Unusual text in Config
- Thread starter Spruce
- Start date
The only real way an asset could possibly transfer a virus would be by using an infected jpeg (there's a flaw in MS's jpeg handling that is used by IE and all applications that use the same COM 'controls', which CM very possibly uses). There *does* appear to be 2 slightly dodgy looking jpegs in there that don't seem to really serve any purpose.
However, most competent virus scanners (ok, so not McAffee or Norton
should be able to detect infected jpegs, and would probably stop the assets being downloaded at all (since they need to be written to disk before being committed by TrainzUtil). The jpegs included all scan 'clean'.The last, and most important, technical point is, that there would be no way for an asset to differentiate between a 'good' and a 'bad' copier (the threat in the config leads me to suspect it's threatening a virus as a copy-protection method for 'illegal copiers').
All that aside, it looks like yet another immoral use of the DLS, such a threat is illegal, whether there's a virus present or not, and using a virus as a method of copy-protection is orders of magnitude more illegal than anything an 'illegal copier' would be doing (virus authorship is a criminal act, whereas copyright infringement would be a civil act).
Given that Auran still haven't removed the 'trainz2007' 'pink blobs' that I have to manually avoid updating every morning, I wouldn't expect anything to happen to these assets though.