From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Tue Apr 02 2002 - 05:36:43 MST
[April Fool's not???]
Slashdot has an interesting discussion about the trojan horse
in the Kaaza music downloading software here:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/04/02/0417208&mode=thread&tid=158
Related CNET story:
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-873181.html
(Also dated April 1st...)
Of interest (if accurate) is their EULA:
> 4(b) You hereby grant BDE the right to access and use the unused computing
> power and storage space on your computer/s and/or internet
> access or bandwidth for the aggregation of content and use in
> distributed computing. The user acknowledges and authorizes this use
> without the right of compensation. Notwithstanding the above, in the
> event usage of your computer is initiated by a party other than you, BDE
> will grant you the ability to deny access.
This would have caught someone like me who generally doesn't
read the EULA's very closely.
Apparently its also a pain to remove the program once installed.
More importantly its a strong case in point about how private
companies acting in their own self-interest could disseminate
the vehicle for the development of rogue AIs. All it would
take is hacking BDE's communication protocols and you have
millions of computers at your disposal.
Not good. *Really* not good. I'd like to have Harvey confirm
whether or not this is "real". (Even if it isn't, its worth
considering that it could be.)
Robert
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