Legal Niches

Pirates Pay for Download with Upload of Personal Info

By pete_gallagher

Illegal downloaders of a recently released Japanese erotic game are running into malware that gathers their personal information and uploads it to a website.

A pirated version of the game Cross Days is causing the mayhem, according to a story on Torrent Freak. Those downloading a certain illegal version of the game run a program that appears to be an installer, but turns out to be a Trojan, which grabs the user's IP address. The virus then presents some kind of survey, which further mines more personal information from the user. All the data, along with a screenshot of the pirate's desktop, is then uploaded to a website.

Those who had their information uploaded can have it removed from the site it has been posted to, states the site Japanator, but users must admit that they tried to steal the game (by clicking a button).

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Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on March 24, 2010 (boomark / email).