---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | THE DIRTY DOZEN -- An Uploaded Program Alert List | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Issue #5: May 12th, 1986 | | | | | | | | Compiled by Eric Newhouse | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Recently, many unlawfully copied or modified programs have appeared on various IBM PC bulletin boards across the country. THE DIRTY DOZEN is a list of known examples. There are three major categories of "bogusware": commercial pirate jobs, unauthorized "hacks" of otherwise legitimate freeware programs, and malicious "TROJAN" programs which damage your system. A more detailed explanation of each category is given below. Sysops: Please be careful with the files you post in your download libraries! Be suspicious when an uploaded game or disk utility appears to be of professional quality, yet doesn't include the author's name, address, and distribution policy. Such programs are probably NOT public domain! The BBS community is already under legislative threat at the State and Federal level. We cannot fight this trend effectively while our directories sit stocked with "cracked" Sega games, 1-2-3 copiers and Wargames dialers! Let's demonstrate a little social responsibility by cleaning up our download libraries. If you have any of these files on your system, please delete them and post "blocking" dummy file entries like this one: ZAXXON.COM DELETED!! NOT PUBLIC DOMAIN!! THE DIRTY DOZEN's brief is simultaneously to bring this issue to the attention of more Sysops and users, and to act as an information clearing- house for the latest known examples of "bogusware." I need lots of help keeping up with the busy warren of pirates and careless uploaders out there; see the end of this article for information on how to reach me with new information. A final word on TROJANS: I have been hearing more and more reports of these "worm" programs, from all directions. While I don't doubt their existence (and all that I have heard of are listed below), let's not get hysterical. Remember, a Trojan rumor is a lot easier to START than it is to STOP. Some people have accused "legitimate" *joke* programs, like DRAIN (which pretends to be gurgling excess water out of your A drive) of being "killers." Even if a program locks up your system, it isn't necessarily Trojan; it might not like co-residing with Superkey, or your graphics card. Ask around a little before you announce something as Trojan. I would appreciate a bagged specimen of any real Trojan program you find. In DIRTYDOZ.005 I have separated the "bad" files into two sections: one for those files that are pirated, and one for those that are hacked or trojan. This is because most of the "bad" files these days are PIRATED, and in my view pirated files are less important than TROJAN HORSES. Therefore, the "Trojans" and "Hacked" programs are listed first in this document. More information on "Trojan," "Hacked," and "Pirated" may be found at the end of this document. NOTE: If no file extension is supplied, that means that the file has been circulating under many different extensions. For instance, BALKTALK has been seen with extensions of: .EXE, .COM, .EQE, .CQM, .LBR, .LQR, and .ARC. DEFINITIONS: HACKED An unlawfully modified copy of an otherwise legitimate freeware or user-supported program. It is illegal to distribute a modified copy of someone else's work without their permission. If the modifying party has obtained that permission, it should be mentioned in the program's display or documentation. *TROJAN* BEWARE!! These programs are written and uploaded by people with the LSD-in-the-reservoir mentality, and cause some form of DAMAGE to your system if you're unwary enough to run them. It is IMPERATIVE that you let me know about any new examples of these that you find. PIRATED This is an illegal copy of a commercial program product. Examples: a "cracked" (de-protected) game, an accidentally or deliberately distributed compiler, editor or utility; sometimes a Beta test copy of a program under development, handed out by a disgruntled employee or dishonest beta tester. In the latter case, the program in question may never make it to market due to the pirating! (But it's still unlawful to distribute it.) In the case of games, there's a tendancy for the pirate to patch a clumsy "PUBLIC DOMAIN" notice over top of the original copyright: see my TROJANPD.ART article for a detailed example. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | HACKED & TOJAN HORSE PROGRAMS: | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Name Category Notes -------------- -------- ------------------------------------------------- ARC.COM HACKED Someone keeps running SPACEMAKER or a similar EXE squeezer on SEA, Inc.'s ARC archive program, then uploading the resulting COM file to BBS's without the author's permission. Not kosher, whoever you are. SEA won't support the COM version -- this is an unauthorized modification. ARC513.EXE *TROJAN* This hacked version of arc appears normal, so beware! It will write over track 0 of your [hard] disk upon usage, destroying the disk. BALKTALK *TROJAN* This program used to be a good PD utility, but some one changed it to be trojan. Now this program will write/destroy sectors on your [hard] disk drive. Use this with caution if you aquire it, because it's more than likely that you got a bad copy. DISKSCAN.EXE *TROJAN* This was a PC-MAGAZINE program to scan a (hard) disk for bad sectors, but then a joker edited it to WRITE bad sectors. Also look for this under other names such as SCANBAD.EXE and BADDISK.EXE... DOSKNOWS.EXE *TROJAN* I'm still tracking this one down -- apparently someone wrote a FAT killer and renamed it DOSKNOWS.EXE, so it would be confused with the real, harmless DOSKNOWS system-status utility. All I know for sure is that the REAL DOSKNOWS.EXE is 5376 bytes long. If you see something called DOSKNOWS that isn't close to that size, sound the alarm. More info on this one is welcomed -- a bagged specimen especially. EGABTR *TROJAN* BEWARE! Description says something like "improve your EGA display," but when run it deletes everything in sight and prints "Arf! Arf! Got you!" FILER.EXE *TROJAN* Labelled "Great new filing system" - wiped out 20 Megabyte HD. I'm looking for confirmation on this. LIST60 HACKED Vuern Buerg's LIST 5.1, patched to read 6.0. QMDM110.ARC HACKED ONLY versions 1.10 and 1.10A! They are QMDM110A.ARC HACKED copies of 1.09, hacked to read 1.10. There have been rumors of a worm in 1.10, but I haven't seen any evidence of it. Other versions are OK. QUIKRBBS.COM *TROJAN* This Trojan horse advertises that it will load RBBS-PC's message file into memory 2 times faster than normal. What it really does is copy RBBS-PC.DEF into an ASCII file named HISCORES.DAT... SECRET.BAS *TROJAN* BEWARE!! This may be posted with a note saying it doesn't seem to work, and would someone please try it; when you do, it formats your disks. STRIPES.EXE *TROJAN* BEWARE SYSOPS!! This one draws an American flag (nice touch), but meanwhile it's busy copying your RBBS-PC.DEF to another file (STRIPES.BQS) so Bozo can log in later, download STRIPES.BQS, and steal all your passwords. Nice, huh! VDIR.COM *TROJAN* This is a disk killer that Jerry Pournelle wrote about in BYTE Magazine. I have never seen it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | PIRATED PROGRAMS: | | | | | | TYPES: | | Game -- some sort of game, usually of "Arcade" Quality | | Util -- a disk, screen, or general utility | | Misc -- miscellaneous, printer controllers, sound, etc. | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Program Name Type Description ------------ ---- ----------- 1DIR.COM PIRATED Util -- This is "The ONE Dir," a commercial shell sold with a Hard Disk subsystem. 21C.EXE PIRATED Game -- From the IBM Game Library ALLEYCAT.COM PIRATED Util -- The IBM game "Alley Cat" ARTOFWAR PIRATED Game -- Ancient Art of War game. AUTODEX PIRATED Util -- AUTODEX, a commercial file manager AXX.EXE PIRATED Util -- also AUTODEX B1-BOMB PIRATED Game -- Avalon Hill's B1 Bomber BATTLE PIRATED Game -- Battle Zone Game BBCHESS PIRATED Game -- Blues Box Chess BC-QUEST PIRATED Game -- Bc's Quest for Tires BRUCELEE PIRATED Game -- Bruce Lee game BUCK PIRATED Game -- Buck Rogers on Planet Zoom BURGER PIRATED Game -- Burgertime BUSHIDO PIRATED Game -- Karate Game BUZZBAIT PIRATED Game -- Buzzard Bait CENTIPED PIRATED Game -- Be careful with this one. There are at least two legitimate PD copies of Centipede in circulation. There pirated one is supposably PUBLIC DOMAIN BY ATARI. Yeah, Right. COSMIC PIRATED Game -- Cosmic Crusaders COPYRITE PIRATED Util -- Really Quaid Software's COPYWRITE COPYWRIT PIRATED Util -- Quaid Software's COPYWRITE again COSMIC PIRATED Game -- Cosmic Crusaders game CRUSH-CC.ARC PIRATED Game -- Crush, Crumble & Chomp Game DEB88.EXE PIRATED Misc -- DeSmet "C" debugger DEFENDER PIRATED Game -- Defender DIGGER.COM PIRATED Game -- Dig Dug DIGDUG.COM PIRATED Game -- Dig Dug DISKEX PIRATED Util -- Disk Explorer Utility DOSHELP.EXE PIRATED Util -- This is really Central Point Software's Pc-tools. One special note: There is usually a poorly written documentation accompanying this file. In the documentation ERIC HSU asks for a monetary contribution to his bbs. Well, It seems that this was a poor attempt to damage ERIC HSU's reputation; Eric is a legitimate SysOp in the Houston area. EXPLORER.COM PIRATED Util -- Quaid Software's Disk Explorer F15 PIRATED Game -- F-15 Strike Eagle FILEEASE PIRATED Util -- Dos Utility GOLF21.ARC PIRATED Game -- Golf's Best version 2.1 GREMLINS.COM PIRATED Game -- Gremlins game. HARDHAT.COM PIRATED Game -- Hard Hat Mack HOOP.COM PIRATED Game -- One-on-1 IBM21 PIRATED Game -- 21c JBIRD PIRATED Game -- Jbirds -- Q-bert Game JOUST PIRATED Game -- Joust. KONG PIRATED Game -- Donkey Kong MEDMAG.COM PIRATED Util -- Quaid Software's Media Magician MISSLEC PIRATED Game -- Missle command MONTYS.COM PIRATED Game -- Montezuma's Revenge MOONBUGS PIRATED Game -- Moon Bugs MS PIRATED Util -- IBM internal utility. MUSICCON PIRATED Misc -- Music Construction Set NFL.ARC PIRATED Game -- Xor's NFL challenge. NICE PIRATED Misc -- A printer Controller NORTON.COM PIRATED Util -- Peter Norton's Utilities! NOVATRON PIRATED Util -- Tron light cycles. ONE-ON-1 PIRATED Game -- One-on-1 basketball game. PATHMIND PIRATED Util -- Dos Shell PCBOSS PIRATED Util -- Another Dos shell PC-POOL PIRATED Game -- Really PC-POOL, commercial game POOL.ARC PIRATED Game -- Same PC-TOOLS PIRATED Util -- Central Point Software's Pc-tools PINCONST PIRATED Game -- Pinball Construction Set POPALARM.COM PIRATED Util -- Part of POP DOS POPDOS.ARC PIRATED Util -- Pop up (resident) dos utilities. PSHIFT PIRATED Util -- really MEMORY SHIFT PSRD.ARC PIRATED Util -- IBM utility (redirects PrtSc) QDOS PIRATED Util -- Quickdos QIX PIRATED Game -- The game. RASTER-B PIRATED Game -- Raster Blaster ROBOTRON PIRATED Game -- Robotron, hacked to read PUBLIC DOMAIN BY ATARI. Again, Yeah, Right. ROGUE.EXE PIRATED Game -- SEADRAG.ARC PIRATED Game -- Sea Dragon SEE PIRATED Misc -- DeSmet editor SFX PIRATED Util -- really AUTODEX (again!) SM.COM PIRATED Util -- Realia's SPACEMAKER utility SMAP PIRATED Util -- IBM Internal utility, with the copyright notice blanked out and real author's name () replaced by "Dorn W. Stickle". SPYHUNT PIRATED Game -- Spy Hunter Game. STARGATE.EXE PIRATED Game -- Hacked to say "PUBLIC DOMAIN BY ATARI," but don't you believe it! Don't confuse this 57 KB .EXE file with the public domain STARGATE MERCHANT game, which is a little 12 KB BASIC program by G. E. Wolfworth. STRIPKR PIRATED Game -- Strip Poker by Artworx TIRES.EXE PIRATED Game -- Again, really bc's quest for tires TEMPOFAP PIRATED Game -- Temple of Apshai ULTIII PIRATED Game -- Ultima 3 XDIR PIRATED Util -- Pre-release version of DOS FILE TRACKER XTREE PIRATED Util -- IBM's tree utility, an IBM "Personally Developed" program. ZAXXON PIRATED Game -- Hacked (sound familiar?) to say "PUBLIC DOMAIN BY SEGA." Sorry, Charlie! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Finally: | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you have any additions or corrections for this list, send them to Eric Newhouse at any of the following places: * The Crest rbbs (213-471-2518) (2400/1200) (22 MB) [ This is my board ] * The Wargames rbbs (213-393-9777) (2400/1200) (22 MB) * VOR bbs (415-994-2944) (2400/1200/300) (20 MB) * Sparta Pc-board (201-729-7056) (2400/1200/300) (60 MB) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- End of file.