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ESET and piracy


Kristal

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As far as I know, ESET is aimed at combating piracy, but it's kind of strange. Nod32 removes torrent from client computers. But the question arises, what about torrent trackers? Isn't anyone's copyright infringed there? As for me, there are no bigger copyright violators than torrent trackers and sites of any reference points. It is clear that if Nod32 will block torrent trackers, the number of its customers may pudupatti, but the fight against piracy, to fight, and this fight looks very strange.

What do you think about this? Let's discuss this problem.

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In fact, we do not aim that combating piracy in general. That's not what an antivirus or security software is supposed to do in the first place. If administrators want to prevent illegal stuff from being used in their networks, they can use application control for instance to control what application users can run.

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Just a repeat of what @Marcos said above. ESET products are not an anti piracy solution but a security product. There are entities (bodies) that deal with piracy in general. The only connection is that a large volume of pirated products are generally where viruses and malware are placed and why ESET and other security products detect them.

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29 minutes ago, cyberhash said:

Just a repeat of what @Marcos said above. ESET products are not an anti piracy solution but a security product. There are entities (bodies) that deal with piracy in general. The only connection is that a large volume of pirated products are generally where viruses and malware are placed and why ESET and other security products detect them.

Absolutely all torrent trackers have a huge variety of viruses. But antiviruses do not detect them, because viruses are distributed in torrent files, and not on the site where these torrent files can be downloaded. This is bad. The world's largest torrent trackers are still not blocked by any antivirus.

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38 minutes ago, Kristal said:

Absolutely all torrent trackers have a huge variety of viruses. But antiviruses do not detect them, because viruses are distributed in torrent files, and not on the site where these torrent files can be downloaded. This is bad. The world's largest torrent trackers are still not blocked by any antivirus.

@Kristal You do have the option of blacklisting url's manually if you do not want anyone accessing websites containing that sort of content.

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The problem is torrents are not illegal by default although they are mainly used for illegal practises. For example some unsigned bands have used torrents in the past to diatribute their material

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I've checked the VT links but there were only hacktools and cracks scanned. I would say that there's much more malware downloaded from Dropbox or One Drive with download links spammed by email, however, that wouldn't justify blocking the services and no AV will ever do so.

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1 hour ago, Marcos said:

I've checked the VT links but there were only hacktools and cracks scanned. I would say that there's much more malware downloaded from Dropbox or One Drive with download links spammed by email, however, that wouldn't justify blocking the services and no AV will ever do so.

Oh, my friend, your example is incorrect. Dropbox management is not involved in the spread of viruses, DropBox users do. And viruses on the above-listed sites have placed is the management of these sites.

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2 hours ago, Kristal said:

Oh, my friend, your example is incorrect. Dropbox management is not involved in the spread of viruses, DropBox users do. And viruses on the above-listed sites have placed is the management of these sites.

As mentioned most appear to be crack tools.

Also you mentioned blocking all trackers but eset cant block them all just because some of its users may post viruses thus the reason marcos mentioned dropbox.

To be honest most people can be safe by following good practises by avoiding risky sites like these

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Also to add a lot of isps are blocking torrent sites. Theres always ways around things but thats the point. If eset blocked a lot of these those wanting access would unblock then blame eset still when they got infected

Edited by peteyt
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Hello,

While ESET does not condone software piracy (or any other kind of piracy, for that matter)*, neither is ESET the software police.

That said, it is important to keep in mind that peer-to-peer file sharing programs can be bundled with potentially unwanted applications, adware or even outright malware.  They can also introduce privacy issues, such as the leaking of sensitive or confidential information due to improper configuration, as well as security vulnerabilities which can be subject to exploitation by threat actors.  And, of course, there is also malware which may make use of peer-to-peer networks for various reasons, from spreading as a worm, for use as command-and-control infrastructure, exfiltration of stolen data, and so forth.

Web sites involved in the facilitation of software piracy often have limited opportunities for revenue generation, as legitimate advertising networks, payment processors, e-commerce providers and other businesses may be unable or unwilling to do business with them for legal or other reasons.  As such, these web sites may turn to other means of funding continued operation, including the display of advertisements from less-than-reputable ad networks/brokers, which may introduce malicious advertisements (malvertising) using exploit kits to compromise a computer through the web browser, to other schemes, such as mining cryptocurrency in the web browser to generate revenue for the site operator.

Another thing to consider is that many customers do not want programs which facilitate the theft of intellectual property on their computers and networks.  The reasons for this can range from the mundane (wanting to avoid legal liability) to concerns about more draconian actions:  In Russia, software piracy can be treated as a criminal matter by the Russian federal tax police, and having pirated software on computers can lead to the arrest and imprisonment of employees, harsh financial penalties the dissolution of a company and/or the forced transfer of a company's assets.  This happened to several non-profits who were accused of pirating Microsoft software in Russia.  To their credit, Microsoft quickly responded by providing the Russian non-profits with legal licenses for its software, and now makes its software free for use by non-profits in Russia in order to prevent this from happening again.  While that is an extreme kind of scenario, it does show how regimes can use software piracy as a pretext to shut down organizations of which they do not approve.

From time to time, ESET has talked about some of the malware using and abusing peer-to-peer networks, probably the most famous of which is the Conficker worm.  Some additional examples of malware which make use of peer-to-peer networks, can be found on ESET's VirusRadar site:

Further information about risks, as well as mitigations, can be found on ESET's WeLiveSecurity blog:

As previously stated, ESET is not the software police.  ESET does, however, have a stated goal of protecting its customers from threats, and those threats can come from many sources, including peer-to-peer file-sharing networks, applications and their associated web sites.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky


*ESET holds no position on Talk Like a Pirate Day.

 

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I believe that this article sums up nicely why pirated software should not be used: https://www.maketecheasier.com/dangers-of-using-pirated-software/ .

Also some security software does scan for pirated software. MalwareBytes is one of them. Also a number of the web sites that assist in free malware removal will refuse to provide help if they detect cracked software on a device.

Edited by itman
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