According a report on the mostly positive web site Care2, "animal activists" (hacktivist?) have hacked a dog fighting game that was removed from the Android Marketplace in April of this year for being offensive.
The game, simply called "Dog Wars," sparked outrage among animal activists earlier this year and a public outcry led to Google removing the game from the Android Marketplace in April. The game was still being made available on third-party sites, which is why hackers targeted the game.
The hacked version of the game contains a trojan that sends out a text to all the contacts in the player’s phone with the message: "I take pleasure in hurting small animals, just thought you should know that."
Care2 offers some commentary, which mostly chastises those responsible. You can read the whole thing at Care2.
Comments
Re: Dog Wars Hacked, Trojan Within Shames Users
The people who played this game quite likely have killed much less animals than PETA.
Re: Dog Wars Hacked, Trojan Within Shames Users
Activists' expected reaction from their victims: "Gee, I never thought of it that way. These people are right. What I am doing is wrong and I should stop."
More likely reaction: "Fucking animal rights assholes! Fuck them and fuck their stupid opinions about animals!"
Being a total douche doesn't win hearts and minds. The people who are already on your side might get a laugh and feel smugly superior because of this childish stunt, but everybody else will be less likely to take what you say seriously.
Re: Dog Wars Hacked, Trojan Within Shames Users
I send out the same message every time I eat a plate of shrimp, so really it seems like quite a time-saver
Re: Dog Wars Hacked, Trojan Within Shames Users
It's good to see animal activists dealing with serious animal rights problems like virtual dog-fighting. It lets you know they're doing something significant on this planet. :P
Re: Dog Wars Hacked, Trojan Within Shames Users
Considering their other activism, I'm glad they're dedicating time to this and not the "real problems." PETA spent months trying to shut down a family run dog/cat no-kill adoption center in a mall near me. They used lies to try to discredit the program and threats of violence to stop employees and customers from going into the center. Earlier this month, they got a judge to transfer over two hundred dogs from foster homes to a PETA shelter, where the adult animals were destroyed on arrival and the puppies were destroyed after twenty-four hours.
The PETA shelter in question does not offer adoptions, either. It exists only to dispose of the animals PETA collects in this part of Michigan. The news paper made a pretty tasteless Holocaust joke about the place that sadly wraps it up pretty succinctly.
Re: Dog Wars Hacked, Trojan Within Shames Users
Great, when you mentioned them being in Michigan now I fear for the life of my two dogs and cat, the cat more so because he got out of the house again, and I have heard of PETA stealing animals from loving owners.
Re: Dog Wars Hacked, Trojan Within Shames Users
I am familiar with PETA's actions, and that was at the core of my comment.
The only good thing about the organization is that they're horribly inefficient at just about everything they do. They can't even fund an efficient eco-terrorist group that attempts to kill people. The few things they are efficient in are the things that make them self-righteous tards.
Re: Dog Wars Hacked, Trojan Within Shames Users
This is why I tend not to describe PETA as animal rights activists... too much of their core leadership is pushing for the eradication of species that they see as having been 'altered' by humans
Re: Dog Wars Hacked, Trojan Within Shames Users
I actually had one of my biggest free speech dilemmas when my mother asked me if I would buy a dog fighting game. Eventually I said "isn't that exactly what pokemon is?."
AE is right, virtual dog fighting is no different than virtual mowing down of pedestrians in GTA.
-Austin from Oregon
Feel free to check out my blog.
Re: Dog Wars Hacked, Trojan Within Shames Users
Well, yes and no.
I think the reason dog fighting games piss people off where pokemon and even GTA do not is it is a simulation of a very real and high profile problem. Pokemon is diffidently fantasy like that it is pretty abstracted away from reality, and GTA, while it mirror some real life situations, takes them to such an extreme that once again it could be said to be pretty abstracted away from reality.
I would actually put it closer to RapeLay or Six days in Fallujah, games that while still games, deal with real life things with existing victims and community around those victims. So I can see why this particular title resonates with people in a way others do not.
That being said, I agree with other posters that this was a childish stunt probably designed more to build cred within their community they actually have impact on the actual problem. And, of course, it is just a game and thus is not real.
Re: Dog Wars Hacked, Trojan Within Shames Users
Dear Animal Activists,
Dog Wars is a video game. It's not real. You're not actually hurting small animals when you play it.
By the way, where's the hack that informs my contact list "I take pleasure in murdering innocent people" whenever I play GTA or hundreds of other similar games?
Andrew Eisen
Re: Dog Wars Hacked, Trojan Within Shames Users
Well played, Andrew. Well played.
----
Papa Midnight