PETA on Trojan horse discovered in infamous Android Dog Wars game: 'we think it is ingenious'

To recap: Android developer Kage Games published the morally questionable Dog Wars on the Android Market earlier in the year, only to have it yanked by Google for copyright infringement (rather than the more obvious subject matter issue).

Lo and behold, Kage Games soon released a carbon copy of Dog Wars on the Android Market with a new price tag and under a new name: KG Dogfighting.

This was clearly the straw that broke somebody's back, though, for one tech-savvy critic of Kage's back catalogue has taken it upon himself to install a Trojan horse into Dog Wars (the older version).

Due to its abovementioned removal by Google, Dog Wars isn't available on the official Android Market, but copies can still be downloaded from sites which host pirated material. A number of people, of course, will have purchased the app before it got withdrawn, too.

'Thanks' to the malware introduced into Dog Wars by the anonymous animal rights activist, a text message from the Dog Wars user's device is sent to everyone on his contacts list, reading, "I take pleasure in hurting small animals, just thought you should know that."

The software security specialist Symantec discovered the Trojan horse in Dog Wars, posting on its blog that, "we have established that this was an attempt to sign up the compromised device (only works in the US) to a text / alert service operated by PETA."

When asked for comment on the malware, PETA stated: "We don't know who created this version of the app, but we think it is ingenious.

"When someone creates a game that glorifies animal abuse, you can bet that people will come up with clever, smart ways to take action against it."