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RealNetworks Returns: The "Spy" in "Download Demon"

  • 22-05-2000 4:06pm
    #1
    Hobbes
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 21,264 ✭✭✭✭


    Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 12:20 PDT
    From: (Lauren Weinstein; PRIVACY Forum Moderator)
    Subject: RealNetworks Returns: The "Spy" in "Download Demon"

    [...]
    But it's hard not to mutter some choice expletives under your breath upon
    learning the details of RealNetworks' latest heavily-promoted goodie from
    their Netzip, Inc. (http://www.netzip.com) subsidiary--the "Download Demon"
    package. Actually, Real should win the "honesty in product naming" award for
    this one--"demon" seems to be a particularly apt description.

    You may already have stumbled across this little surprise on your system.
    I found it apparently bundled in with other downloads I had made from
    RealNetworks. The Download Demon attempts to automate various file
    downloading functions, to permit downloads to be interrupted and later
    resumed, plus other related functionality. It attracted my attention since
    it had silently linked itself into my Web browsers to take over all
    downloading operations--*without* my having taken any specific actions to
    install or enable it--and my system was hanging in the course of various
    downloads! I removed it with some difficulty. Only later did I discover
    the much less obvious "feature" of the Download Demon--for all files you
    download, from *any* sites, the Demon sends details (e.g. file names and
    URLs) to RealNetworks/Netzip! Surprise!

    In other words: If you install Real's software, and it installs "Download Demon" into your web browsers, Real will then get a listing of all files you download, wherever you download them from -- even files from internal servers whose names contain commercially sensitive information.


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