Adobe Demo products mess with System files (?)

It seems that the Adobe Tryout products modify some system files?  Has
anyone else noticed this?  Is it part of the demo/expiration thing, and does
it cause any problem?

I just ran a routine permissions check and got a notice about incorrect
permissions for /System/Library/Sounds/Submarine.aiff  (it had been
set to global +rwx), and the timestamp on the file was pretty recent.

Checking my system logs to see what was going on at that time, I noticed
that was when I had tried a demo of Adobe's Illustrator CS.

To double-check, I restored the Submarine.aiff file, re-downloaded the
installer and ran it....  again, the permissions had been changed and
the file modified...

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Matt

In article <cu8ju5$14m$1@news.Stanford.EDU>,
Matthew Hills <hills@s_t_a_n_f_o_r_d.edu> wrote:

> It seems that the Adobe Tryout products modify some system files?  Has
> anyone else noticed this?  Is it part of the demo/expiration thing, and do
es
> it cause any problem?
>
> I just ran a routine permissions check and got a notice about incorrect
> permissions for /System/Library/Sounds/Submarine.aiff  (it had been
> set to global +rwx), and the timestamp on the file was pretty recent.
>
> Checking my system logs to see what was going on at that time, I noticed
> that was when I had tried a demo of Adobe's Illustrator CS.
>
> To double-check, I restored the Submarine.aiff file, re-downloaded the
> installer and ran it....  again, the permissions had been changed and
> the file modified...
>
> Any thoughts?

That's a curious little detail, isn't it.

What's the size of this file on your Mac?  On mine it shows up as 172046
bytes.  I'm wondering if more was changed than just the permissions on
the file.

--
Tom "Tom" Harrington
Macaroni, Automated System Maintenance for Mac OS X.
Version 2.0:  Delocalize, Repair Permissions, lots more.
See http://www.atomicbird.com/

In article <tph-13D689.15320207022005@localhost>, Tom Harrington
<tph@pcisys.no.spam.dammit.net> wrote:

> What's the size of this file on your Mac?  On mine it shows up as 172046
> bytes.  I'm wondering if more was changed than just the permissions on
> the file.

Here, the size is the same and modified date is Sept 22, 2003.

-rw-r--r--   1 root  wheel  172046 22 Sep  2003 Submarine.aiff

I have the full Adobe CS suite installed, but have never run a tryout
version of any of their apps.

djb

--
"The thing about saying the wrong words is that A, I don't notice it, and B,
sometimes orange water gibbon bucket and plastic." -- Mr. Burrows

Tom Harrington  <tph@pcisys.no.spam.dammit.net> wrote:
>That's a curious little detail, isn't it.
>
>What's the size of this file on your Mac?  On mine it shows up as 172046
>bytes.  I'm wondering if more was changed than just the permissions on
>the file.

Since my earlier post, I updated from 10.3.4 to 10.3.7, and it looks like th
is
file was restored...

So I tried to duplicate the process (re-downloaded the illustrator demo):

Before install of Illustrator CS Demo:
-rw-r--r--   1 root  wheel  172046 21 Jan 11:03 Submarine.aiff
after install (but haven't launced Illustrator CS):
-rwxrwxrwx   1 root  wheel  172046 21 Jan 11:03 Submarine.aiff
after running the trial version of Illustrator CS:
-rwxrwxrwx   1 root  wheel  172046  7 Feb 14:56 Submarine.aiff

An inspection with Hexedit shows changes to a few hundred bytes near the end
of the file after the trial version was run.  (Note:  my 30 days to demo the
software has expired, so it just starts up and tells me that my trial has
expired)

I don't notice any big change to the sound itself... I just got a bit queasy
about this, as I recall having one sound get pretty corrupted last fall, and
 I
seem to remember hearing of some problems with apple's Mail caused by
corrupted sound files...

Matt

In article <cu8sio$8j6$1@news.Stanford.EDU>, Matthew Hills
<hills@s_t_a_n_f_o_r_d.edu> wrote:

> An inspection with Hexedit shows changes to a few hundred bytes near the e
nd
> of the file after the trial version was run.  (Note:  my 30 days to demo t
he
> software has expired, so it just starts up and tells me that my trial has
> expired)

That's very odd... If Adobe is screwing with OS installed files they
are behaving VERY badly.

djb

--
"The thing about saying the wrong words is that A, I don't notice it, and B,
sometimes orange water gibbon bucket and plastic." -- Mr. Burrows

Dave Balderstone  <dave@N_O_T_T_H_I_S.balderstone.ca> wrote: 
>
>That's very odd... If Adobe is screwing with OS installed files they
>are behaving VERY badly.

I found it a bit odd -- in general I think very highly of Adobe's trial
program.

I'd be interested in seeing if anyone else has tried installing the trial an
d
whether they get similar results...  (ie, is it something weird about my
system? -- I do find it odd that I haven't seen lots of posts about
"repair permissions" tripping on this sound file before)

Matt

In article <cu8vil$b63$1@news.Stanford.EDU>, Matthew Hills
<hills@s_t_a_n_f_o_r_d.edu> wrote:

> I'd be interested in seeing if anyone else has tried installing the trial 
and
> whether they get similar results...  (ie, is it something weird about my
> system? -- I do find it odd that I haven't seen lots of posts about
> "repair permissions" tripping on this sound file before)

I don't think I have a production Mac that hasn't had the CS suite
installed on it but I'll check at the shop tomorrow and see if I can
duplicate this.

What OS version are you running?

--
"The thing about saying the wrong words is that A, I don't notice it, and B,
sometimes orange water gibbon bucket and plastic." -- Mr. Burrows

Dave Balderstone  <dave@N_O_T_T_H_I_S.balderstone.ca> wrote:
>I don't think I have a production Mac that hasn't had the CS suite
>installed on it but I'll check at the shop tomorrow and see if I can
>duplicate this.
>
>What OS version are you running?

I first noticed this with 10.3.5, while running "check disk permissions"
in anticipation of my update to 10.3.7 -- that precipitated my first post.

My recent posts have been since updating to 10.3.7

Matt

In article <cu929n$fb2$1@news.Stanford.EDU>, Matthew Hills
<hills@s_t_a_n_f_o_r_d.edu> wrote:

> I first noticed this with 10.3.5, while running "check disk permissions"
> in anticipation of my update to 10.3.7 -- that precipitated my first post.
>
> My recent posts have been since updating to 10.3.7

I'll try and reproduce this in the next couple of days and let you know
what I find.

djb

--
"The thing about saying the wrong words is that A, I don't notice it, and B,
sometimes orange water gibbon bucket and plastic." -- Mr. Burrows

In article <cu8ju5$14m$1@news.Stanford.EDU>,
Matthew Hills <hills@s_t_a_n_f_o_r_d.edu> wrote:

> It seems that the Adobe Tryout products modify some system files?  Has
> anyone else noticed this?  Is it part of the demo/expiration thing, and do
es
> it cause any problem?
>
> I just ran a routine permissions check and got a notice about incorrect
> permissions for /System/Library/Sounds/Submarine.aiff  (it had been
> set to global +rwx), and the timestamp on the file was pretty recent.
>
> Checking my system logs to see what was going on at that time, I noticed
> that was when I had tried a demo of Adobe's Illustrator CS.
>
> To double-check, I restored the Submarine.aiff file, re-downloaded the
> installer and ran it....  again, the permissions had been changed and
> the file modified...

I can confirm this same thing with the Adobe After Effects tryout.  I
ran a "repair permissions" first, then I opened the terminal and did an
"ls -l" for "/System/Library/Sounds/Submarine.aiff"

Then I installed the Adobe AE tryout, then reran the permissions check:

Permissions differ on ./Applications, should be drwxrwxr-x , they are
drwxrwxrwx
Permissions differ on ./Library/Application Support, should be
drwxrwxr-x , they are drwxrwxrwx
Permissions differ on ./System/Library/Sounds/Glass.aiff, should be
-rw-r--r-- , they are -rw-rw-rw-
Permissions differ on ./System/Library/Sounds/Purr.aiff, should be
-rw-r--r-- , they are -rw-rw-rw-
Permissions differ on ./System/Library/Sounds/Submarine.aiff, should be
-rw-r--r-- , they are -rw-rw-rw-

Now I should mention that I verified here, I didn't repair.

So in my case, 3 sound files and 2 directories had their permissions
changed. The before and after ls for the 3 files only shows
"Submarine.aiff" was modified. I can also hear a very loud glitch at the
end of the sound file.  I silenced the glitch in Peak and replaced the
Adobe modified file. Then I reran the AE tryout application.

Guess what!  The sound file was modified again!

So I again replaced the file but this time used XRay to set the file
permissions to 0400 (read-only, for owner root).  When I tried to launch
AE, the License Manager hung for about 20 seconds (and quit and
relaunched) then AE opened.  The sound file wasn't modified this time.

I quit AE and replaced Submarine.aiff with a backup copy and repaired
permissions.  Running AE again I found that it didn't modify the file
this time and it took some time to launch.

So, what is going on here?  I'd venture a guess that After Effects is
hiding a code or date data in the sound file.  Perhaps it's not supposed
to be audible, I don't know why it is on my system.  It also looks like
the License Manager is verifying this data but it doesn't appear to be
able to modify it if the permissions are reset. It's not the only thing
it uses so I don't see why it has to modify system files.

Personally, I'm pretty ticked off that Adobe (or the installer maker)
would modify system files it does not own or have any right to.  Sure I
authorized the install but this borders on malware.  It's even worse
that it's files in the /System/Library path as those shouldn't be
changed by most applications.

Looking further I found what modifies the sound file, a small
application inside the AE bundle called VSetupT:

Adobe After Effects 6.5.app/Contents/MacOS/VSetupT

Just running it by itself, it will modify the sound file, assuming you
haven't fixed the preferences. It's made by Aladdin Knowledge Systems,
<http://www.aladdin.com/>, not to be  with the StuffIt makers.

I already own the Standard Version of AE and it doesn't contain this
application, only the trial version. So be on the lookout for malware
made by Aladdin Knowledge Systems, modifying your system files without
your permission. Adobe probably isn't aware that these files are being
modified, they are just including the Aladdin HASP technology into the
trial software.

--
If you *really* need to e-mail me, send it to:
usenet at hughesvideo dot com