KathW beat me to it:


As for a virus/spyware infecting your computer through an .mp3 thats just a hoax http://www.f-secure.com/hoaxes/mp3vir.shtml


If you did get spyware from anything related to mcdonalds it would be from there website wich im betting wasnt the case but I think this thread was just supposed to be a reminder to check for corrupted data and keep the networks clean.

As is pretty apparent by anything I've posted, I'm not the most tech savy person, but could what you are talking about be similar to when spyware is disguised like this:
email.doc _______________.exe (w/out the line of course)
where the "exe" exceeds the space alloted for listing the email so is not visable as an exe?

I think this proofes my point.

Morgwen

well than I guess you proved me wrong before I could prove myself right. but I still stand by the believe of this happening. so even if you may think it is not possible, lets still be carefull about what we downlaod and what is shared on the network. all p2p networks are at risk because the riaa is pushing the limits of technology to stop us.
by the way maybe if we share these files it wouldn't matter but if we download them, we all know that it is easy to brake in someones computer, and as mentioned before when you download things you need to give your ip. maybe that's what they use and they hack in to monitor us or drop a file in our computer whixh gives them all the information they need. maybe they also search for files on the network and download them to get our ip's. contradict me if you want but what is here I know can not be contradicted as one can do this from his home computer.

After reading the article re: Sony's depositing a rootkit on its cd's,

http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/200...al-rights.html

http://lists.webjunction.org/wjlists...er/039005.html



doesn't it make paranoia & limiting the scope of transgressions to your own experience just a little naive? They were caught and eventually had to recall the cd's (b4 the recall, the Dave Matthews Band was posting inf on how to find it), but what happens should the next one go unfound?

*applause & appreciation to Mark Russovich* . It is a blessing to have a talent which can be used to help others.

Wow,,, makes me glad I suport my local fish & chip shop!

You can of course infect your computer through any kind of file. Executable files are just the most blatant obvious way. Nonetheless the same is very often possible through pictures, audio files, videos etc. This is especially true on Microsoft Windows because it is the most widely deployed software and there are countless well-known exploits for this platform and its standard applications.

Also multimedia software like audio and video players for Linux and other operating systems has frequently serious bugs - actually they are just discovered, they exist all the time - that would allow compromise of your account - and thus likely your complete computer - just by playing an infected audio or video file.

Even worse, you can get your system infected by checking a file for viruses because after all the people who program this software are not really any more intelligent than any other programmer.

If people only talked about things they had a clue of, this place would be very silent.

I've seen these McDonald offers in France too. It was clearly stated that this was a free offer to promote the Sony's online music shop. So what you won was a ticket number, with which you coulddownloadthe music fromthe Sony's online music store. But to activate this number, you first needed to accept the EULA for the Sony's downloader kit, and register it with your email address and true name (verified by sending back a confirmation number through your email) which was needed to validate your number. The kit also permanently assigns you a UUID alsoassociated to a personal cookie used in your browser.

So, you could download free MP3's, but these MP3s contain watermarked fingerprints with your personal registration number or Sony transaction number encrypted in it. If you later share these MP3s on the net, your digital fingerprint is visible in it.Sony assumes that such a file present on the net is a proof that you have violated their EULA, because such fingerprint uses a strong enough cryptographic algorithm which should be impossible to generate randomly by someone else. But Sony ignores the fact that fingerprinted files may be stolen on user's harddisks by hidden softwares using the same technics that Sony used to install their rootkits.

Until it is proven that Windows is reliable for its storage, I don't think that any DRM fingerprint found in a downloaded MP3 file can be used as proof of any EULA violation by users. It can only be used within investigations to detect which users may beviolating EULA, but then the act of counterfeighting still requires other proofs, notably the correlation of other fingerprints and Internet access logs collected by ISPs.

But the bad thing is that fingerprints are also inserted within all the legitimate MP3 you create yourself with addons implemented in your player (WMP, RealOne Player, QuickTime/iTunes, WinAmp), and as well in your photos and video made by your camera, or documents created with your favorite office application. These fingerprints, are also correlated externally within undeclared databases each time you send orshare these files legally.

Today, third party databases are so powerful things that they can really spy on your whole life: just ask yourself why you start receiving personal adds in your snailmail letterbox just afewdaysafter you have moved to a new location, from merchants you evendid not know before, and you'll seethat new database recordsadded by your bank or post office or phone company or travel agency or cable TV provider (or even public services like health care, tax services) are sold to advertizers.

With so much information about you, it's not difficult to correlate many things about new contents on the net. But the dangerous way is now to use these data,often collected without your knowledge or control (whichmay contain errors or incorrect correlations) as evidences for alleged illegal activities. Media companies consider that this type of proof is insufficidently strong to create proofs, sothey want to justify this with even more spying on your daily activities, as if we were not already too much spied often illegally.

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No you can't. You are reffering to a Microsoft Windows flaw in the JPEG engine that is used to render JPEG images. The only thing that this flaw can present a problem is that a specially crafted JPEG image could create a buffer over flow and execute remote code. It cannot install a virus. And the code that can be attached to it is limited to 1028 bytes. (1KB)... for this code to present any REAL problems, it would have be larger than 1KB in size. That said, never open attachments unless you specifically requested it or knew it was being sent from a known contact prior to opening it. Most people just randomly open attachments because there name was in the email. (can i say dumbass??)

1KB is much enough to call a Windows API that will download a virus from an URL available on an IRC site, and then run and install it. Don't forget that the needed DLLs toperform these calls are already linked into the JPEG renderer which is itself running in the context of the Internet Explorer process, so it has lots of capability. I'd say that danger starts only at 128 bytes of binary payload, or about 200 bytes if there are byte restrictions. But there has been exploits using even less bytes.

Don't forget that this code may also use data or code embedded within valid image file fragments (even if this part produces some "garbage" on screen if that part of the image was effectively rendered).

In addition, you can put this image on amaliciouswebsite whereit is downloaded along with multiple images containing other parts of the exploit code. This code could also be used to remove security restriction settings, that will be used immediately after by an active viral component downloaded from the same malicious page (this active viral component beingnormally blocked by security restrictions).

One common target you could perform within 1KB would be to set a domain into the "safe" security zone instead of the internet zone.

You can also control the sequencing order for these downloaded component, for example by using delayed HTTP redirects or delayed javascript redirects. With thosetypesofredirect, you have a content bodyto downloadthe first component, and later you'll goto the next page that performs the following action.

In all modern attacks, the first steps to viral infection is first to disable the security restrictions that will allow a virus or rootkit to be "trusted" by the host and then install itself without notice.

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