First Spyware coded in PB... or not ??

Post by **Berikco** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 3:56 pm

A maker of surveillance software is using a product download agreement to attempt to bar detection by anti-spyware tools, raising questions about the legal scope of such agreements.

viewtopic.php?t=14826&highlight=spymon

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5944 ... ag=nl.e589

rsts · Post by **rsts** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 4:04 pm

Based on past rulings, it appears that provision of the license will be ruled invalid.

Num3 · Post by **Num3** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 4:06 pm

I had seen it already, when i followed the link here at the forums.

DoubleDutch · Post by **DoubleDutch** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 4:09 pm

Here is a copy of the reply I put on slashdot

:

Retrocoder Limited has NOT threatened to sue Sunbelt - we are currently looking at what legal options we have to defend our product.

This is a copy of the text sent to Sunbelt:

"If you read the copyright agreement when you downloaded or ran our
program you will see that Anti-spyware publishers/software houses
are NOT allowed to download, run or examine the software in any
way. By doing so you are breaking EU copyright law, this is a criminal
offence. Please remove our program from your detection list or we will
be forced to take action against you."

The action will be that we may be (in our opinion) forced to get the UK police authorities involved with Sunbelt over copyright theft. This is a criminal offence, not a civil one I believe.

Retrocoder Limited as the copyright holder, has the right to say who may or may not have its program. If someone has its program without permission, are they not guilty of a criminal offence?

For example, if you have a copy of Windows without MicroSofts permission, is this not a crime?

Below is a copy of the text sent to Joris Evers (who wrote the original article from it):

"As you can see, at the moment it is just a warning to them to stop
blacklisting the program. Our program is not a "trojan" or "virus",
it is used to keep a remote "eye" on your kids or employees. The user
must have access to the users machine in order to install the client.
Only the installer of the program can view the client machine. Our
program does not attempt to bypass firewalls or other such protection.

This is very different from "trojans" and "viruses" - they replicate
themselves and spread uncontrollably, you do not usually need direct
access to the users machine. They often try to bypass firewalls in
order to "reach" the internet.

Our problem is that companies like Sunbelt do not properly look at
software before they blacklist it. They clearly ignored legally
enforceable warnings that what they would be doing is not allowed by
the copyright holder. This shows that either they do not examine
programs properly or that they ignore copyright law. In order to add
our product to their trojan/virus list they must have downloaded it
and then examined it. Both of these actions are forbidden by the
copyright notice.

A similar situation arose with Grisoft with the AVG product. We sent
a similar warning letter out to them and they responded by removing
our programs from their blacklist. This resolved the situation and no
further action has been taken.

I will be consulting with our solicitor in the next few weeks about
companies like Sunbelt, what civil/criminal laws have been broken, and
how best to involve the UK Police authorities in action against them."

thefool · Post by **thefool** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 4:09 pm

haha what a joke. PestPatrol can suck my balls!
Really. It even detects upx for being spyware

its not spyware. If its taken as spyware, VNC should be as well..! And remote controlling built in in windows!

DoubleDutch · Post by **DoubleDutch** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 4:13 pm

Good point.

dracflamloc · Post by **dracflamloc** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 4:22 pm

Heh. I cant believe spyMon even sells any licenses considering there are a million and one free versions of this software that work even better.

Funny how many legal threats get thrown around these days, in both directions.

DoubleDutch · Post by **DoubleDutch** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 4:29 pm

Heh. I cant believe spyMon even sells any licenses considering there are a million and one free versions of this software that work even better.

Seems to have sold enough to have been added to SunBelts list.

Funny how many legal threats get thrown around these days by people who probably dont even have the money to back them up.

I'm sure I mentioned that it may be a police matter, not a civil one?

The action will be that we may be (in our opinion) forced to get the UK police authorities involved with Sunbelt over copyright theft. This is a criminal offence, not a civil one I believe

Funny how many stupid people post in forums before reading past posts properly.

Post by **Dare2** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 4:39 pm

dracflamloc · Post by **dracflamloc** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 4:41 pm

Calling people stupid is a great way to get your point proven on the internet...

Regardless of police or lawyers doing the action, it IS a legal threat. For the police to get involved it must be an illegal action they are going against, hence its legal action one way or another.

I never said it didn't sell. I said I can't believe it DOES. Btw the selling isnt what got you on thier list most likely since they would have no idea if it sold unless you make your financial records public? My guess would be they found the crack to your software, saw the name of your software, and instantly thought it was spyware.

That said, detecting software on a persons computer by a scanner isnt something new, and since its the users choice on whether to run such a scanner in the first place and the users choice to remove the detected software, you have no legal ability whatsoever in this. They probably didnt even need to run your software to be able to detect it. So proving they did...good luck.

While I don't presonally think your software is spyware by the meaning it holds today, it doesn't change the fact that your disclaimer won't hold up legally.

Thats like writing a virus that formats a persons harddrive automatically, and saying to McAffee and Symantec, "Detecting and removing this software is illegal and is punishable by legal action".

Sorry man. I feel for you but I'm afraid you don't have any choice.

DoubleDutch · Post by **DoubleDutch** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 4:42 pm

Sorry I didn't mean to be so harsh, should I edit it to make it not sound as bad?

dracflamloc · Post by **dracflamloc** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 4:43 pm

Why? I'm not offended. I've heard worse =)

I enjoy arguing on the internet. Makes a slow day at work go by faster.

Post by **Dare2** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 4:53 pm

dracflamloc wrote:I enjoy arguing on the internet. Makes a slow day at work go by faster.

It would be really ironic if your work sprung you using SpyMon

DoubleDutch · Post by **DoubleDutch** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 5:01 pm

Now that would be funny!

thefool · Post by **thefool** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 5:03 pm

haha