It's a Trap! (really!)

[SAMAS]

Now this is DRM!

The Escapist

Porn Pirates Busted by Fake Game Installer
Andy Chalk posted on 25 March 2010 11:44 am
Filed under: andy chalk, drm, file sharing, oh japan, piracy, porn, visual novel
image

What's worse than getting busted for piracy? Getting busted for pirating a erotic "visual novel" by having your name, IP address and a screenshot of your desktop posted online for all the world to see.

While not very popular in the West, visual novels, sort of a "Choose Your Own Adventure" series of stories for the digital age, are big business in Japan. Unsurprisingly, many such titles feature erotic content, including Cross Days, which was actually delayed so the developers could incorporate support for the SOM, a hands-free USB sex device. As with virtually all games these days, Cross Days ended up on various file-sharing sites; unfortunately for many would-be pirates, one version making the rounds is, as the saying goes, a trap: A viciously creative trojan that uploads detailed private information about the downloader and a screenshot of his or her desktop to a public website.

When the fake Cross Days installer is run, it first gathers information from the user's computer and then presents a survey asking for further details. Once it has what it wants (it's unclear whether the survey has to be filled out to trigger the trojan, or if it just goes ahead with whatever it can gather on its own) the information is uploaded here. Most of the site is in Japanese but at least one screen of text is in English (and hugely NSFW) and it's a good bet that everyone involved wishes they'd paid a little more attention to what they were doing.

Adding insult to injury and also possibly providing a little legal protection for the perpetrators, it turns out that the fake installer actually explained exactly what it was going to do in its terms of service, which of course nobody ever reads. Fortunately for those who find themselves front and center on the Wall of Pervos, removal is apparently possible but users must first click a button acknowledging that they did in fact try to download the game illegally. Will shame and humiliation work where DRM and the law has failed? I don't know, but I am most definitely amused.

I mean, ouch.

[Hawkwings]

No kidding, ouch.

I wonder how the installer tells whether it's been downloaded or is being run straight off the disk?

[Akhlut]

No kidding, ouch.

I wonder how the installer tells whether it's been downloaded or is being run straight off the disk?

The company itself may have planted the fake install as the pirated version at various torrent sites. It wasn't like that was going to make anyone pirate the game who wasn't going to anyway and they don't have to deal with trying to make an installer figure out if it has been downloaded or is being read from a disc.

[Oskuro]

Creative DRM can actually be very funny, like when people post in the official forums about why Batman won't use his cape to glide in Arkham Asylum, or when the final score in a Raving Rabbids minigame is silently reduced by 20% making some of the challenges unbeatable.

Then there's stuff like the OP, both funny and surprisingly legal. What really got my attention when I first read that article is how the EULA tells you exactly what the program is going to do.

[Steel]

I never understood why developers didn't just saturate various places with fake pirate copies. It should be vastly cheaper to have dozens of servers mimicing having hundreds of copies of an installer that is just a virus that melts your hard drive than to develop all kinds of ridiculous drm AND they could only hurt pirates rather than legitimate users.

[General Zod]

I never understood why developers didn't just saturate various places with fake pirate copies. It should be vastly cheaper to have dozens of servers mimicing having hundreds of copies of an installer that is just a virus that melts your hard drive than to develop all kinds of ridiculous drm AND they could only hurt pirates rather than legitimate users.

lol. Developers have been saturating sites with fakes for awhile now. They did this for Arkham Asylum as mentioned above, just as one example.

[Steel]

Thats not the same as a truly malicious version. You want one that after say 6 hours play melts something vital. This gives it time to spread and isn't immediately spotted and thus doesn't get passed on, and theres a difference between lower score and buggered computer. Would make people much more wary.

[General Zod]

Thats not the same as a truly malicious version. You want one that after say 6 hours play melts something vital. This gives it time to spread and isn't immediately spotted and thus doesn't get passed on, and theres a difference between lower score and buggered computer. Would make people much more wary.

It would also open up the developers to lawsuits and increase their liability.

[Uraniun235]

Thats not the same as a truly malicious version. You want one that after say 6 hours play melts something vital. This gives it time to spread and isn't immediately spotted and thus doesn't get passed on, and theres a difference between lower score and buggered computer. Would make people much more wary.

It would also open up the developers to lawsuits and increase their liability.

Only if it could be proven in civil court that the developers wrote the bogus version. If you're going to do something as malicious as that, it would be easy and smart to do it anonymously, and then delete all evidence of having ever written it.

"Melts something vital" seems pretty unlikely. I mean, if the CPU gets too hot it'll just slow itself down, or even shut off completely, before damaging itself. But you could still do something really nasty, like overwriting all of the user's personal files. In a way, that's worse - you can easily replace hardware, but if you don't keep good backups you might not be able to replace that data.

[Chris OFarrell]

Well its a lot more creative then declaring a Jhiad of lawsuits, I'll grant you that.

[Teebs]

It would also open up the developers to lawsuits and increase their liability.

Assuming you can limit it to only get people who downloaded the game illegally, then they probably wouldn't be liable since you can't found an action on your own illegal act.

[Mr Bean]

It would also open up the developers to lawsuits and increase their liability.

Assuming you can limit it to only get people who downloaded the game illegally, then they probably wouldn't be liable since you can't found an action on your own illegal act.

Umm no you can
Piriating is illegal, writing virus to cause destruction of information is also illegal. Two illegal acts don't make a legal one. If you get on the torrent websites with a version of your game that formats their hard drive after six hours of play your still up shit creek for writing that virus in the first place. Regardless of the wrapper you put it into. Worse yet some other virus writing is going to get the simple idea and modifies the virus to send a copy of itself(Sans the game) out to your email/contact list and then distributes the game back into the torrent stream and likely your going to catch the blame for that as well.

Distributing fakes onto torrent websites is easy and something game company's do(It's nearly always just a fake installer with junk of rough the right size) but distributing the game itself with a virus is a big fucking no no from a legal standpoint. Virus laden or not the simple act of distributing it brings up the legal possibility that torrent a real copy of the game could be construed as legal since you (The owner of the game) released it to the public, virus or no.

[Teebs]

Umm no you can
Piriating is illegal, writing virus to cause destruction of information is also illegal. Two illegal acts don't make a legal one. If you get on the torrent websites with a version of your game that formats their hard drive after six hours of play your still up shit creek for writing that virus in the first place. Regardless of the wrapper you put it into. Worse yet some other virus writing is going to get the simple idea and modifies the virus to send a copy of itself(Sans the game) out to your email/contact list and then distributes the game back into the torrent stream and likely your going to catch the blame for that as well.

Distributing fakes onto torrent websites is easy and something game company's do(It's nearly always just a fake installer with junk of rough the right size) but distributing the game itself with a virus is a big fucking no no from a legal standpoint. Virus laden or not the simple act of distributing it brings up the legal possibility that torrent a real copy of the game could be construed as legal since you (The owner of the game) released it to the public, virus or no.

I think there's a confusion between criminal and civil liability going on here. If something is a criminal act then it's the government that takes action and the illegality point obviously doesn't stand.

If you're talking a civil action, i.e. the person who had their computer wrecked sues the company then it does still stand. To show that they had harm done to them by the computer company they would have to rely on the fact that what caused the harm was their own illegal act and you cannot rely on your own illegality to prove your case as a matter of public policy.

[General Zod]

I think there's a confusion between criminal and civil liability going on here. If something is a criminal act then it's the government that takes action and the illegality point obviously doesn't stand.

If you're talking a civil action, i.e. the person who had their computer wrecked sues the company then it does still stand.

Intentionally distributing a virus can have criminal legal repercussions regardless of who was harmed.

To show that they had harm done to them by the computer company they would have to rely on the fact that what caused the harm was their own illegal act and you cannot rely on your own illegality to prove your case as a matter of public policy.

You realize that there is plenty of legal precedent for people using their own illegal actions to bring their victim to trial, right?

[Mr Bean]

You realize that there is plenty of legal precedent for people using their own illegal actions to bring their victim to trial, right?

Funny enough that's how the MPAA gets most of it's evidence, via electronic breaking and entering into people's computers to get evidence of pirated music.

[Teebs]

You realize that there is plenty of legal precedent for people using their own illegal actions to bring their victim to trial, right?

Source please.

[General Zod]

You realize that there is plenty of legal precedent for people using their own illegal actions to bring their victim to trial, right?

Source please.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=criminal+sues+victim

[Shinova]

CROSS DAYS!!! BWAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Oh this is sweet, of all the games out there for this to happen to CROSS DAYS?!?!?! The game was already delayed for like a year, and then when people actually played it they find the company essentially trolled them by making a lot of the game essentially gay porn.

And now it's got a fake installer making rounds posting people's info online. Life is funny.

[Teebs]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=criminal+sues+victim

Hilarious.

I'll provide a couple of sources for my own assertions rather than (presumably) relying on memory of tabloid sensationalism.

I'm slightly limited by using documents that are publically accessible (as opposed to needing an academic subscription) but I think England and Wales' Law Commission should be sufficiently authoritative.

The Illegality Defence in Tort - Consultation Paper No.160
The existing law on the matter is laid out from page 20 of the pdf, paragraph 2.1 of the actual document.
Page 24 of the pdf , paragraph 2.11 of the actual document states the general principles of the law as it stands.

[General Zod]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=criminal+sues+victim

Hilarious.

I'll provide a couple of sources for my own assertions rather than (presumably) relying on memory of tabloid sensationalism.

I'm slightly limited by using documents that are publically accessible (as opposed to needing an academic subscription) but I think England and Wales' Law Commission should be sufficiently authoritative.

The Illegality Defence in Tort - Consultation Paper No.160
The existing law on the matter is laid out from page 20 of the pdf, paragraph 2.1 of the actual document.
Page 24 of the pdf , paragraph 2.11 of the actual document states the general principles of the law as it stands.

Since that document only applies to the UK I fail to see how it's relevant or actually counter my point if that's what you're attempting to do.

[Teebs]

Since that document only applies to the UK I fail to see how it's relevant or actually counter my point if that's what you're attempting to do.

Your 'point' is an unsupported assertion about the state of the law. I actually did google just like you so pleasantly suggested, out of curiosity if nothing else, and found the following results:

1) Award at first instance which was overturned on appeal.
2) Thread on a forum with no link to an actual news article.
3) Yahoo answers with lots of 'I heard' and no evidence.
4) Female rapist sues victim for child support - completely different issue.
5) Stuff about victim's rights.
6) Someone trying to sue the victim's mother for stealing from him - not related to the crime and no indication of success anyway.
7) Someone suing their victim from prison over property they put in storage - not related to the crime.
Acquitted man sues accuser.

I'm totally convinced.

I've backed up my own counter to what you said in my own jurisdiction and English law is generally close enough to other common law systems that it's very likely that if a general principle applies in one it'll apply in the others. Now perhaps you could give some evidence for your assertions or concede.

Edit: Changed to reduce flaming after checking the specific forum rules. Ahem.

[General Zod]

Since that document only applies to the UK I fail to see how it's relevant or actually counter my point if that's what you're attempting to do.

Your 'point' is an unsupported assertion about the state of the law. I actually did google just like you so pleasantly suggested, out of curiosity if nothing else, and found the following results:

1) Award at first instance which was overturned on appeal.
2) Thread on a forum with no link to an actual news article.
3) Yahoo answers with lots of 'I heard' and no evidence.
4) Female rapist sues victim for child support - completely different issue.
5) Stuff about victim's rights.
6) Someone trying to sue the victim's mother for stealing from him - not related to the crime and no indication of success anyway.
7) Someone suing their victim from prison over property they put in storage - not related to the crime.
Acquitted man sues accuser.

I'm totally convinced.

I've backed up my own counter to what you said in my own jurisdiction and English law is generally close enough to other common law systems that it's very likely that if a general principle applies in one it'll apply in the others. Now perhaps you could give some evidence for your assertions or concede.

Edit: Changed to reduce flaming after checking the specific forum rules. Ahem.

Just because a law exists in the UK doesn't actually mean it applies anywhere else dumbass. It happens often enough that my statement is hardly unbelievable or any kind of massive stretch for anyone that reads the news. Did someone piss in your cheerios this morning or something or did you just feel like attacking windmills? Because frankly the fact that someone might have committed an illegal act doesn't justify someone else from committing an illegal act against them in the process.

[Teebs]

Just because a law exists in the UK doesn't actually mean it applies anywhere else dumbass.

Obviously true, I did forget to stick the proviso that I was talking about English law into what I wrote. That being said, common law jurisdictions generally follow roughly the same legal principles, in this case it's a general principle under discussion and it's a fair assumption that it in the absence of evidence to the contrary it would apply in those jurisdictions.

It happens

As far as I can tell, the suit would not be based on his crime. It's a subtle distinction but relevant. Assuming the defense operates in the same way as in England, he would have to be using his criminal act to show that damage was done to him, so on that principle he couldn't sue for harm done to him while he was evading arrest since that would be an illegal act, but once he's lying unconscious on the ground that is no longer the case and if the police decide to beat him then they are liable.

often

There's no evidence that the criminal won the case and presumably if she's suing for slander it's based on something unrelated to the assault as she's obviously not going to win on something she pleaded guilty to.

enough

I can only assume you didn't actually read this since it states in the first line that the plaintiff was acquitted of the criminal act before suing.

that my statement is hardly unbelievable or any kind of massive stretch for anyone that reads the news.

That doesn't make it correct. This is an area that newspapers love to sensationalise by missing out vital facts or reporting on the case and then neglecting to mention that it was thrown out a few weeks later.

Did someone piss in your cheerios this morning or something or did you just feel like attacking windmills? Because frankly the fact that someone might have committed an illegal act doesn't justify someone else from committing an illegal act against them in the process.

Here you confuse morality with legality. All that I said was that the developers probably wouldn't be liable for any damage people did to their computers by illegally downloading and installing the program. At no point have I talked about morality and I don't think it would be justified.

I've defended my view of the legal consequences, which were brought up by somoene else, conceded where relevant (criminal liability) and refused to accept unfounded assertions from you. Obviously it's just because someone pissed in my cheerios.

[General Zod]

Here you confuse morality with legality. All that I said was that the developers probably wouldn't be liable for any damage people did to their computers by illegally downloading and installing the program. At no point have I talked about morality and I don't think it would be justified.

I've defended my view of the legal consequences, which were brought up by somoene else, conceded where relevant (criminal liability) and refused to accept unfounded assertions from you. Obviously it's just because someone pissed in my cheerios.

Are you being intentionally retarded or do you just enjoy strawmen? All I said is that criminals can sue their victims, which is true. Whether or not a court ultimately agrees with them is completely irrelevant and a pedantic red herring since being able to file suit is not dependent on winning.

[Teebs]

Are you being intentionally retarded or do you just enjoy strawmen? All I said is that criminals can sue their victims, which is true. Whether or not a court ultimately agrees with them is completely irrelevant and a pedantic red herring since being able to file suit is not dependent on winning.

Great. Of course you can sue people. My mistake for assuming that you wouldn't be writing something so trivial. Are we agreed then, of course you can sue you're just not going to win?