A warning about FSLabs - Their installer logs your passwords!

[mallcott]

Lesh, you are the one who is being economical with the truth.

Malware?? Installed??

 

Just read the statement FSLabs gave. the link was also posted in pst 7, I will post it again below so you can read it at your leasure.

 

 

 

Source:

https://forums.flightsimlabs.com/index.php?/announcement/10-a320-x-drm-clarification/

 

See, only temporarily, so not "installed".

And, not in legally purchased copies.

 

Maybe Lesh you should complain to the companies such as ThePirateBay, RuTracker and other such malicious sites.

 

You utterly miss the point: The crime is committed when it illegally transmits data to which it has no right of access to a source that has no right to receive it - and then corrupts that data.

 

Two wrongs don't make a right.

 

As had been proved time and again the pirates are considerably smarter than developers, and all this achieves is the potential victimisation of legitimate customers. And the undermining of the developers reputation.

[loki]

Lesh, you are the one who is being economical with the truth.

Malware?? Installed??

 

See, only temporarily, so not "installed".

And, not in legally purchased copies.

 

Maybe Lesh you should complain to the companies such as ThePirateBay, RuTracker and other such malicious sites.

 

Yes, what was included in the installer was malware. Stealing and uploading a user's Chrome saved password details is the very definition of malware.

 

As for not affecting legitimate customers, one only has to look through forums here and elsewhere to find cases where an installer fails or otherwise screws up for any one of a number of reasons. Or cases where a legitimate user had problems with a game's DRM protections. Can FSlabs guarantee they have tested this extensibly enough to guarantee with 100% certainty that only the individual they were after would ever be affected? What happens if something causes the installer to fail part way through? Would this leave the malware file sitting on the user's machine open for abuse by other malware?

 

And now that it is widely known that this installer contains malware and was downloaded by plenty of people, what's to stop some other malicious hacker from trying to take advantage of it?

 

So as I said previously, installing or using malware in a legitimate product is completely unacceptable. Piracy is very much wrong, but so is this.

[il88pp]

Loki,

Why do you keep repeating there is malware in the installer??

 

As they said, none of this is even present in legitimate copies of the software.

As they said, this No malware at that point at all.

No malware installed

No passwords saved.

 

If you have a legitimate installer, and enter a legit licence number. Nothing bad happens.

 

So, no malware on legitimate users machines. No?

 

--

Only a bad experience for illegitemater users.

Only in illegitimate copies of the installer,

And it only goes off if someone then also uses a illegitemate licence number.

 

 

-----

Please stop repeating that "the installer contains malware".

 

 

That is causing unneeded panic.

 

"contains malware" is a very broad statement. Not true for legal copies of Honest customers.

 

 

Legitimate users were not exposed to this at all.

Legitimate users were not attacked in any way.

And the Legitimate customers never hadd any malware. Not in their installers, and not insatalled by the installers.

 

If you bought this software legally, you are perfectly safe.

That is the most important thing to take away from this.

 

 

The title of htis theread is: "Warning, FSLabs installer saves your passwords."

That statement is completely untrue.

The officail installer, legally bought, does NO SUCH THING.

 

Honest users are completely safe.

 

----

You said, "even doing this to criminals is wrong". Well, maybe it is. Technically.

I don't really care about that technicality.

 

 

What I care about is that this nonsense thread is causing panic among legitimate users. And that is not needed.

It even has people saying they won't buy from FSLabs.

Well, if you buy from FSLabs you are perfectly safe. And if you bought in the past you are perfectly safe as well.

I would gladly buy from FSLabs.

 

 

With all that in mind, this "contains malware" thread is starting to look more and more like slander. Like most people in he thread are out to give FSLabs a bad name.

[loki]

Loki,

Why do you keep repeating there is malware in the installer??

 

As they said, none of this is even present in legitimate copies of the software.

As they said, this No malware at that point at all.

No malware installed

No passwords saved.

 

If you have a legitimate installer, and enter a legit licence number. Nothing bad happens.

 

So, no malware on legitimate users machines. No?

 

--

Only a bad experience for illegitemater users.

Only in illegitimate copies of the installer,

And it only goes off if someone then also uses a illegitemate licence number.

 

 

-----

Please stop repeating that "the installer contains malware".

 

 

That is causing unneeded panic.

 

"contains malware" is a very broad statement. Not true for legal copies of Honest customers.

 

 

Legitimate users were not exposed to this at all.

Legitimate users were not attacked in any way.

And the Legitimate customers never hadd any malware. Not in their installers, and not insatalled by the installers.

 

If you bought this software legally, you are perfectly safe.

That is the most important thing to take away from this.

 

 

The title of htis theread is: "Warning, FSLabs installer saves your passwords."

That statement is completely untrue.

The officail installer, legally bought, does NO SUCH THING.

 

Honest users are completely safe.

 

----

You said, "even doing this to criminals is wrong". Well, maybe it is. Technically.

I don't really care about that technicality.

 

 

What I care about is that this nonsense thread is causing panic among legitimate users. And that is not needed.

It even has people saying they won't buy from FSLabs.

Well, if you buy from FSLabs you are perfectly safe. And if you bought in the past you are perfectly safe as well.

I would gladly buy from FSLabs.

 

 

With all that in mind, this "contains malware" thread is starting to look more and more like slander. Like most people in he thread are out to give FSLabs a bad name.

 

FSLabs themselves admitted to including the malware in the installer.

[americaan]

For this reason alone I feel that AVSIM and the BoD have made the correct decision to disallow such discussion there.

 

Eh... I completely disagree - you don't need to completely disallow it to prevent undue crucifixion - even if what you say is true, what they did has real repricussions, real consequences, and causes real problem,s, and there should be room to discuss that. (Also, I am not sure if AVSIM is a good role model to look up to if in fact 2 members of FSLabs are also on staff at AVSIM, as that would mean they are - whether purposefully, or not, introducing clear conflicts of interest.

 

Why do you keep repeating there is malware in the installer??

 

Because something that takes passwords, and - without permission - sends them to an unsecure server, especially indiscriminately, is not only what they admitted to having, but is a bona fide definition of malware - it doing unauthorized activities on your computer, including accessing and transmitting data it has no right to.

 

 

As they said, none of this is even present in legitimate copies of the software.

 

Wrong, it was present in every version - it was **ALLEGEDLY** only kept on allegedly pirated versions.

 

If you have a legitimate installer, and enter a legit licence number. Nothing bad happens.

 

Why, because you say so? Considering that software, particularly software where the bugs might not be worked out carefully (if at all), can have unpredictable/indeterminate behavior, outcomes, and vulnerabilities that allow for problems to be created. Plus, you had to DISABLE YOUR ANYTIVIRUS in order to install it, which logically means it was present in SOME CAPACITY even if your version is ultimately legit, and for that period in which it is disabled, other problems can arise.

 

Anyone with a bleeding iota of sense regarding computer tech knows that having to disable AV, and having to give software admin level permissions just to run, without disclosing exactly what it does beforehand, is extremely shady.

 

Not to mention that the fact it would send data to someone at some point is already known - it was also discovered that data is sent unencrypted to a server that is riddled with vulnerabilities. Not to mention that if it takes all the passwords saved in Chrome, it will miss that multiple people can be using a computer for multiple purposes, so other people's information might be put at risk.

 

With all due respect, the only nonsense is that you're spreading - not maliciously per-se, you could believe it all in good faith, but the outcry, and fear is based off of what FSLabs themselves, AND people who reverse-engineered the software have said, and shown.

[n4gix]

Also, I am not sure if AVSIM is a good role model to look up to if in fact 2 members of FSLabs are also on staff at AVSIM, as that would mean they are - whether purposefully, or not, introducing clear conflicts of interest.

 

No one on the staff at AVSIM have any ties to FS Labs. As the Deputy Forum Administrator at AVSIM, I know that with absolute certainty.

 

Once again, the decision was not made by the staff at AVSIM. It was made by the Board of Directors and owner of AVSIM, only two of whom are actually simmers themselves.

[mallcott]

FSLabs themselves admitted to including the malware in the installer.

 

And in so doing, gave themselves the bad name. All we are doing in this thread is highlighting something that simmers won't be reading on certain sites that sponsor the product, and repeating ourselves to ensure that il88pp's version of the truth is not allowed to perpetuate based on oft repetition.

 

But I do thank il88pp for being so wrong, he forces the topic back to the top of the pile when we have to correct his fundamental errors in his support of a malware provider. And that's fact, not supposition.

 

FSLabs were a malware supplier, The only reason they stopped is because they got found out.