OT: C|Net's Download.com adware, spyware, malware hijinkx.

[Chris Brennan <xaero@xaerolimit.net>]

Sorry for the cross post I hadn't seen any chatter about this on the lists. It

would seem that Download.com got caught with their pants down and were

re-wrapping F/OSS with their own installer and bundling adware, spyware 

and malware with it.

NMap's author, over at insecure.org got pretty hot about it and has collected

considerable information on the topic since he learned about it on Monday.

http://insecure.org/news/download-com-fiasco.html

http://seclists.org/nmap-hackers/2011/5

http://seclists.org/nmap-hackers/2011/6

Again, sorry for the cross post, but I know how I would feel if this were done

to me (I'd be pretty pissed!) So flame me later for cross-posting and if your a

software developer who also makes software for Windows users, then go and

check your stuff if it's listed on download.com.

So far, paint.net's software, VLC, NMap and emergeDesktop were affected.

Being a part of emergeDesktop's community, I know the author their has 

instructed the community to not download his software from download.com,

I'm not sure what steps have been taken for paint.net and VLC though.

> --
> Chris Brennan
> A: Yes.
> >Q: Are you sure?
> >>A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.
> >>>Q: Why is top posting frowned upon?
> http://xkcd.com/84/ | http://xkcd.com/149/ | http://xkcd.com/549/
> GPG: D5B20C0C (6741 8EE4 6C7D 11FB 8DA8  9E4A EECD 9A84 D5B2 0C0C)
------------------------------------------------------------------------