The.Odyssey.full.bluray.rip.avi.exe

Old tricks still work

Edit - Oh shit that’s exactly what they did.

The most popular initial executable was distributed through torrent trackers under many different names (for example, the odyssey (2026) [1080p] [webrip] [5.1].exe),

A big part of why this works, I think, is because windows hides extensions by default.

They forgot to analyze it.
"Hey LLM, is this executable file a good version of the odyssey?"

Windows hiding the file extensions drives me insane, from a security as well as a usability standpoint. It's such a stupid default.

Well, we're back at the same general level of computer literacy we were at the turn of the century so....

"Yes, this is a genuine version of the Odyssey. Simply double click the file and it will run in your video player. Is there anything else I can help with?"

Worse, I’d argue. They’re so easy to use; in the 2000s there were still some skills involved. Mobile devices really dumbed things down.

I think boomers were more PC literate which is pretty sad, since they at least knew how to navigate a desktop, folders, and files to some degree.

I think phone or tablet OS is what most people after are used to, so if trying to navigate actual file systems mistakes like not recognizing exe files can happen.

Technology got to a point where it is so accessible the basics are forgotten.

I noticed there had been a few dodgy EXEs floating around recently. Not compatible with my OS but worrying nonetheless!

Jokes on them. I run a Linux distro.

The Wine configuration in /home/user/.wine is being updated, please wait...

[LLM executes it to test]

"You're right, that was a malware executable that stole your bank credentials and ruined your life! I was wrong :)"

"...And you were right to call me out on that. Here's what I did:"

sample of instructions

[execute it to test]

This design choice has caused so much grief over the years. I absolutely hate it

Same. Exe's go in the toilet.

Imagine opening a janky movie file with wine...

I'm a techno vegetable and I wouldn't even do that.

you run chmod +x ... in your movie download folder? ;-)

I run Linux myself but even on windows... if you have qbittorrent 5.1.2+ (not sure in earlier versions; had to open an old vm image to confirm it went back this far)

then anyone who only pirates videos/music could just set qbittorrent > downloads > excluded file names to have *.exe on one of the lines and avoid this easily.

people who do pirate games/software could probably still add something like these to the same setting without disrupting their game/sw dls and still avoid 90+% of these kind of attacks:

*.avi.exe
*.mp3.exe
*.mp4.exe
*.mkv.exe
*dvdrip*.exe
*webrip*.exe
*web.dl*.exe
*web-dl*.exe
*bluray*.exe
*1080p*.exe
*720p*.exe
*480p*.exe
*x264*.exe
*x265*.exe
*hvec*.exe
*av1*.exe
*imax*.exe
*aac5.1*.exe
*hdtv*.exe
*amzn*.exe
*hulu*.exe
*yify*.exe
*yts*.exe
*eztv*.exe

only spot it might need some fine tuning that i can think of is if you have the occasional fitgirl pack that has optional stuff for 720 vs 1080 videos as a selective download... and you should really be looking at those when you download anyway

I assumed wine needed the flag, not the exe file, as the program being executed is wine.