Re: icq 2000 ads

[Aussie <vuln-dev () securityfocus com>]

On 20 Feb 01, at 23:52, Taylan Develioglu wrote:

> This morning I woke up, booted up win98 and showered. When I got back
> and tried to send a message through icq (2000 beta 4.60), each message
> suddenly formed a little window underneath the message body window with
> ads. Now I have ads underneath each message I send...

[SNIP]

  I haven't noticed these ads appearing on a per-message basis, however I did
recently recieve notification that I could send SMS via ICQ. At the same time
my contact list obtrained a small advert near the top, between my contact list
and title bar, telling me about ICQ SMS capabilities.
  Strangely, when I single-click on this a window appears that looks
suspiciously like a custom IE window, despite the fact I've removed IE from my
system.
  I have noticed that ICQ seems to have gone backwards with 2000, now they ask
you to download their 9M main program, but to access most other areas that were
built-in in previous versions you now need to download additional components.
Another IE in the making? "Download IE, it's only 200k (plus up to 85-130M
depending on options selected)"
  I'm also unhappy about finding AOD (AOL On Desktop) sitting on my system
following installation of ICQ2000b. First only Netscape forced AOL on all
users, now ICQ is doing the same. Typical of AOL, there was no option to not
install it, you got it whether you wanted it or not. Needless to say, that
folder was deleted almost instantly.
  I think it will only be a matter of time (and not much at that!) before the
main ICQ window features adverts, as will all messages sent and received.

Aussie


[/SNIP]

> The odd thing is, noone else I know has this behaviour (yet?), I noticed
>
> the client behaving fairly strange lately as suddenly the 'first-time'
> messages started appearing again (as in the don't show this message
> again messages - left/right mouse button, you are now in invisible
> etc..).
>
> To get to the point, does icq utilize some form of spyware no one has
> noticed untill now? Do earlier versions exhibit this kind of behaviour
> as well? Why me not others?
>
> Now I am really pissed at aol, you install an upgraded (new) version of
> their client. And 10 months later ads pop up.. BAM! No turning back
> because the db is now 2000-steelo. I also noticed that this is
> db-specific (as in my personal settings are changed), other uins
> installed on the same machine do NOT have the ads.


PGP Key Block available at:
http://aussie.mine.nu/aussie/pgp_key.txt