OT: SPYWARE/TROJAN and Off Topic!

Norfleet · #1 April 7th, 2004, 04:58 PM

While trying out the new patch, I was very unpleasantly surprised when while trying to play a SINGLE PLAYER test game, with only myself and an AI opponent, I was unpleasantly jerked to the desktop with a security alert! Dominions II was trying to phone home, and my firewall had intercepted a suspicious request.

What on earth is 82.182.97.69 30729?

I cannot identify this port or protocol. Reverse-DNS identifies this IP as "1-1-2-16a.msp.mlm.bostream.se".

Has somebody managed to slip some sort of odd spyware trojan into the new Dom2 patch?

[ April 10, 2004, 03:44: Message edited by: Zen ]

Gandalf Parker · #2 April 7th, 2004, 05:01 PM

That is home.

Totally guesswork but I suspect that the "CD keys are only checked in multiplayer games" might be getting tackled. Along with a way to update the list of CD keys that are Banned. Or maybe the list got too long to include inside the game so now it checks it at home.

[ April 07, 2004, 16:04: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Norfleet · #3 April 7th, 2004, 05:07 PM

So it's ILLWINTER'S Spyware, phoning home. How evil. What little faith I had in them is now destroyed. It saddens me to see them resort to spyware tactics, phoning home with all of the information about your computer. I have no idea what's in these mystery packets, but given the surreptitious nature of such an inclusion, it is obviously a Bad Thing. No software on MY computer phones home. Period.

Norfleet · #4 April 7th, 2004, 05:16 PM

Hmm. The more odd thing is that it doesn't happen consistently: It doesn't occur every time you try to play. Some people are unable to get it to occur at all, and it doesn't happen in every game, network or SP.

Maybe it's an update checker? I'm trying to be generous and hoping that Illwinter did not, in fact, include something so obviously malware as something that phones home every time you try to play, allowing them to track your playing habits and computer data, and that this is something more benign, like an update-checker...maybe.

Norfleet · #5 April 7th, 2004, 05:24 PM

Is there an official statement on this matter, or only guilty silence?

tinkthank · #6 April 7th, 2004, 05:34 PM

Small question here, since I really dont understand what all of this means: How can a game make your computer call "home", and what does that mean? I mean, will it make my modem dial something and then transfer information even if I dont want that to be?