Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Confirmed: Samsung is not shipping keyloggers

f-secure.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 84 posts

Re: Confirmed: Samsung is not shipping keyloggers

#61

Post by marcomonteiro »

jrockway wrote: post #49
gamble wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sham degrees, exactly. They require the absolute minimum level of educational achievement necessary to edge over the fuzzy line between a diploma mill and legitimate education. Students go to UoP to get a piece of paper that helps their career and that they would generally be incapable of acquiring at a real university, while in exchange UoP is there to milk the students for every federally-guaranteed loan they c…

Students go to UoP to get a piece of paper that helps their career ... while in exchange UoP is there to milk the students for every federally-guaranteed loan they can qualify for. Wait, so just like a real university?

Sorry, but I thought this was hilarious.

Re: Confirmed: Samsung is not shipping keyloggers

#62

Post by natch »

kenjackson wrote: post #50
falcolas wrote: post #33

Perhaps I read it wrong, but the article never says Samsung didn't ship a keylogger, it just indicates that the AV software can make false positives based on a folder. Can we get a link to an article that actually checks a Samsung laptop (and lists their methodology, not this "Duh, there were not any keyloggers") instead of anecdotal evidence and attacking the previous reseaerchers methods? Even if the previous guy w…

The article says two things: 1) The whole saga was caused by a bad antivirus alert. This story never even happens if not for that. 2) They checked a set of Samsung laptops and found no trace of keylogger software. See http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002132.html Is there more you'd like to see be done?

Yes.

1) What was in the SL directory? F-Secure claims the certified guy never inspected it. What about them, did they inspect it? They could have easily asked Hassan for a copy (insert appropriate caveats here about trusting sources). Sounds like they didn't even find one on their own, so how can they assert they know what it does not contain? They might not have gotten one of the laptops with the payload; that doesn't mean they don't exist.

2) How did the SL directory get there? F-Secure didn't even offer a theory.

3) Is Samsung installing keyloggers on a subset (random sample) of their machines?

4) I'd like to see it stated clearly, with no weasel words: Is F-Secure under contract with Samsung or do they have any business relationship with Samsung whatsoever? If not, are they angling for one?

Re: Confirmed: Samsung is not shipping keyloggers

#63

Post by drzaiusapelord »

JamieEi wrote: post #22
Construct wrote: post #9

This is a good reminder to always do your homework before making such a strong accusation. Samsung's reputation is probably largely undamaged, other than among people who just read the headlines on news aggregator sites. Even searching for 'Samsung Key Logger' pulls up mostly articles about the false alarm situation. Mohamed Hassan [MSIA, CISSP, CISA and graduate of the Master of Science in Information Assurance (MSI…

It should also be a good reminder to all of the people on HN who jumped to the conclusion that this guy was right on very sketchy evidence. This place is influential. We should do better.

I did my part and questioned this from the beginning only to be 'corrected' by other HN commentators. A competent person would have displayed logs, packet captures, stacktraces, etc. This guy just said "my infallible tools caught it" and those who want to believe in conspiracy theories just believed it. It was obvious from the get go that Mr. Credentials was just using an off the shelf definition based scanner.

Meanwhile, the shitty media outlets that irresponsibly spread this got all the ad impressions they wanted. The problem with truth is that its not as profitable as BS. How many people will ever read the corrections?

Re: Confirmed: Samsung is not shipping keyloggers

#64

Post by kenjackson »

natch wrote: post #62
kenjackson wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says two things: 1) The whole saga was caused by a bad antivirus alert. This story never even happens if not for that. 2) They checked a set of Samsung laptops and found no trace of keylogger software. See http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002132.html Is there more you'd like to see be done?

Yes. 1) What was in the SL directory? F-Secure claims the certified guy never inspected it. What about them, did they inspect it? They could have easily asked Hassan for a copy (insert appropriate caveats here about trusting sources). Sounds like they didn't even find one on their own, so how can they assert they know what it does not contain? They might not have gotten one of the laptops with the payload; that doesn…

Windows Live installs the SL directory for Slovenia language support. See my other post a little further down for the link.

Re: Confirmed: Samsung is not shipping keyloggers

#65

Post by iamdave »

burgerbrain wrote: post #53
jrockway wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Students go to UoP to get a piece of paper that helps their career ... while in exchange UoP is there to milk the students for every federally-guaranteed loan they can qualify for. Wait, so just like a real university?

Selective quoting much?

No, not so much.

Re: Confirmed: Samsung is not shipping keyloggers

#66

Post by brudgers »

gamble wrote: post #42
raghava wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, University of Phoenix? Isn't it the same university associated with scams and sham degrees, am I wrong?

Not sham degrees, exactly. They require the absolute minimum level of educational achievement necessary to edge over the fuzzy line between a diploma mill and legitimate education. Students go to UoP to get a piece of paper that helps their career and that they would generally be incapable of acquiring at a real university, while in exchange UoP is there to milk the students for every federally-guaranteed loan they c…

However, using Hassan's affiliation with UoP as a means of questioning his qualifications is a bit of a stretch. Given the rate at which bricks and mortar universities churn out graduates with advanced degrees for which there is little employment opportunity on physical campuses, online schools like UoP wind up as the best available option for new MS's and PHD's with an interest in teaching such as Hassan particularly those with one foot in the commercial world.

Re: Confirmed: Samsung is not shipping keyloggers

#68

Post by oconnore »

scott_s wrote: post #31
grannyg00se wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, Mohamed Hassan did contact Samsung support and they didn't clear up the issue. In fact, I believe they may have even confirmed that there was a key logger installed! At that point his due dilligence has been done and he has confirmation. He doesn't need to do anything further than that. Shame on Samsung support for such a pathetic showing.

I don't expect customer support to know what a keylogger is, much less know if their own systems have them installed.

But yet they said yes... I wonder if I call them up and ask, "hey, Samsung CS, did you guys install a flurb-yulb-gumbler on my new laptop?", will they say, "yes, we use those to violate your privacy."

Re: Confirmed: Samsung is not shipping keyloggers

#69

Post by mootothemax »

baltcode wrote: post #20
grannyg00se wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, Mohamed Hassan did contact Samsung support and they didn't clear up the issue. In fact, I believe they may have even confirmed that there was a key logger installed! At that point his due dilligence has been done and he has confirmation. He doesn't need to do anything further than that. Shame on Samsung support for such a pathetic showing.

He did talk to customer support, and once in a while, I'd rather have a false alarm (keeping it to the level of information, rather than lawsuits) now and then, than something like this actually happening and kept under the radar.

I'd rather have a false alarm ... now and then, than something like this actually happening and kept under the radar.

I've heard the same kind of reasoning from people who forward on those "Microsoft will send a prize for the most emails sent!"-type emails.

The problem is: there has to be a minimum level of credibility, otherwise we'd be swamped with every man and his dog making claims like these.

Post reply on HN