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[UPDATE] Earlier today, S2HD Project Manager Canned Karma announced that LOst, Sonic 2 HD‘s programmer who needlessly added DRM protection to the long anticipated fan game, is no longer part of the project, as stated in the Sonic Retro forum.

All of us had the exact same reaction everyone here did, and we’re actively looking into it to the best of our abilities. That said, we’ve heard just as much from LOst as anyone here has lately, so I’m not sure what, if anything, we’ll be able to find that corroborated or refutes what’s been brought to light. I will say this though. LOst is no longer a part of S2HD. I’ll have a more in depth response soon. We’re just as pissed off about this as the community is.

[ORIGINAL] Scarred Sun of Sonic Retro advises everyone who has downloaded the Alpha Demo of Sonic 2 HD to delete the entire software in light of a recent keylogger discovery, the cause behind triggered antivirus alerts. Read the full statement after the jump.

Earlier today, I was contacted by a professional antivirus employee who was interested in why Sonic 2 HD consistently popped up as a threat by multiple antivirus software programs and did some investigation. His results showed that a keylogger is part of the Sonic 2 HD software. After receiving this notification, we conducted our own independent tests and found that there is indeed a keylogging program as part of the Sonic 2 HD alpha software. I want to emphasize that at this time, we have found no evidence that the software has been “phoning home” any data—only that we have found the capability exists. Because this vulnerability has been found, we are strongly advising that the software be removed. You will need to delete the files included with the Sonic 2 HD zip, as well as the registry keys hooked at HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/NakaSMK (if you are unfamiliar on how to do this, go to Start->Run.., type regedit, follow the folder path, and then delete the NakaSMK folder.) We will have more information on the situation as it evolves. -Scarred Sun

To those who don’t know what keylogging is, it is a manner of tracking which keys are being typed onto a keyboard. In other words, those being keylogged will likely not be aware that their actions are being monitored. Again, there is no evidence of Sonic 2 HD actively doing this, but the fact that it is capable of doing so is enough to warrant deletion.

To reiterate: to those who’ve downloaded Sonic 2 HD‘s Alpha Demo, delete the software immediately.

Here’s to hoping for the best to the Sonic 2 HD team and that the project will be fixed soon.

Special thanks to MetaRyan for tipping in.