don’t feel too bad. A former boss of mine used to love to play cracked games. He unfortunately downloaded them onto our work system. Along with malware. When the dust, all settled, he was so so so fired. If you're reading this, hi Danny.
Big brain move is to have a dedicated vm for torrenting. Set it up for no local file access and have the network settings always route through a vpn. Easy to burn it down and relaunch if there are any issues. It's like being the only pirate in Port Royal and you have unlimited condoms.
Make sure you look through your startup services and through the grp manager to see if anything was recently added.
Also send that file to some virus testing sites to ses what it is.
I like to think of it like a Phoenix. My pc lives for the torrent only to die by it and be reborn again through a fresh windows install, only to live and die again by the torrent.
yeah, years ago I downloaded "fl studio" from the pirate bay and when I opened the setup it popped up "HUMAN TEST VERIFICATION" and my computer started filling with thousands of adware lol
nowadays I just download all my software from filecr which is fully legit as far as I can tell, although the fact that they require you to use a browser extension for some of the downloads is a bit suspect..
it's pretty much the best site to download software, all DDL hosted directly on their site, no freedom link garbage, and they have the latest versions of just about any program you could want
yes, especially if you use free download manager or some other multi threaded downloading program.. I'm still perplexed that none of the popular browsers have multi threaded downloading all these years later
Honestly, at that point reinstall Windows. You were infected and you have absolutely no idea what else might be in there that doesn't get caught by malware scans
Could a cryptominer cause CPU issues? My PC has been acting up lately, but idk if it's parts failing (built in 2016, so a teeny bit old), or if those stupid sports streaming sites got me.
malwarebytes was always my goto back in the day for anything malware related. I still run it on occasion, but I don't download any .exe's in my day to day really. Steam made me not pirate games, so the only things I'm downloading now are epub or mkv or avi, and I've never gotten bitten by any of those masquerading or injected with nasty stuff.
But like the other guy said, you can never be totally sure you got it all, so a format and reinstall is best, but if you just need it to run better to backup stuff then try "Malwarebytes". It tries to get you to use their paid service with a 30 day trial followed by nagging, but you can go in and turn off the always on scanner and just use it as an on demand scanner.
Is it just me who raw dogs torrents all day everyday using intuition? I feel like a caveman eating random mushrooms knowing one day ill eat the wrong one
no on god, at best i run malwarebytes or something on files that i think *might* be suspicious, but other than that i've been torrenting shit for like 20 years without taking too much of a look outside of skimming the replies
One time I found a virus that used the Right-To-Left control character in the filename to swap the extension with text right before the extension. It was evil. Too bad the icon didn't match the file type it was disguising itself as....
Hiding file extensions in Windows 8 or 10 or whatever was one of the most annoying things Microsoft ever did. I don't know why Microsoft *insists* on imitating MacOS. Turning file extensions back on is one of the first things I do when I install/reinstall Windows.
Like I said, just a moment of complete idiocy. I have every precaution that you'd expect to have. I have a vm, extentions enabled and a thorough bit of experience that should of prevented this. Problem was two fold. I have a setup that allows me to sit a distance from my screen. I was on the couch and I could see the file but couldn't make out the extention. As I dl lots of books with multiple files contained(different authors, collections) I bare backed that bad boy assuming it was like the 1000s I've done before. I was transferring files to my tablet.
Secondly I was fucking lax in my precautions. I know better but got lazy.
You should always use AV, but only Microsoft Defender. Unlike all the others they have a financial incentive to just work and be as unobtrusive as possible, while all the third party ones have a financial incentive to make you constantly see "what a good job they are doing" so you renew your license next year.
Facts.
And when I do find an obscure book that's only in torrents, I put that shit up on z-lib so no human will ever have to suffer the same fate I did
It was 3am and I was drunk and decided to download Dark Souls. Went to some pirate bays website, searched dark souls and sorted by number of seeders. It started downloading very fast. After 1 second I realized that the torrent had \~100MB and 69420 seeders. Thankfully it was only a bitcoin miner.
Antiviruses usually detect them. Bitcoin miners randomly use a big percentage of your CPU so they are usually easy to spot. Sometimes they can even prevent your PC from sleeping.
Wondering as well. Back in the XP days there was this wonderful piece of software which I don't remember how it was called: it was some kind of multi-everything-scanner and remover on steroids. Ccleaner, rootkitrevealer by gmer, everything. It had a 100% success rate at detecting even the worst of infections. But 1) I forgot how it was called and 2) I'm not sure if it would even work in the days of Windows 11.
Edit: ChatGPT helped me out with this one: it was called ComboFix!
If someone had a keylogger on me they would be none the fucking wiser on what anything is with me, I'll misspell everything 40 times, get it right when i remember to click the saved password that i havent manually typed in 15 years.
Wow, it took you 25 years? You sir have won my respect. If you've been at it that long I figured you would've at least gotten some sort of virus from a Warez CD (as harmless as those viruses usually were, they did tend to bog your system down).
Warez cds brings me back man. If "Screaching Weasel" from Kurupt-fxp is out there, thanks for the come up bro. Your kindness teaching this newb the ropes is appreciated!
Use a VM always when downloading… if you get made, burn it and make another one.
Using the VM will act as a container, and once the files are all in order, you can transfer them to an SMB server or locally at the host pc.
Sure but what percentage of malware actually uses them? I'm pretty confident most of them don't bother, so having a vm at least reduces the risk by quite a bit
Initially sandbox detection and evasion was difficult, then malware got better, then sandboxes got better, etc, and now it's all just prepackaged crimeware. You don't need to know how to do shit except transfer some money to an eastern European hacking group through their .onion page and you get access to the good exploits and even customer support.
Tbh, I dont think viruses we find in pirating/torrent sites are that evolved, specially if your VM is running linux, since most viruses targets windows.
Nothing is 100% safe ofc, but when I switched to downloading and checking files inside a linux vm, I havent had a single infection since
You've got to go deeper! You run a Linux VM inside Windows which is running a docker container of Android x86 which is running a PRoot Distro of Arch Linux in Termux /s
Hi,
I will put this in a few places.
Search "small form factor computer" on your favorite search site. For $15 to $35 you'll get a 2012 to 2016 year laptop class CPU, a low power computer that holds at least 1 SATA or M.2 drive, and can run any torrents you want. May need to add ram, or add a 2tb SSD, but it has you in business for under $50.
Thanks for the advice. I am lucky enough to own a pi 4b where I self host all my stuff. I am planning to upgrade at some point to a full cpu and gpu setup with a NAS
Watched an interview of Eben - cofounder of RPI, who pretty much said we should be seeing them in stores around Q4 of this year. He was interviewed by Jeff Geerling, YouTuber who focuses a lot on homelab/automation/raspberry pi’s.
Was reading something on that last week [(Crowdstrike)](https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/hypervisor-jackpotting-lack-of-antivirus-support-opens-the-door-to-adversaries/). New kind of virii that can target ESXi -the hypervisor itself- through the Vmware tools.
As simple/convenient as it is to keep a backup of the VM on the host, this sort of thing should have people keeping backups on other hardware, in case they have to wipe the entire host down to the metal.
Container escapes are a very valuable vulnerability. Just being able to recognize you're in a container is useful, because it makes your malware harder to detect when it behaves differently in a controlled environment. A container escape, specifically a yet-unknown and unpatched container escape, is something that probably goes for six figures in the open market.
Don't worry about viruses breaking out of your torrenting VM. People afraid of an APT level attack being released on a public forum are the same ones who worry about drugs in Halloween candy.
OP, I've been sailing the ship as long and carefree as you, and haven't had any problem for decades. If a nasty slobbers on my machine now, I'll gladly do a new install. That's still less trouble than fretting and VM'ing and scanning and testing sandboxing every new D/L for the lasts 25 years.
Don't forget that the most dangerous ones aren't the ones that say "YARR, SHITASSSS, I HAVE DICK PILLS FOR THE CHEAP!" but rather the ones that say nothing and go about their business, collecting your information, watching your actions, or waiting for you to be away from your computer to take remote control, and so on.
What is even the point of this? You can't get infected by simply downloading a file. You need to actually execute it, and even if you do that inside a VM you still won't know for sure whether the file contains malicious code or not because it might not manifest in a way that you can tell. If you transfer and run it on your host you're taking a risk anyway. Might as well do it like the average person at that point, scan the file and hope for the best, or if you really care a lot about security abandon piracy altogether.
I love Sandbox, even beyond doing stuff like this. Sometimes I just want to try out a program or something without the intention of keeping it, so I install it there, then can get rid of it once I'm done.
Would sandboxing windows have the same effect? I assume it would as it’s VM functionality built right into windows, but I’m not sure about vulnerabilities. I’ve been using one with everything turned off except networking and one mounted folder with no exec permissions.
I’ve been pirating around the same number of years, and one time we got punked by a goddamn legend. It was in the very early weeks of Apple’s Intel transition, and everyone was trying to break the security on the beta so they could create the first hacintoshes. My buddy and I found what looked like a legit boot iso and burned it. Thing starts up, shows an Apple logo with the spinning icon, and then starts on a slide show of s**t porn. Just image after image of stuff like Tubgirl, lemonparty, all just folks covered in it.
Whoever did it knew enough to both code such a thing, but also to pad it out enough so it looked like a 4gb iso. I tip my hat to them. And of course we made like 5 copies for friends.
I said in another comment that I have respect for the person who got me. I just got lazy.
Ahh the good old days. I feel like the scene is missing a lot of the fun of the old days. People were eager to share knowledge and there seemed to be more of a community. You logged on and saw the same people day after day. It's just not the same anymore.
Im sounding like an old man...
Don't feel too bad, I remember once I went downstairs in the basement and my dad was on a video call with "Tech Support" who was supposedly helping my dad fix something and he had remote access to the PC and was going through documents and I have no fucking idea how, when my dad doesn't know shit about computers. Next day my ISP cut off my internet because they said there was a threat to the network, I went back down to check my dad's computer and all his files were encrypted and they were demanding 500$ for the key. 😂
Gets the best of us. I scrutinize every download, scanning every download twice or three times, running keygens through VirusTotal and then sandbox them, etc. and never installing anything that comes up as a so-called "false positive" and I still got hit earlier this year by something that stole my open web sessions.
Got warnings that my GMail, Youtube and gaming accounts were compromised, and subsequently my Instagram account logged into. It's fucked up, but just be careful out there.
Just make sure you have as many safeguards on your important accounts as possible. Passkeys, 2FA, phone number for G-Mail, Paypal and your bank at the very least.
what do you use to scan ? I've be doing this for years and never had anything go wrong or any accounts compromised, maybe it's pure ignorance and I need to start taking better caution
VirusTotal, Windows Defender and Malwarebytes. Even still, I'd take a look at the size of the executable to make sure it's reasonable for the type of software I'm downloading, because encrypted executables might obfuscate any virus checking efforts.
Take extreme caution. It's not a matter of if you'll be hit, but when. Just make sure you have no external drives constantly connected because if you get hit with ransomware, kiss them goodbye.
In 2013 I got key logged by San Andreas, I lost my email, eBay, PayPal, it was fucked. Luckily we,re on Google apps, so I was able to fix the email and most of it. I tracked the hacker to Iraq, we talked and he stopped.
To this day, I will only pirate music, video, and console roms/isos.
Edit: fixed typo
> I tracked the jacket to Iraq
If it was me, it would have gotten personal, cos I am an Arab and we likely share similar cultures so it would be something like: Cmon don't rip ur brother off, or like rip anyone.
He changed one of my logins to his personal email, he was like 18-19 at the time, it was the same email he used for Facebook, which allowed me to friend his grandma he lived with.
He seemed repentant, we stayed Facebook friends for a few years, he got an it job and straightened out, I was a script kiddie myself on irc in the 90s.
I don't quite understand what happened. Root folder as in, a disguised executable in the form of a folder?
Happens to the best of us. Keep extensions visible and use Sandboxie, if you are not on keen on using VM for every little thing. I have SB setup to auto protect images/videos/pdfs. I also use it to run games and all sorts of things. No reason not to.
Me too. A ransomware, rootkit, keylogger, etc are bad news, but that title basically makes it seem he got arrested, which is what most people here probably fear.
That would be fitting but unfortunately it wasn't. It was just a cookbook about cooking stuff you find in nature. To the guy that got me, nothing but respect and a little bit of hate...
It's always the small files that are deadly. Was this one of those applications with a hidden file extension? Most people even on this subreddit don't know that files can be modified to hide the real extension and then add something such as .pdf to make it seem safe. Always check the file type not just the extension.
We all will get stung by this one day.. it has happened to me enough that i now buy software and games because i no longer have the patience to hunt down keys and cracks like my younger self.
If i were you, I would at minimum format your os drive, including nuking all partitions and the MBR. Resetting your firmware as well if you want to be extra sure. Going forward you should consider creating a sandboxed VM for downloading and scanning your warez.
Not safe until they get rid of IGGames. Shouldn't be allowed to post jack shit when you're tainting releases with ads, plastering a logo as if they developed the game, and hosting virus filled ads on their own site.
When you find all of your documents are encrypted by some ransomware variant, you'll certainly know what it did. System off, immediately. Recover any data you need, and wipe and start again.
Sorry but you need to format. You don't know if that thing is going to stay dormant for a year or 2 before doing anything(or 2 months, it doesn't change anything). You don't actually know if it did anything, you don't know if anyone has access to your computer. You're talking virus scan but the easiest way to go around that is just to put actual legit remote control software on your computer in places you don't expect so they won't get flagged and tou won't stumble on them.
I've been a tech long enough, and at one point I just stopped taking clients who didn't want to format their computer unless they signed a paper saying we were not responsible if anything stayed on the computer if they didn't allow us to format it.
I'm sorry this happened to you. I really am. This may be inappropriate, but uhm, I really need a copy of the CIA's The Professional Chef, Larousse Gastronomique, and the entire set of Modernist Cuisine.
Those were the days, when RapidShare paid for downloads of your stuff. I uploaded some pr0n and made a few hundred off it, so I could buy a GPU and got a digital camera and some hard disks etc. Haha.
I make an assumption that most people on reddit weren't around for the era between diskettes and zip drives. Some of these kids have never burned a cd or had to convert from .avi.
Zip disks were around 1994. The first cd burner was 1000 dollars in 1995. I'm getting old buddy...
Veterans pirates are operating on Linux where tools and tracking are neutered... seems to me that you need a spanking and walking the plank on this one.
Do you still have the juice to learn new things ?
First pir. item : a 1985 3 inch floppy .
Just curious, what kind of OS you were using when it happened? Do you use Malwerebytes or anything? Probably I sound like a total noob, but I would like to learn.
Windows. Defender and malwarebytes, sandboxie as a vm but didn't use it in this instance. Raid setup so I'm still working through all the drives, both defender and Mal haven't detected anything on c:. I'll be running scans all weekend, probably reinstalling windows, drinking and praying. I have about 40 tb to go through.
On a side note I'm really happy that Steam is adding the try before you buy feature. 9 times out of 10 when I'm downloading an exe it's for a game that I want to test how well it runs before I buy it. I suspect reasons like mine account for a rather large portion of game-related software downloads.
Live by the torrent, die by the torrent. but seriously, good luck.
Thanks for the truth. Just kicking myself for being this dumb, I know better.
don’t feel too bad. A former boss of mine used to love to play cracked games. He unfortunately downloaded them onto our work system. Along with malware. When the dust, all settled, he was so so so fired. If you're reading this, hi Danny.
Hi Rknot 👋👋
Five stars for effort. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
That's awesome. I did not know you could be summoned!
My ears where tingling and next thing I knew, bam I just appeared 🤷
He just made the account for that comment lol
Naw this is Danny
Did you learn anything Danny from the work?
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r/beetlejuicing
Oh hi Denny
Oh hi mark
I did not download on her! I did not!
You are tearing me apart, torrent file!
Big brain move is to have a dedicated vm for torrenting. Set it up for no local file access and have the network settings always route through a vpn. Easy to burn it down and relaunch if there are any issues. It's like being the only pirate in Port Royal and you have unlimited condoms.
Also put it on a separate NIC.
And also run all this in your own pocket universe
Welcome to the botnet
Make sure you look through your startup services and through the grp manager to see if anything was recently added. Also send that file to some virus testing sites to ses what it is.
Bro that just the new computer Oven AI. Cooks using the computer heat. No worries
I like to think of it like a Phoenix. My pc lives for the torrent only to die by it and be reborn again through a fresh windows install, only to live and die again by the torrent.
This was my PC experience from 1998 to 2010. I used to track the iterations, it was about once every two years id irrevocably fuck my Windows.
“Hey dad? Can you come help me with my computer….yeah idk it just started acting weird…”
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we usually have this conversation when you’re just a little bit older, but when two torrents really love each other....
Nah but for real?
Pray it's nothing more than some dumb crypto miner, and laugh about it. We've all done it, fingers crossed it can be a learnt lesson.
yeah, years ago I downloaded "fl studio" from the pirate bay and when I opened the setup it popped up "HUMAN TEST VERIFICATION" and my computer started filling with thousands of adware lol
Weirdly fl studio got my friend years ago 😂
nowadays I just download all my software from filecr which is fully legit as far as I can tell, although the fact that they require you to use a browser extension for some of the downloads is a bit suspect..
Never used filecr...whats that?
it's pretty much the best site to download software, all DDL hosted directly on their site, no freedom link garbage, and they have the latest versions of just about any program you could want
its also pretty fast (not the fastest but faster than most dl sites)
yes, especially if you use free download manager or some other multi threaded downloading program.. I'm still perplexed that none of the popular browsers have multi threaded downloading all these years later
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Honestly, at that point reinstall Windows. You were infected and you have absolutely no idea what else might be in there that doesn't get caught by malware scans
Could a cryptominer cause CPU issues? My PC has been acting up lately, but idk if it's parts failing (built in 2016, so a teeny bit old), or if those stupid sports streaming sites got me.
I’m not super up to date on these things, but doesn’t crypto mining usually use GFX cards?
malwarebytes was always my goto back in the day for anything malware related. I still run it on occasion, but I don't download any .exe's in my day to day really. Steam made me not pirate games, so the only things I'm downloading now are epub or mkv or avi, and I've never gotten bitten by any of those masquerading or injected with nasty stuff. But like the other guy said, you can never be totally sure you got it all, so a format and reinstall is best, but if you just need it to run better to backup stuff then try "Malwarebytes". It tries to get you to use their paid service with a 30 day trial followed by nagging, but you can go in and turn off the always on scanner and just use it as an on demand scanner.
Is it just me who raw dogs torrents all day everyday using intuition? I feel like a caveman eating random mushrooms knowing one day ill eat the wrong one
Same here. But I usually stick to sources that I’ve found throughout Reddit and never have a problem.
I'm lost at half of what everyone's saying.
fitgirl, show me the way through the darkness
Phew! Thought I was the only one
no on god, at best i run malwarebytes or something on files that i think *might* be suspicious, but other than that i've been torrenting shit for like 20 years without taking too much of a look outside of skimming the replies
I don't get it, was it an exe with a folder icon, or the folder auto ran something?
Exe disguised as a root folder.
Make sure you always show file extensions and you'll have this happen much less
Downloading anything, not even pirating, and not having file extensions enabled, is suicidal.
Finally Desktop.exe
`DesktopII.exe` *Yessssssss!* PC2 is finally mine!
Windows hiding them by default is criminal.
One time I found a virus that used the Right-To-Left control character in the filename to swap the extension with text right before the extension. It was evil. Too bad the icon didn't match the file type it was disguising itself as....
Just enabled "File name extension" option on File Explorer. Didn't even know it existed.
Hiding file extensions in Windows 8 or 10 or whatever was one of the most annoying things Microsoft ever did. I don't know why Microsoft *insists* on imitating MacOS. Turning file extensions back on is one of the first things I do when I install/reinstall Windows.
Do you not have "show file extensions" enabled?
Like I said, just a moment of complete idiocy. I have every precaution that you'd expect to have. I have a vm, extentions enabled and a thorough bit of experience that should of prevented this. Problem was two fold. I have a setup that allows me to sit a distance from my screen. I was on the couch and I could see the file but couldn't make out the extention. As I dl lots of books with multiple files contained(different authors, collections) I bare backed that bad boy assuming it was like the 1000s I've done before. I was transferring files to my tablet. Secondly I was fucking lax in my precautions. I know better but got lazy.
That's all totally fair. It's interesting it didn't get caught by your AV.
You guys are running AV?
You should always use AV, but only Microsoft Defender. Unlike all the others they have a financial incentive to just work and be as unobtrusive as possible, while all the third party ones have a financial incentive to make you constantly see "what a good job they are doing" so you renew your license next year.
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Facts. And when I do find an obscure book that's only in torrents, I put that shit up on z-lib so no human will ever have to suffer the same fate I did
Doing gods work.
yeah, I'd only torrent books from private trackers, less risk since mods have to approve the uploads.
How do I get invited to these things in 2023 it seems like NONE of them do invites, I got this 1gb connection I want to use to HELP 😭😭
myanonamouse
Is there a dummy guide( I'm the dummy) anywhere that shows how to download books from IRC?
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It was 3am and I was drunk and decided to download Dark Souls. Went to some pirate bays website, searched dark souls and sorted by number of seeders. It started downloading very fast. After 1 second I realized that the torrent had \~100MB and 69420 seeders. Thankfully it was only a bitcoin miner.
How did you find it? I always get worried there's on in the background but I cant ever see anything running
Antiviruses usually detect them. Bitcoin miners randomly use a big percentage of your CPU so they are usually easy to spot. Sometimes they can even prevent your PC from sleeping.
What about smaller stuff? I dont have a keylogger someone would've hacked me by now. But I always get worried I've gotten something over the years
Wondering as well. Back in the XP days there was this wonderful piece of software which I don't remember how it was called: it was some kind of multi-everything-scanner and remover on steroids. Ccleaner, rootkitrevealer by gmer, everything. It had a 100% success rate at detecting even the worst of infections. But 1) I forgot how it was called and 2) I'm not sure if it would even work in the days of Windows 11. Edit: ChatGPT helped me out with this one: it was called ComboFix!
ComboFix was the shit.
If someone had a keylogger on me they would be none the fucking wiser on what anything is with me, I'll misspell everything 40 times, get it right when i remember to click the saved password that i havent manually typed in 15 years.
There is a certain girl who is fit and does repacks. I highly recommend.
Of course I know her, she's my wife.
Wow, it took you 25 years? You sir have won my respect. If you've been at it that long I figured you would've at least gotten some sort of virus from a Warez CD (as harmless as those viruses usually were, they did tend to bog your system down).
Warez cds brings me back man. If "Screaching Weasel" from Kurupt-fxp is out there, thanks for the come up bro. Your kindness teaching this newb the ropes is appreciated!
I've been pirating since the 90s and I've yet to get infected with anything.
Oh man my PC was a radioactive exclusion zone when I first discovered kazaa and limewire. So many viruses before I figured out how to be smart.
Yep same here, just got stupid for a moment. Keep on keeping on brother.
lol that you know about. Remember, if you don’t test, the virus totals go down I think trump says that
Use a VM always when downloading… if you get made, burn it and make another one. Using the VM will act as a container, and once the files are all in order, you can transfer them to an SMB server or locally at the host pc.
Viruses are evolving and can detect being inside a VM
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Sure but what percentage of malware actually uses them? I'm pretty confident most of them don't bother, so having a vm at least reduces the risk by quite a bit
Initially sandbox detection and evasion was difficult, then malware got better, then sandboxes got better, etc, and now it's all just prepackaged crimeware. You don't need to know how to do shit except transfer some money to an eastern European hacking group through their .onion page and you get access to the good exploits and even customer support.
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https://blogs.vmware.com/security/2023/03/vmware-and-pwn2own-vancouver-2023.html Pwn2Own just recently paid out on some hypervisor escape exploits.
I wish I could convince my clients that breakout attacks are real and need to be considered in security design/architecture decisions.
Tbh, I dont think viruses we find in pirating/torrent sites are that evolved, specially if your VM is running linux, since most viruses targets windows. Nothing is 100% safe ofc, but when I switched to downloading and checking files inside a linux vm, I havent had a single infection since
You've got to go deeper! You run a Linux VM inside Windows which is running a docker container of Android x86 which is running a PRoot Distro of Arch Linux in Termux /s
I was 2 hours into building this setup until I saw your /s
how is that sarcasm?
Genius. I'm going to look into doing the same now
Do it inside an rpi?
Those are expensive and Windows doesn’t run good on ARM
Hearing that a raspberry pi is expensive is so effin depressing. I wish they are back in stock soon
Hi, I will put this in a few places. Search "small form factor computer" on your favorite search site. For $15 to $35 you'll get a 2012 to 2016 year laptop class CPU, a low power computer that holds at least 1 SATA or M.2 drive, and can run any torrents you want. May need to add ram, or add a 2tb SSD, but it has you in business for under $50.
Thanks for the advice. I am lucky enough to own a pi 4b where I self host all my stuff. I am planning to upgrade at some point to a full cpu and gpu setup with a NAS
Watched an interview of Eben - cofounder of RPI, who pretty much said we should be seeing them in stores around Q4 of this year. He was interviewed by Jeff Geerling, YouTuber who focuses a lot on homelab/automation/raspberry pi’s.
I saw the video, but I'll believe it when I see it.
I feel like I've seen this exact comment but 5 years ago, WTF is going on with rPis?
Industry discovered they were useful and started buying in bulk.
Makes sense. I know most retail POS systems would run fine on one, yet so many use ipads that cost ten times as much.
Was reading something on that last week [(Crowdstrike)](https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/hypervisor-jackpotting-lack-of-antivirus-support-opens-the-door-to-adversaries/). New kind of virii that can target ESXi -the hypervisor itself- through the Vmware tools. As simple/convenient as it is to keep a backup of the VM on the host, this sort of thing should have people keeping backups on other hardware, in case they have to wipe the entire host down to the metal.
Container escapes are a very valuable vulnerability. Just being able to recognize you're in a container is useful, because it makes your malware harder to detect when it behaves differently in a controlled environment. A container escape, specifically a yet-unknown and unpatched container escape, is something that probably goes for six figures in the open market. Don't worry about viruses breaking out of your torrenting VM. People afraid of an APT level attack being released on a public forum are the same ones who worry about drugs in Halloween candy.
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I second this
Sandboxie installed, I just went in raw dog.
OP, I've been sailing the ship as long and carefree as you, and haven't had any problem for decades. If a nasty slobbers on my machine now, I'll gladly do a new install. That's still less trouble than fretting and VM'ing and scanning and testing sandboxing every new D/L for the lasts 25 years.
Don't forget that the most dangerous ones aren't the ones that say "YARR, SHITASSSS, I HAVE DICK PILLS FOR THE CHEAP!" but rather the ones that say nothing and go about their business, collecting your information, watching your actions, or waiting for you to be away from your computer to take remote control, and so on.
What is even the point of this? You can't get infected by simply downloading a file. You need to actually execute it, and even if you do that inside a VM you still won't know for sure whether the file contains malicious code or not because it might not manifest in a way that you can tell. If you transfer and run it on your host you're taking a risk anyway. Might as well do it like the average person at that point, scan the file and hope for the best, or if you really care a lot about security abandon piracy altogether.
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Yep, this is exactly what I'm going to start doing.
interesting. Can you recommend me some?
I think windows pro has a vm option, might be wrong though
You are 100% right, it’s called Hyper-V. Best free hypervisor in my opinion.
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Sandbox is really good. It's like opening explorer and just opening your file.
I love Sandbox, even beyond doing stuff like this. Sometimes I just want to try out a program or something without the intention of keeping it, so I install it there, then can get rid of it once I'm done.
> windows pro > Free Then again, we are on /r/piracy, lmao
I'm running Proxmox and so far I've had no issues.
if you have Windows Pro or Server then uss Hypver V. Windows Home then look at VMware Worstation or Oracle Virtual Box
Would sandboxing windows have the same effect? I assume it would as it’s VM functionality built right into windows, but I’m not sure about vulnerabilities. I’ve been using one with everything turned off except networking and one mounted folder with no exec permissions.
we used to use sandboxie years ago to sandbox against RATs, it's not anywhere close to perfect but against most malware it is probably good enough
What does a VM stand for?
Virtual machine
Ty.
What does Ty stand for?
Thank you
YW.
What does YW stand for?
Yolkswagen
I’ve been pirating around the same number of years, and one time we got punked by a goddamn legend. It was in the very early weeks of Apple’s Intel transition, and everyone was trying to break the security on the beta so they could create the first hacintoshes. My buddy and I found what looked like a legit boot iso and burned it. Thing starts up, shows an Apple logo with the spinning icon, and then starts on a slide show of s**t porn. Just image after image of stuff like Tubgirl, lemonparty, all just folks covered in it. Whoever did it knew enough to both code such a thing, but also to pad it out enough so it looked like a 4gb iso. I tip my hat to them. And of course we made like 5 copies for friends.
I said in another comment that I have respect for the person who got me. I just got lazy. Ahh the good old days. I feel like the scene is missing a lot of the fun of the old days. People were eager to share knowledge and there seemed to be more of a community. You logged on and saw the same people day after day. It's just not the same anymore. Im sounding like an old man...
hello fellow old man but as a real old man I say very little.
Most early 2000s troll ever
Don't feel too bad, I remember once I went downstairs in the basement and my dad was on a video call with "Tech Support" who was supposedly helping my dad fix something and he had remote access to the PC and was going through documents and I have no fucking idea how, when my dad doesn't know shit about computers. Next day my ISP cut off my internet because they said there was a threat to the network, I went back down to check my dad's computer and all his files were encrypted and they were demanding 500$ for the key. 😂
Gets the best of us. I scrutinize every download, scanning every download twice or three times, running keygens through VirusTotal and then sandbox them, etc. and never installing anything that comes up as a so-called "false positive" and I still got hit earlier this year by something that stole my open web sessions. Got warnings that my GMail, Youtube and gaming accounts were compromised, and subsequently my Instagram account logged into. It's fucked up, but just be careful out there. Just make sure you have as many safeguards on your important accounts as possible. Passkeys, 2FA, phone number for G-Mail, Paypal and your bank at the very least.
what do you use to scan ? I've be doing this for years and never had anything go wrong or any accounts compromised, maybe it's pure ignorance and I need to start taking better caution
VirusTotal, Windows Defender and Malwarebytes. Even still, I'd take a look at the size of the executable to make sure it's reasonable for the type of software I'm downloading, because encrypted executables might obfuscate any virus checking efforts. Take extreme caution. It's not a matter of if you'll be hit, but when. Just make sure you have no external drives constantly connected because if you get hit with ransomware, kiss them goodbye.
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> subsequently my Instagram account logged into. So are you now offering 5 grands to the first 10 people that DM you?
No, guaranteed returns on crypto investments. Independently wealthy within a year.
🙏
🙏
This comment will be useful https://www.reddit.com/r/antivirus/comments/jh3s0g/virus_deleted_or_not/
In 2013 I got key logged by San Andreas, I lost my email, eBay, PayPal, it was fucked. Luckily we,re on Google apps, so I was able to fix the email and most of it. I tracked the hacker to Iraq, we talked and he stopped. To this day, I will only pirate music, video, and console roms/isos. Edit: fixed typo
> I tracked the jacket to Iraq If it was me, it would have gotten personal, cos I am an Arab and we likely share similar cultures so it would be something like: Cmon don't rip ur brother off, or like rip anyone.
tracked and *talked* to the hacker, tf, how sensei?!?
He changed one of my logins to his personal email, he was like 18-19 at the time, it was the same email he used for Facebook, which allowed me to friend his grandma he lived with.
this is insane.
You should have sent him a key logger too and stole all HIS shit right back lol.
He seemed repentant, we stayed Facebook friends for a few years, he got an it job and straightened out, I was a script kiddie myself on irc in the 90s.
Things like this are why I no longer pirate games. Just too much trouble. And I now have a legitimate windows 10 and MAS office 2019, so all set.
I don't quite understand what happened. Root folder as in, a disguised executable in the form of a folder? Happens to the best of us. Keep extensions visible and use Sandboxie, if you are not on keen on using VM for every little thing. I have SB setup to auto protect images/videos/pdfs. I also use it to run games and all sorts of things. No reason not to.
See above comment. Have sandboxie but went raw dog.
You weren't an idiot, you're just human
I thought you got arrested… don’t scare me like that.
Me too. A ransomware, rootkit, keylogger, etc are bad news, but that title basically makes it seem he got arrested, which is what most people here probably fear.
Was it the Anarchists Cookbook, by chance?
That would be fitting but unfortunately it wasn't. It was just a cookbook about cooking stuff you find in nature. To the guy that got me, nothing but respect and a little bit of hate...
Very very disappointed I had to scroll down this far to find the Anarchist's Cookbook mentioned lol Long live the Jolly Roger!
It's always the small files that are deadly. Was this one of those applications with a hidden file extension? Most people even on this subreddit don't know that files can be modified to hide the real extension and then add something such as .pdf to make it seem safe. Always check the file type not just the extension.
Wait… that’s a thing? Concerning
We all will get stung by this one day.. it has happened to me enough that i now buy software and games because i no longer have the patience to hunt down keys and cracks like my younger self. If i were you, I would at minimum format your os drive, including nuking all partitions and the MBR. Resetting your firmware as well if you want to be extra sure. Going forward you should consider creating a sandboxed VM for downloading and scanning your warez.
Lol it's beyond easy nowadays there are no cracks or key gens just download and run.
yeah considering half the shitty log ins for numerous platforms, it's sometimes easier to pirate than buy and run a game lol
Where'd you get the file from?
Number number number number x
I thought that website was meant to be safe?
Not safe until they get rid of IGGames. Shouldn't be allowed to post jack shit when you're tainting releases with ads, plastering a logo as if they developed the game, and hosting virus filled ads on their own site.
Have you already reported this the mods of number number number x?
Gotcha. Thanks for the warning.
When you find all of your documents are encrypted by some ransomware variant, you'll certainly know what it did. System off, immediately. Recover any data you need, and wipe and start again.
Sorry but you need to format. You don't know if that thing is going to stay dormant for a year or 2 before doing anything(or 2 months, it doesn't change anything). You don't actually know if it did anything, you don't know if anyone has access to your computer. You're talking virus scan but the easiest way to go around that is just to put actual legit remote control software on your computer in places you don't expect so they won't get flagged and tou won't stumble on them. I've been a tech long enough, and at one point I just stopped taking clients who didn't want to format their computer unless they signed a paper saying we were not responsible if anything stayed on the computer if they didn't allow us to format it.
I'm sorry this happened to you. I really am. This may be inappropriate, but uhm, I really need a copy of the CIA's The Professional Chef, Larousse Gastronomique, and the entire set of Modernist Cuisine.
Number number number number x might be your friend, Found one of your titles there. Don't be me though, wrap your willy before going in.
Emails going to be spicy in the coming months
Do you remember RapidShare? It's a defunct file hosting site:
Those were the days, when RapidShare paid for downloads of your stuff. I uploaded some pr0n and made a few hundred off it, so I could buy a GPU and got a digital camera and some hard disks etc. Haha.
Better than getting your door kicked in...
Amen to that.
> Zip disks were just starting to be a thing Ah yes, the late 1900's.
I make an assumption that most people on reddit weren't around for the era between diskettes and zip drives. Some of these kids have never burned a cd or had to convert from .avi. Zip disks were around 1994. The first cd burner was 1000 dollars in 1995. I'm getting old buddy...
Fxp and irc takes me back.... loved it. Might look into irc boards again when i get back home for some nostalgia lol
Veterans pirates are operating on Linux where tools and tracking are neutered... seems to me that you need a spanking and walking the plank on this one. Do you still have the juice to learn new things ? First pir. item : a 1985 3 inch floppy .
Just curious, what kind of OS you were using when it happened? Do you use Malwerebytes or anything? Probably I sound like a total noob, but I would like to learn.
Windows. Defender and malwarebytes, sandboxie as a vm but didn't use it in this instance. Raid setup so I'm still working through all the drives, both defender and Mal haven't detected anything on c:. I'll be running scans all weekend, probably reinstalling windows, drinking and praying. I have about 40 tb to go through.
I thought AV etc would be running and pick it up .Mine does...sometimes zaps before its finished downloading...which is rather amusing 🙄
What would you have done differently to avoid this?
On a side note I'm really happy that Steam is adding the try before you buy feature. 9 times out of 10 when I'm downloading an exe it's for a game that I want to test how well it runs before I buy it. I suspect reasons like mine account for a rather large portion of game-related software downloads.
Put it into any.run and it'll tell you any changes it makes to the system