where that file even originated from.

There have not even been many virii/malware that can physically damage computer equipment (in the wild anyway). CIH/Chernobyl was the first to do anything close. It didn't actually do physical damage but it was nearly impossible to fix at the time. Another one would turn the cpu fan off and then attempt to overclock CPU. This ransomware/cryptolocker stuff they do now depends upon them being able to decrypt it for you, or no-one would ever pay them.

 

Last edited: Jul 12, 2023

No company in their right mind would do it. The legal costs outweigh any possible benefits.
Then again, we're dealing with humans here.

 

No, well, but not every lawsuit aims for the truth. Many times, and I believe generally, the situation is aggravated in order to obtain what one wants. In other words, if you want to go to court for $100,000, you would add many aggravating factors and ask for $500,000 or $1 million, only to settle for the $100,000 later on. Here in Argentina, specifically with a telecommunications company, an operator switched a prepaid customer to a fixed subscription without consent, and the customer sued the company for a huge amount, when in reality, the only thing you can obtain in a "state" lawsuit, meaning if you go through government channels, would be a refund of the money and a few dollars in credit for damages. But I suppose this person had the best lawyer and added other charges, such as psychological damages, etc. Well, in the same way, if that were the case, you wouldn't sue a company over a simple hard drive or a PC. It could be because you had valuable information for yourself that you can no longer recover. But well, in this case, I think it's difficult to prove that, and it also seems difficult to know if they can do it. Well, they can do it, I have no doubts that they have sufficient knowledge, but what I mean is that perhaps they can do it and know that it would be very difficult for someone to prove it.

 

Regularly backup imaging your entire system should preclude any need for having to reinstall, reconfigure, tweak and optimize said system from scratch. That whole "from scratch" process can take many hours to days to get back to a proper working configuration (assuming one was there to begin with). With a backup image, a half hour to maybe 45 minutes and you're back in biz.

 

One word...Tone2.

 

Time Machine on MacOS is nice, but another thing is that you can pretty much just copy your entire plugins folders on Mac. Other than a few things you really do need to "install", most of them will work again with nothing but a copy/paste job.

I only read about this way after the fact. Didn't it just screw up peoples plugin installations?