Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

zCodec Video Codec Is a Trojan

Posted by kdawson on Mon Sep 04, 2006 05:10 PM
from the who-is-watching-whom? dept.
Security IT
Bride of Chucky writes "There's a new video codec out there that claims to offer 'up to 40 percent better video quality' but that resets your computer's DNS settings — opening the way for Trojans, rootkits, or whatever. Techworld warns that zCodec looks professional enough, is widely available, and comes in at 100KB. What's the bet the media companies are behind this somewhere?"
+ -
story
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

zCodec Video Codec Is a Trojan 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • Rather than the conspiracy theory. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Spazntwich (208070) on Monday September 04 2006, @05:13PM (#16040067)
    I'd give a lot more consideration to an enterprising spammer/botnet advertiser being behind this.

    Follow the money. The MPAA has plenty to make off p2p lawsuits to risk the kind of bad press and fines they'd get by doing something like this.

    Basically, the submitter is an irrational idiot pandering to the anarchist conspiracy theorists in an attempt to start a flamewar. Congratulations, you've probably got it.
    • I agree with you. There are plenty of trojens out there other than condoms; why would this one be a corporate conspiracy? A quick Google search [google.com] shows that this is nothing new. I think that companies learned their lesson from Sony's rootkit fiasco.

    • Re:Rather than the conspiracy theory. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MustardMan (52102) on Monday September 04 2006, @05:26PM (#16040133)
      While I agree that the submitter is probably full of shit... your argument is kind of weak. Try a little word-replacement and see what you get...

      "Follow the money. Sony has plenty to make off hardware and music sales to risk the kind of bad press and fines they'd get by installing a rootkit on your computer"

      Sony makes a whole fuckload more money from their products than the MPAA gets from suing grandmothers, and that sure didn't stop them from one of the biggest PR blunders by a tech company in recent memory.

      It's far more likely that a script kiddie or spammer type is responsible... but I would NOT put this sort of thing past the shitbags at the MPAA.
      • After R'ing TFA, I'd say the submittor is almost certainly fulla shit, only because this thing looks like it's chock full of malware elements. That being said, I still wouldn't put it past the MPAA to try to pull something similar.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by kripkenstein (913150)
      I'd give a lot more consideration to an enterprising spammer/botnet advertiser being behind this.

      Exactly.

      We have no evidence for the media corporations being involved in such actions; and it wouldn't make much sense for them to do so, either. This adware will make money; money is something that media companies already have, but adware companies constantly work to get. What the media companies need is not more money, but to scare people off of using p2p software - and this isn't the way to do that. No,

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by svunt (916464)
      Basically, the submitter is an irrational idiot pandering to the anarchist conspiracy theorists in an attempt to start a flamewar.
      Wow, is this an extension of an eye for an eye? Now we're up to 'a kneejerk asstard for a kneejerk asstard'. The submitter has as much right to make stupid links between some malware and the **AA as you have linking his silly analysis to anarchism.

  • What! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Funkcikle (630170) on Monday September 04 2006, @05:13PM (#16040071)
    40% better video performance but NO LINK TO IT? Come on!

  • Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WD (96061) on Monday September 04 2006, @05:13PM (#16040073)
    What are "the media companies" and why would they be behind this?

    • What are "the media companies" and why would they be behind this?

      The article was posted by a 'kdawson', I bet that's the new guy.

      We all know that Taco and his crack team of editors would never let such an unfounded and inflammatory statement on the front page of this outstanding news establishment.

      So cut the guys some slack. After all, I bet you this Dawson kid will be reprimanded and articles will be back to the high standard of journalism we're use to in no time.

      • It was probably meant as a joke.

        Unfortunately, it probably wasn't. Survey any of the RIAA/MPAA posts here and you'll quickly find a widespread and virulent tin foil brigade who think those organisations are out to get them, in any and every way possible.

      • If it installs/allows malware, then you're right; "the media companies" probably aren't behind it. However - I've been wondering for a while how long it would be before "the media companies" got around to releasing a codec that "phones home" and lets them know what video file you're playing and from where you're playing it so that they can flush out "piracy". Codec's are native code that we blindly download and let run, after all... it seems like it would be trivial to insert a bit of code that sends a qu

  • Is there any evidence that they are behind this codec?

    Don't you think that after the sony rootkit most companies wouldnt bother with such schemes....
  • Gimme an S.

    S!

    Gimme an O.

    O!

    Gimme an N.

    N!

    Gimme a Y

    Why? They put rootkits on CDs. They are just the kind of company that would make a video codec that is a trojan.

  • Hmm. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheRaven64 (641858) on Monday September 04 2006, @05:25PM (#16040127) Homepage Journal
    What's the bet the media companies are behind this somewhere?

    A tin-foil hat is a mark of someone who can, in all seriousness, say 'if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it must be a concealed listening device placed by the government under the instruction of the military-industrial complex and funded by the media industry.' The poster should wear his with pride.

  • No need for conspiracies... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by AgentPaper (968688) * on Monday September 04 2006, @05:27PM (#16040139)
    ...user stupidity makes a dandy explanation. If there is a universal truth in today's networked world, it is that the gullibility of the average Netizen knows no bounds. I'd be willing to bet that you could write a program that claims to turn your printer into a replicator, and some doofus would buy it.

    This ranks right up there with the scores of malware programs that pretend to be malware removers. I assume the original poster would have us believe that all those are really written by the likes of Symantec and McAfee?

  • This is another great example of how lack of technical knowledge can be used to take advantage of "home users".

    Joey Dell doesn't see the difference between technical details of OSS and Proprietary Software, all he sees is the malware being marketed as "Faster SMaller Better"

  • Come on, mods, it has to be asked (Score:4, Funny)

    by knightmad (931578) on Monday September 04 2006, @05:29PM (#16040160)
    Will it run on Linux? We don't want to feel left out again. These damned malware-laden proprietary crap!

  • Oh please... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kentrel (526003) on Monday September 04 2006, @05:30PM (#16040164) Journal
    What's the bet the media companies are behind this somewhere?

    That's incredibly presumptuous and a completely baseless accusation. There are lots of people who can clearly benefit from trojans, and someone obviously has seen the potential in video codecs as a nice "social engineering" way of fooling the gullible masses into downloading them. The average person generally searches for video codecs once in a blue moon - they have no way of knowing which sites are legitimate, or which files are legitimate. They'll download whatever sounds promising. In fact, the website looks far more legitimate than some of the genuine codec sites out there.

    Smarter users might do regular intensive searching to make sure they are getting a legitimate file, but the average user will not. It's far more likely that the author of this trojan is just exploiting the fact that so many users of codecs are clueless than yet another paranoid conspiracy that the media companies are behind it. Really, will the slashdot editors ever get over their bias and just print actual NEWS.

  • Send someone to jail (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Lord Apathy (584315) on Monday September 04 2006, @05:30PM (#16040165)

    Enough is a enough. A message needs to be sent to these bastards. Suing and fines only do so much. They fine these bastards, they file for bankruptcy and its over. They close the company and the fines and suits go away. Can't sue what doesn't exist and current corp. laws protect us from going after personal assets.

    Time to bring some real charges against these fuckers and send a few of them to prison for a good long stretch. And I'm not talking 6 months in a jail with 500 hours of community service. I'm talking 10 years in maximum security.

    I know some people say the punishment doesn't fit the crime but I think its time it did. If we would have locked up some of them bastards from Sony then I bet this one wouldn't' happen.

  • and nobody's doing anything.....why? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Desolator144 (999643) on Monday September 04 2006, @05:31PM (#16040167)
    www.zcodec.com registrant info:

    ZCodec Inc

    Abrahamen Biderman

    webmaster@zcodec.com

    5624 17th Ave

    Brooklyn

    New York

    NY,11204-1834

    Tel. +718.2364275

    Creation Date: 23-Dec-2005

    Expiration Date: 23-Dec-2006

    Okay first of all, it was registered almost a full year ago and second, even now I could probably drive to his house/office (assuming that info is accurate) and arrest him myself faster than the FBI could. Why does everyone always sit around and do nothing when stuff like this happens? Someone should at least give him a call :-) It's not even nigeria this time, how expensive could it be?

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by TaoPhoenix (980487)
      I'm guessing the info is fake. (What are the penalties for faking WhoIs info?)

      Yahoo turned up the following:

      Amilcar Perez

      7319 13th Ave
      Brooklyn, NY (map)

      Tel.: (718) 236-4275

      Does that help anyone?
    • The info in DNS is most likley fake.

      Info on Forbes [forbes.com] of the real guy. I doubt a stock broker would have much to do with a scheme like this.

  • No bet... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by drinkypoo (153816) <martin.espinoza@gmail.com> on Monday September 04 2006, @05:31PM (#16040170) Homepage Journal
    ...because even if it were true, we'd likely never see proof. As such, that kind of speculation in a story submission is immature on the part of the submitter and allowing it to go out unedited is irresponsible of the editor. (Bonus points if they're the same person, I didn't check.)
  • "The media companies are behind this"? Are you letting twitter [slashdot.org] loose on the Submit Story function now?

    Whoever wrote that needs their heads checking.

  • Appears to be from Inhoster, known spyware source. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Animats (122034) on Monday September 04 2006, @05:54PM (#16040282) Homepage

    Looks like this is coming from a known source of spyware in Ukraine, "Inhoster.com".

    "zcodec.com" is actually "85.255.117.106-xbox.dedi.inhoster.com", a dedicated server at a "nlayer.net" colocation site in San Francisco. The dedicated server appears to be associated with "atrivo".

    Both "inhoster.com" and "atrivo" appear to be "psuedo-ISPs"; they have web sites that look like those of an ISP, but they don't really offer services for sale. Both have bad reputations: see "Spywarequake Scam on the Run [netrn.net]. The previous attacks were based on phony anti-spyware programs. Now that people are wise to that one, the new frontier is apparently phony codecs.

    The WHOIS information for "zcodec.net" appears to be bogus. It's given as "Abrahamen Biderman" at "5624 17th Ave, Brooklyn, New York" There is an "Abraham Biderman" with an office at 5624 17th Ave, Brooklyn, New York, and he's a political figure and investment banker [forbes.com], with a career running major financial institutions. Probably not behind some two-bit spyware scam.

  • thats news - heres a tip (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gsn (989808) on Monday September 04 2006, @06:08PM (#16040350)
    wow a codec is spyware - inconcievable!!! Who the heck told you to download an unheard of codec which you probably didn't need. The vast majority of spyware is around because people download things they don't actually need from an untrusted third party source. I can't begin to count the number of computers I've had to fix because some twit downloaded a codec pack or opened an scr file in their email or downloaded some game crack to pirate a game and found it installed bonzi buddy.

    Virtually every bloody codec pack you could download contained spyware/adware - some of them put in by the developers themselves. I've got some lovely versions of Nimo, K-lite and gordian knot to prove it. Hell, DivX pre 5.2 had GAIN in it and if you didn't know where to look on their website you had no way of finding the version without it (it didnt have the encoder so wasn't gain supported) . VLC is all I download for video playback now. If they don't support it I don't need to watch it - I've an flv file convertor for those of you who know how to download the dang yourtube/google videos that vlc cant handle perfectly.

    Learnt the hard way not to download things from any third party site even if its trusted back in high school. I run XP because I like playing games. If I had a tinfoil hat I'd read the source and then compile and do MD5 checks but I'm lazy and will take the binary packages, and I suspect one day I will pay for that laziness, despite my use of Tea Timer and the Spybot S&D hosts file and immunization databse, Lavasofts ad aware, windows defender and rootkit revealer, hijack this, peer guardian 2, and spyware blaster. One day I will be an idiot and download a binary with some spyware that is still under the radar for all of these and I will be pissed when I realize it. Atleast, I will realize it, but most users wont.

  • I bet PC will (Score:4, Funny)

    by ericdano (113424) on Monday September 04 2006, @06:08PM (#16040353) Homepage
    I bet PC [apple.com] will be pissed. Poor guy. Spyware, Viruses, physical damage and now....this?

  • Why take the detour? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Opportunist (166417) on Monday September 04 2006, @06:09PM (#16040362)
    When the straight line connects much better?

    Music companies have huge legal departments that can (and do) get their info from ISPs with subpoenas. Trojan distributors are constantly trying to find new ways to push their junk onto your computer, often by paying heavily for 0day exploits.

    Who is more likely to buy a "cheap" way to bug your PC?

  • watch out for Pcodec too. http://www.pcodec.com/ (Score:3, Informative)

    by jasonfrog (882259) on Monday September 04 2006, @07:40PM (#16040812)
    and there is more, http://www.pcodec.com/ [pcodec.com]

    the same blurb, different .exe, but again packed full of trojans.

    Domain Name: PCODEC.COM
    Creation Date: 25-Aug-2006
    Expiration Date: 25-Aug-2007

    People are being enticed into downloading this codec by the following posting that is being spambotted on to public forums that allow guest posting..

    "Br1tney Spe@rs r@ped! ;)
    http://britneyspearsrocks.info/ [britneyspearsrocks.info]"

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Oooh!

      You mean the famous SlashDot Effect hasn't taken down the meany malware site?
      They must have some muscle behind their servers. Should we Digg them too?

    • 4.2.2.2 is one of Verizon's DNS addresses, and besides being easy to remember, it's pretty reliable (at least far more reliable than Comcast's).
    • 4.* is Verizon/gte I believe. You use either of those for you DSL? :)
      • I thought the same thing. I still can't comprehend how the setting got changed, though.

        • 4.2.2.2 (Score:5, Informative)

          by MillionthMonkey (240664) * on Monday September 04 2006, @06:14PM (#16040392)
          There is a legitimate DNS server sitting at 4.2.2.2. I think it belongs to GTE (now Verizon). It has the misfortune of having an easy IP address to remember. In a pinch, if you can't remember the IP of your own DNS, there's always 4.2.2.2. Most people who use it have it as their alternate DNS. Verizon likes to give it names like i-will-not-steal-service.sys.gtei.net.

          You've already gotten a reply to your original post that indicates at least one other person has seen this happen to their DNS settings. If I'd never typed in 4.2.2.2 myself, and I had no previous business relationship with Verizon or GTE, I'd call shenanigans. A malware writer needing to disable automatic DNS for some reason would have to specify a replacement IP and 4.2.2.2 is convenient to hard code.
      • $ host 4.2.2.1
        1.2.2.4.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer vnsc-pri.sys.gtei.net.
        $ host 4.2.2.2
        2.2.2.4.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer vnsc-bak.sys.gtei.net.
        The owner of those domains is Verizon Trademark Services LLC. If Verizon is your ISP, this would be the correct DNS to use.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by ShaunC (203807)
        4.2.2.1 to 4.2.2.6 are public nameservers operated by Verizon.

    • Re:Use Linux (Score:4, Informative)

      by rm69990 (885744) on Monday September 04 2006, @06:19PM (#16040429)
      Or use Windows and don't download dangerous software. Any piece of software with a set of "therms of use" should be avoided (see the software's home page to know what I'm talking about). Or of course buy a Mac (sorry, Apple fanboy here :-P)

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.