bugtraq - Re: Altova XMLSpy "phones home" user data

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Date: 03 Dec 2003 21:19:28 -0800
From: Greg Steuck <greg-bugtraq2003@...t.cx>
To: Bruno Lustosa <bruno@...tosa.net>
Cc: bugtraq@...urityfocus.com
Subject: Re: Altova XMLSpy "phones home" user data


>>>>> "Bruno" == Bruno Lustosa <bruno@...tosa.net> writes:

    Bruno> ... whenever someone will launch XMLSpy, the
    Bruno> program will try to connect to Altova's servers, send some
    Bruno> user info through a POST to a web server, and wait for a
    Bruno> response. 
<skip>
    Bruno> What bothers me is that
    Bruno> it's sending user information that was _not_ entered into the
    Bruno> program. It sends user name used to register the program, and
    Bruno> it also sends an email address that I'm almost sure was not
    Bruno> entered into the program.  If the machine is not connected to
    Bruno> the internet, or its path to altova is firewalled, the
    Bruno> program will run with no problems.  Of course, being a
    Bruno> security professional, I don't like programs opening hidden
    Bruno> connections to the outside and sending personal data from
    Bruno> users without my (and their) knowledge, so I thought that
    Bruno> others here would like to know that.

As an alternative to firewalling one can add a local address for
link.altova.com into %SYSTEMROOT%/system32/drivers/etc/hosts, like so:

127.0.0.1      link.altova.com

I tested this on my system. Here is the data that I received from the
program by running "nc -lp 80":

POST /liveupdate.asp HTTP/1.1
Referer: LicMan 
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
User-Agent: AltovaLiveUpdate
Host: link.altova.com
Content-Length: 95
Cache-Control: no-cache

u=XXXXX%20Inc&c=XXXXX%20Inc&e=&v=XMLSpy%205%20rel.%203&k=000000-111111-222222-333333-444444&f=l

    Bruno> it also sends an email address that I'm almost sure was not
    Bruno> entered into the program.  If the machine is not connected to

I can confirm the fact of "phoning home", but I could not confirm the
alleged disclosure of private information (e parameter is empty).

Thanks
Greg