Seriously? USA to legalize rootkits, spyware, ransomware & trojans to combat piracy?

http://blog.emsisoft.com/2013/05/27...ware-ransomware-and-trojans-to-combat-piracy/

 

Re: Emsisoft - U.S. Congress shall legalize malware to combat software piracy

Sorry Pete, yes I didn't intend to mislead (of course), and tried to edit, but only seem to have fixed my 1st post. Could it be fixed by yourself or other mod, please. Sorry, Dermot.
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1694348&postcount=2

edit: Added info from LWM.

 

Re: Emsisoft - U.S. Congress shall legalize malware to combat software piracy

I guess one could argue that all government spyware is malware? Is this really different from your ISP blocking your connection because your part of a botnet; known or unknown?

 

Right... their sugar must be low...

 

Yes, it's different. The ISP isn't infecting your system and possibly spread malware into corporate environments. (I do believe such system (ISP botnet blocking) should be optional, though. That said, I'm not sure mine stops anything. Never bothered.)

 

https://www.computerworld.com/s/art..._with_extortion_style_lock_outs?taxonomyId=17

 

One wonders if they thought this thing through...from Computerworld link:

 

See also this earlier thread: Report Says Active Recovery Efforts Could Deter IP Theft By Foreign Attackers

 

See also: US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits, spyware, ransomware and trojans to attack pirates!
http://boingboing.net/2013/05/26/us-entertainment-industry-to-c.html
https://twitter.com/e_kaspersky/status/338900380404547584
https://twitter.com/justinvincent/status/338855493189636099

 

In order to fight criminals or terrorists, everything is justified. But how do they know, if you are one? According to their own measures, if someone thinks so, then you are.

 

I can see it now. They will try to bait you to a website where they will show you a video or play some copyrighted music. Then they will accuse you of piracy and hold your PC for ransom. These companies should be boycotted out of business.

 

If something like this becomes law, and considering that big money tends to get what they want, it would open an interesting can of worms. If such malware becomes legal, will AVs legally be allowed to detect it as malware?

Those law changes would cut both ways. AFAIC, the above quote spells out what our response should be.

 

I don't see this being any more or less effective than other attempts at restricting the pirating of content. It's not like the folks facilitating and participating in this type of activity are incompetent. ISPs threatened denial of service and what was the first immediate result? public hotspots and businesses had to worry that their internet service would be disconnected. Now they want to market us drm-content with malware-like capabilities. So what happens when randsomware starts to mirror the pop-ups/activity of legitimate DRM events? Though in my honest opinion, this is ultimately going to fail for one simple reason. No matter how smart you may think you are, you can not best collective thinking. Not to mention, this type of protection is going to have to by-pass a handful of security applications. It is already common practice to install pirated content inside a sandbox or VM. I'd be interested to see how they get around this. Presuming that the distributors of this content don't find a way to nullify the DRM before sharing it. Copyright protection has so far been nothing more then a very sad and pathetic joke. The people prosecuted for these types of crimes are far and few from the sum of participants world wide.

 

Canada's business groups wants to hack your computer even more than the creeps at the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property
• http://boingboing.net/2013/05/28/canadas-business-groups-want.html

 

Sorry? Is a US report recommending ransomware to target copyright thieves?

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/05/30/copyright-malware/

 

8 years ago a BIG storm erupted !

Do a search on Wilder for "Sony DRM rootkit" Plus here's just a couple of links, for those that wern't around @ the time

https://blogs.technet.com/b/markrus...-management-gone-too-far.aspx?Redirected=true

http://forum.sysinternals.com/sony-drm-rootkit-info_topic2372.html

And Sony wern't the only ones either !