If I want to download and watch an old 1960's red scare movie, how would I
do that?

Is it safe from viruses?

On 14/11/2022 8:42 am, Big Dog wrote:
> If I want to download and watch an old 1960's red scare movie, how would I
> do that?
>
> Is it safe from viruses?

Total waste of time watching movies! Get a job, including part-time!! ;)

Big Dog <BD7436@gmail.com> posted this via
news:tks2sv$nh$1@gioia.aioe.org:

> If I want to download and watch an old 1960's red scare movie, how would
> I do that?
>
> Is it safe from viruses?

Depends on the movie. You could get on an IRC movie or warez channel and
request a specific pack. Some channels limit you to one filled request
every 10-days or 30-days - but they don't limit your "gets" (downloads).

You could use uTorrent. Downloading torrents is relatively safe. A
movie file, such as .mkv, is safe enough, within and of itself. But you
have to watch out for ransomware, which can be disguised in many ways.
You also have to watch out for files which need repair with PAR files
because the PAR files can insert the malicious code into the file your AV
accepted, then cause it to automatically execute, and BAM, you're PWNed.
You can always download the file[s] to a sandbox or specific data
partition, then right-click scan it with your AV software before you
execute/open it.

Don't know of any video files being malware, but anything could happen.
Seems with torrents, you could feasibly connect with a bad actor who is
diddling around with you over a remote connection, but your firewalls
should take care of that. And that would be really be a rarity or else
Google would have links to all kinds of horror stories about it.

What movie are you looking for which is worth the trouble to go through a
whole new learning curve?

--

I AM Bucky Breeder, (*(^;

And *NO*, that is *NOT* a Jedi Light Saber I have in my pocket!

But that doesn't necessarily mean I'm happy to see you either.

On 11/14/2022 5:26 PM, Bucky Breeder wrote:

> What movie are you looking for which is worth the trouble to go through a
> whole new learning curve?

The specific movie is the original black & white invasion of the body
snatchers but the question is irregardless of the specific movie.

How does one even FIND the torrent web address without getting a virus?
Are they listed out in the clear or are they in a hidden secret location?

On 11/14/2022 12:27 PM, Big Dog wrote:
> On 11/14/2022 5:26 PM, Bucky Breeder wrote:
>
>> What movie are you looking for which is worth the trouble to go through a whole new learning curve?
>
> The specific movie is the original black & white invasion of the body
> snatchers but the question is irregardless of the specific movie.
>
> How does one even FIND the torrent web address without getting a virus?
> Are they listed out in the clear or are they in a hidden secret location?

Back when media software did not "sanitize" media files,
it was possible to craft buffer overflows or stack smashing.

This is one reason you would not take a movie player off
your Win95 box, and use it for modern content acquired off
the Internet.

As long as the player software is relatively modern,
holes like this have been covered off.

The thing is, if you run a C compiler, and present it with
old source code, the compiler will actually issue warnings
about a set of subroutines that are "not considered safe".
These are the kinds of constructs that caused libjpeg to
have an exploit. At the time, the big companies "did not bother"
to review the source code in libraries like "libjpeg".
Now, they do :-) Lesson learned - the hard way.

As far as I know, the attack surface on a movie is fairly
small. If the movie is "sprayed with metadata", the
movie player is supposed to ignore metadata. But, the *OS*
loves to parse metadata, to be recorded in Search Indexer
as a search term. That means the OS parser needs to be hardened
against monkey business. It's as much the 4CC codes that
have nothing to do with the movie, as the movie itself,
that is an attack surface.

And my experience on Windows, is it's relatively hard to
zap all the metadata on media files. This is what my notes
file entry says on the matter. Can't trust the OS, then do
this.

jpegtran -copy none input.JPG > output.JPG # This cleans the metadata from the JPG

You could find a movie program equivalent of such a command,
if you really thought there was a potential exposure.

And actual movie "validators", I'm not sure there is such a thing.
As an example, the AVI2 container, the standard is poorly worded,
and no two programs really agree on what the structure of
an AVI2 should be. AVI2 exists as a pseudo standard, to
surpass the 4GB limit of vanilla AVI. When a movie is output,
4GB of it is AVI, then it switches to AVI2 for the rest.

If I had to accept a movie, I would want mp4, mkv, mov, rather
than avi. Just because the standards for such containers,
might be a bit more precise.

*******

Generally, people who torrent stuff, are pretty quiet about
what they do. I don't think it's a general feeling of paranoia.
They're quiet, because they're lazy :-) There is a *lot*
to explain to people, to become a successful "all you can eat"
guy. Excessive numbers of connections, can overflow the
connection table on some routers. Even fricken *Windows Update*
tipped over my router one day. Funny as hell. And that's like,
only 20 connections or so, and the bloody thing crashed
and I got a flashing red light. So I know with my kit here,
torrenting would not end well, because compared to a decent
router, it's got a long way to go.

*******

Because of the cat-and-mouse games with Hollywood,
even someone who had left the scene a couple of years
ago, may not have the best advice for today. It's a lot
of work, to keep up with the latest outages and substitutes.
It's as much trouble as keeping youtube-dl working :-)

Paul

On Mon, 14 Nov 2022 12:27:20 -0500, Big Dog <BD7436@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 11/14/2022 5:26 PM, Bucky Breeder wrote:
>
>> What movie are you looking for which is worth the trouble to go through a
>> whole new learning curve?
>
>The specific movie is the original black & white invasion of the body
>snatchers but the question is irregardless of the specific movie.
>
>How does one even FIND the torrent web address without getting a virus?
>Are they listed out in the clear or are they in a hidden secret location?
Use something like PirateBay to find the torrent address, then copy
that into something like BitTorrent (which you'll have to download and
install). I always run my AV on any downloaded file before running
that file. I've had a few warnings (<1%) and just immediately delete
the file. Never had one on a video file.
They keep trying to close it down, but PirateBay keeps reappearing!

Big Dog wrote:
> If I want to download and watch an old 1960's red scare movie, how would I
> do that?
>
> Is it safe from viruses?

If it's 1960's it's probably on YouTube.

Big Dog <BD7436@gmail.com> posted this via news:tkttpc$1epe$1@gioia.aioe.org:

> The specific movie is the original black & white invasion of the body
> snatchers but the question is irregardless of the specific movie.
>

Is it? Well then I won't bother pointing you to a search method or a
dependable source.

--

I AM Bucky Breeder, (*(^;

And *NO*, that is *NOT* a Jedi Light Saber I have in my pocket!

But that doesn't necessarily mean I'm happy to see you either.

In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Mon, 14 Nov 2022 12:27:20 -0500, Big Dog
<BD7436@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 11/14/2022 5:26 PM, Bucky Breeder wrote:
>
>> What movie are you looking for which is worth the trouble to go through a
>> whole new learning curve?
>
>The specific movie is the original black & white invasion of the body
>snatchers but the question is irregardless of the specific movie.

That is a great movie. I've seen it 2 or 3 times over the years.
>
>How does one even FIND the torrent web address without getting a virus?
>Are they listed out in the clear or are they in a hidden secret location?

I have enough spare computers now that I could set one up only for
testing. Then if they get screwed up, I would just wipe the disk and
reload from a backup. Even though the specs on what would be the test
computer are not as good as the one I use, I think it would make no
difference for testing for malware, not just movies but everything.
But I'm short of space, etc. etc.

In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Mon, 14 Nov 2022 22:12:24 -0600, Paul in
Houston TX <Paul@Houston.Texas> wrote:

>Big Dog wrote:
>> If I want to download and watch an old 1960's red scare movie, how would I

1956.

" Remade in both 1978 and 1997," but couldn't be any better.

>> do that?
>>
>> Is it safe from viruses?
>
>If it's 1960's it's probably on YouTube.

Yes indded, 3 or 4 dollars to rent, 10 or 15 to buy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n541A3Q7xFw although the still that
shows here doesn't seem familiar. Maybe it's the first scene where
they introduce characters??