Originally posted over on /r/piracy (https://www.reddit.com/r/Piracy/comments/15itrip/1337x_admins_allowing_bg3_torrent_with_bitcoin/)
It looks like a bitcoin miner was included in the installer, and the admins on 1337x may or may not give a shit apparently. Scanned my pc and my wifes and found the same stuff the others mentioned.
According to the other comments, don’t feel the need to uninstall as the miner was installed separate to the game, just give a Malwarebytes scan to get rid of the junk.
It’s even worse apparently. Apparently someone looked at where the coins are going, and the coins are going to the 1337x admins, and the uploader is just getting a cut of those coins. Which explains why the admins are unlikely to really care because they’re profiting off their users.
I have severe trust issues with any kind of pirated software so I basically never download it as a result, and shit like this is why. Even private trackers and “trusted” groups aren’t enough for me to download most software.
Do you have any evidence of that?
- rmnfxytumavcfdbpce ( @rmnfxytumavcfdbpce@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English28•2 years ago
can we get some proof? this is really interesting. I’d like to see how they’re tracking stuff
How did they figure that out?
Crytpo isn’t inherently anonymous. you can easily follow coins.
You can follow the wallet address , but unles you know who the address belongs to, you can’t follow it. So we ask again, where the proof that the coins went to site admins?
For gog games you can check the digital signature on the installer to make sure it’s legit. It should be signed by GOG.
If you aren’t scanning every software you download, whether a pirate torrent or normal direct download, that’s kinda your own fault
Motherfuckers out here rawdogging the internet like it’s 1998.
It just feels better… I can’t feel the bits otherwise.
To be fair, I cannot remember a software where no anti virus program turned red. Those cracks always look suspicous to the heuristics.
Of course but it’s usually pretty easy to filter out the false positives that always appear as a Trojan (because of the file modification payload) vs a crypto miner
They usually say something generic like HackTool.
Agreed, but if it’s a GOG release it doesn’t need a crack because it never had DRM in the first place.
Oh 100%. Was a dumb moment where I didn’t expect it and didn’t bother, and neither did a lot of other people from the looks of it. Good thing is it was something fixable in less than 5 mins and not a bigger problem.
You shouldn’t trust anything uploaded there by IGGGames. They’ve been caught before adding miners to their files. I downloaded the rune release somewhere else seeing as they were the uploader on 1337x. I only really use 1337x for fitgirl repacks.
Why not from fitgirl page directly?
I mean I do grab the torrent link from the fitgirl site, but I find the torrent faster to download than the direct download links.
Just popping in to say that if you enjoy the game and if you are financially able to, buy the game properly to support the developers, especially Larian Studios.
If a dev studio should be financially incentivized to keep doing what they’re doing, it’s this one
Dont be mad at me but I bought the game from GOG :)
I reported it on 1337x earlier today, but they aren’t very responsive. Fitgirl has it listed as an upcoming repack, so hopefully not long to wait for a clean copy.
Empress was right
Nah
Has anyone seen anything on the DODI release or is it clean?
The DODI repack is based on the RUNE release which I believe is clean. Another commenter claims a found Trojan but there are others who found nothing, and imo it’s probably just the usual crack shenanigans.
Edit: See replies! It seems there are tainted versions of the repack out there, but there are clean ones too. Remember to keep a critical eye on your sites and uploaders in addition to your release groups. There’s a useful link in a reply to me below showing what you might see if you’ve downloaded a bad one.
There’s no need for a crack on this game, it’s available on GOG which is always DRM free.
it seems like half the people I see who downloaded it say they got a tojan, and half didn’t. Could it possibly be triggering only for certain people? perhaps if their specs are good enough for bitcoin mining or not? or maybe just at random? just spitballing here
For the RUNE release, it probably has more to do with what AV they’re using and how sensitive it is. Cracked games flag AVs all the time, you have to pay attention to what it’s alerting you about. If you’re being careful and clean about the sites, uploaders, and release groups you trust, that “trojan” is usually nothing more than an injected hook to defeat DRM.
it’s not a false positive people are finding. it’s a bitcoin miner called integritycheck.exe
Hey, thanks for that link! I’m really glad to have the details so I can verify for myself.
However, with that, I can REALLY confirm this is not an issue inherent to the DODI repack. DODI’s is what I’m using and I have none of that on my system – I checked with that powershell command, then also followed along with the comments to check other files and scheduled tasks that were mentioned.
That said, I got my download from torrentleech. I suspect a tainted version of the repack got onto certain other sites. It wouldn’t be the first time (which is why I specify trusted sites and uploaders in addition to release groups).
good to hear. dodi just officially denied the accusations as well:
although he claims integritycheck.exe is a windows process, when clearly it is also the name of that miner I linked above
my guess is the dodi account on torrent galaxy, although verified, could be a fake and is putting in these viruses, or maybe the people commenting saying they got the virus from dodi actually got it from that hogwarts legacy crack which originally had this miner.
either way, I always hope the community will take these sorts of claims seriously and investigate to ensure everyone’s safety
There are claims from comments on torrent galaxy that dodis release has the same bitcoin miner:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Piracy/comments/15ivtzk/dodi_verified_release_on_tg_has_crypto_miner/
I hope someone can get to the bottom of this
I hope DODI is fine. I’m currently in the middle of installing it…
I looked for this integrity check file and ran the power shell script and I don’t see it listed anywhere on my system’s roaming folder nor in the list of applications with cpu usage.
Dodi also has the gog version below, it doesn’t even require an installation
isnt malwarebytes kinda crap these days?
linux.exe
I downloaded the RUNE release from TorrentLeech and Windows Defender found a trojan so yeah I’ll believe it. I guess I’ll wait for a FitGirls repack.
Torrent galaxy rune release. However not seeing any issues? Malwarebytes scans coming up clean. No integritycheck folder in app data. No hidden process running when game running. 🤷♂️?
I’ve had false positives from cracks on TL before, several times. I respect your carefulness with a known problem with another release, though.
Now that’s not something I’d have expected. I’ve never encountered anything like that in the nearly 15-20 years I’ve been using TL.
20? Interesting.
Just took a look at my profile, registered on 27 June 2006. So it’s in my 15-20 year window that I mentioned
From TL? Really? That’s a surprise I didn’t wanna hear! :/
Sadly even with private sites a lot of things are taken from a public source and you occasionally run into this problem. Like some people up their ratios on these sites by using their VPN to get the public torrent and then seeding it back to the private one.
As long as the first uploader didn’t do it, then that won’t cause other downloaders any issues. Torrents always verify the hash is correct and will discard bad data. And TorrentLeech has uploading torrents limited.
Is DODI’s repack safe?