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Legal Question

M

MrCodeDude

Lifer
What happened is a really long story, but if you must know the whole story:
Thread #1 | Thread #2

Here's the story in a nutshell:

I ask for a relatively simple program to be made that produces all possible combinations with given values. People post their source code and talk about how simple it is. A member by the name of faptop posted a program which he claimed would do what I asked. People download this program, it doesn't work. Everyone calls him a tard. He then tells us what it really does, it searches for all the bmp's and .jpg's on your hard-drive, then over-writes them with tubgirl. People are royally pissed off, but he claims there is a fix. The fix is just the first program renamed. People who unknowingly ran the program waiting for it to load (he claimed his shoddy coding might take a while) have had their whole photo albums ruined and un-recoverable. Because the program didn't just rename or delete the files, it over-wrote them, there is really no way to recover them. Unless you want to shell out $500+ to recover partial pieces of the original images.

Because of the horrible leadership shown at the forum, the guy is not banned and it will cost $250 to get him perma banned. What he did was spread malicious code around the internet, claimed a fix, which inevitably was the same program renamed. Is there any legal action the victims can take against him?

I'm asking here because at least ATOT can be mature at times 😉
-- mrcodedude
 
Originally posted by: MrCodeDude
What happened is a really long story, but if you must know the whole story:
Thread #1 | Thread #2

Here's the story in a nutshell:

I ask for a relatively simple program to be made that produces all possible combinations with given values. People post their source code and talk about how simple it is. A member by the name of faptop posted a program which he claimed would do what I asked. People download this program, it doesn't work. Everyone calls him a tard. He then tells us what it really does, it searches for all the bmp's and .jpg's on your hard-drive, then over-writes them with tubgirl. People are royally pissed off, but he claims there is a fix. The fix is just the first program renamed. People who unknowingly ran the program waiting for it to load (he claimed his shoddy coding might take a while) have had their whole photo albums ruined and un-recoverable. Because the program didn't just rename or delete the files, it over-wrote them, there is really no way to recover them. Unless you want to shell out $500+ to recover partial pieces of the original images.

Because of the horrible leadership shown at the forum, the guy is not banned and it will cost $250 to get him perma banned. What he did was spread malicious code around the internet, claimed a fix, which inevitably was the same program renamed. Is there any legal action the victims can take against him?

I'm asking here because at least ATOT can be mature at times 😉
-- mrcodedude
Click to expand...

I think in theory one COULD take legal action, since this yokel willfully damaged your property. I see a handful of problems with this, though, and together they amount to show-stoppers:

1) You would have to prove damages. These would be difficult or impossible to quanitify unless the program damaged a commercial website or other business.
2) You would have to identify who this person really is, and somehow serve him with a civil complaint.
3) You would have to show that he gave you the ill-behaved software deliberately or through culpable negligence. This may be tough to infer - he could claim it happened through an innocent mistake.

As a practical matter, it will probably cost a lot more than $250 even to file suit against the guy and serve him with a complaint, and you will probably lose anyway. You took a risk in using the software, and paid the price. Please understand I am not picking on you - I think the guy is a real ass, and you did nothing wrong, but caveat emptor when it comes to software.

It sounds as though the forum mods are being really wimpy (I can't read the threads from here), and I would probably pack up and leave the forum if they won't support you. I would think all you would have to do would be to forward the culprit's e-mail message and show them the threads. If they won't kick him at that point, the heck with them.
 
I dunno about legal action, but if the mod won't take a stand, that's one forum you should quit.
I think he's right that those who blindly ran the program have got themselves to blame - next time be more careful. OTOH, the dude abused the trust of the entire forum. I like to think that not even ATOT would tolerate that kind of behavior.
 
Originally posted by: Don_Vito1) You would have to prove damages. These would be difficult or impossible to quanitify unless the program damaged a commercial website or other business.
2) You would have to identify who this person really is, and somehow serve him with a civil complaint.
3) You would have to show that he gave you the ill-behaved software deliberately or through culpable negligence. This may be tough to infer - he could claim it happened through an innocent mistake.
Click to expand...
Thanks, what I needed to know.

 
Originally posted by: Jzero
I dunno about legal action, but if the mod won't take a stand, that's one forum you should quit.
I think he's right that those who blindly ran the program have got themselves to blame - next time be more careful. OTOH, the dude abused the trust of the entire forum. I like to think that not even ATOT would tolerate that kind of behavior.
Click to expand...

We'd pay him a midnight visit. :evil:
 
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