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The usually staid world of professional-grade flight simulations was rocked by controversy over the weekend, with fans accusing mod developer FlightSimLabs (FSLabs) of distributing "malware" with an add-on package for Lockheed Martin's popular Prepar3d simulation. The developer insists the hidden package was intended as an anti-piracy tool but has removed what it now acknowledges was a "heavy-handed" response to the threat of people stealing its add-on.
The controversy started Sunday when Reddit user crankyrecursion noticed that FSLabs' Airbus A320-X add-on package was setting off his antivirus scanner. FSLabs had already recommended users turn off their antivirus protection when installing the add-on, so this wasn't an isolated issue.
The reason for the warning, as crankyrecursion found, was that the installer seemed to be extracting a "test.exe" file that matched a "Chrome Password Dump" tool that can be found online. As the name implies, that tool appears to extract passwords saved in the Chrome Web browser—not something you'd expect to find in a flight-sim add-on. The fact that the installer necessarily needs to run with enhanced permissions increased the security threat from the "Password Dump."
[...] In a later update, Kalamaras acknowledges that some users were uncomfortable with "this particular method which might be considered to be a bit heavy-handed on our part." The company promptly released a new installer without the test.exe code included.
FlightSimLabs, a studio that specialises in custom add-ons for other company's flight sims, has been found to be secretly installing a program onto user's computers designed to check whether they're playing a pirated copy of their software.
The code—basically a Chrome password dumping tool— was discovered by Reddit user crankyrecursion on February 18, and as TorrentFreak report was designed to trigger "a process through which the company stole usernames and passwords from users' web browsers."
Rather than deny or challenge the discovery, FlightSimLabs boss Lefteris Kalamaras wrote on the company's forums that yes, the code is in there, but it's only designed to be used on pirated copies of their software (emphasis his).
Source: Kotaku
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FakeBeldin on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:25AM
This is a prime example of what happens when "we" (people who can make computers do things) don't stop to think about the consequences of what we're asked to code.
Coders, system architects, companies have a moral obligation to consider the impact of their work and call out when that impact is wrong.
Yes, I don't have a convenient definition or law proposal for that. That does not absolve anyone. We all know that the Sony rootkit was wrong, yet someone was asked to code it and someone made it. We all know that Lenovo's Superfish was a stupendously bad idea, yet someone made it. We all know that making a cracking tool that triggers upon some condition and package that into your flight sim is a clear example of a Trojan Horse, yet someone with the technical expertise to create such a thing did not call out his/her boss and say "this is not a thing we should be making."
Nor did the boss stop to think about it when giving the assignment.
That's just not good enough.