[Full-Disclosure] EartStation 5 P2P application contains malicious code

[Cael Abal]

> Conclusion
> ----------
> The people behind ES5 have intentionally added malicious code to ES5. If
> you have followed the ES5 discussions on message boards and read what the
> ES5 people have said and done (eg. DoS attacking BitTorrent sites), this
> comes as no surprise. The question then is "why did they do it?" I'm sure
> they won't tell us, but here's a theory: They could be working for the
> RIAA, MPAA, or a similar organization. Once they have enough users on their
> ES5 network, they would start deleting all copyrighted files they own which
> their users are sharing. The users wouldn't know what hit them.

Hi nut,

Excellent job finding and documenting this feature.  As for the 
developers' motivations, though, I don't think it's necessary to point 
at colusion with the RIAA/MPAA.

In all honesty, I'm surprised we haven't seen *more* backdoors of this 
type in various popular closed-source, network-aware apps.  I don't 
condone it, but I understand the mentality:  "Our network, our rules." 
Really, all it takes is one rogue developer, coupled with insufficient 
code review.

What does surprise me is that you report only delete functionality and 
not read/write.  If I was going to the trouble to implement naughty 
features into an app like ES5, that'd be my priority.

All this does is reinforce the value of independent code auditing 
(insert various pro-open-source comments here).

take care,

C