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LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent

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Re: LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent

#561

Post by ygra »

jorvi wrote: post #559
inigyou wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows in the 95-XP era wasn't exactly high-quality software, but it was genuine technical innovation, doing what you otherwise couldn't do.

Windows 7 was also incredibly good. And yeah, there was some pretty neat stuff. Of Linux, macOS and Windows, Windows was the first to get GPU crash recovery, just chugging onward after a stall instead of bringing the entire system down. The biggest sign for me that Microsoft just doesn't care about Windows (aside from the ads stuffed everywhere after a fresh install) is they stopped caring about its bones. Where is W…

> Where is Windows' equivalent of APFS / BTRFS (or even EXT4)..? NTFS is more than 20 years old by now.

There's ReFS, but a lot of NTFS features are basically baked into the filesystem API, so replacing it is hard.

That being said, NTFS works extremely well and reliable. I don't really see a compelling need to replace it (which is always a messy transition unless you're completely backwards-compatible -- but in that case, NTFS has evolved a lot already).

Re: LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent

#562

Post by OsrsNeedsf2P »

Grombobulous wrote: post #184
delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #6

Workaround: gpedit.msc Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Device Installation Prevent automatic download of applications associated with device metadata Set to enabled OK On home editions sans gpedit.msc: sysdm.cpl Hardware tab Click Device Installation Settings Under 'Do you want to automatically download manufacturers' apps for your devices?', select 'No' Save Changes

This is getting technical enough that you might as well install Linux if you figure out how to do this. In other words, we all know that regular consumers will never find this and they’ll never understand that their LG software is spyware in the first place.

I would much rather follow these steps than spend days tinkering with a Linux distro

Re: LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent

#563

Post by frollogaston »

hx8 wrote: post #495
felooboolooomba wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A monitor cannot install software on your computer by the way. I think everyone in the HN crowd knows that. > the blame should be on Microsoft No, they blame should ALSO be on Microsoft, they are the enablers.

> I think everyone in the HN crowd knows that. I actually did not. I know there is some degree of two-way communication over HDMI/DP, and was curious if this was how the software was installed. I think discussing the technical details is a great use of the HN comment section. (Wifi enabled display device -> HDMI -> Device) would be an incredibly interesting attack vector.

Monitor could also be USB-C which opens up the USB attack vectors.

Re: LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent

#564

Post by frollogaston »

mcv wrote: post #488
jms703 wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I was looking for this comment. Dell/Alienware have been doing this for YEARS. Part of the many reasons I moved from Window to Linux.

Is Linux certain to be safe from this sort of thing? I used to use lots of Dell monitors. Are there any brands that are known not to do anything like this? I'd like to reward them with my patronage.

Linux doesn't go install software just because you plug in a certain peripheral, so yeah. Same with Mac. This isn't even an attack, Windows is doing it intentionally.

Re: LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent

#565

Post by [deleted] »

adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #165
bcraven wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Prevent this software having unfettered access to your machine by giving some other software unfettered access to your machine"

That's a hot-take, but yeah. Something like that. Probably more like, "Prevent adversarially installed software from having unfettered access to your machine by giving software you specifically requested unfettered access to your machine." If it makes you feel safer, you can just tell it to give you the commands run them yourself. The point is, I'm not a Windows sysadmin so idk how to do stuff like this--claude does.

[deleted]

Re: LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent

#566

Post by spl757 »

Easy fix. Don't use Windows. It's been enshittified so many times over that I can't believe people put up with what it has become. I haven't used Windows on my desktop for well over a decade. People are switching away from it now, and MS is trying to backtrack some, but it's too late. They destroyed themselves with false promises of AI that backfired, and just absolute greed.

Re: LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent

#567

Post by frollogaston »

someothherguyy wrote: post #145
adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #103

This is an excellent use of agentic AI, btw. Fire Claude up and say, "Remove LG malware and mcafee from this computer. Make regex changes so it can't be installed again." My current windows 10 install is cleaner than any other windows machine I've ever owned due to using Claude to deep dive and rip stuff out.

> excellent use of agentic AI you run claude code unsanboxed on your machine and give it privileged access?

At least it might do a better job than Gemini when I told it to fix the drivers in Linux

Re: LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent

#568

Post by bigstrat2003 »

IgorPartola wrote: post #370
yndoendo wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in my Window days. I would start the driver installation and let it sit. Open the temp folder and copy content the install extracted to a new directory. Cancel the installation. Open Device Manager and install the drivers from there so non of the excessive bloat was installed. This worked greater with being an IT consultant. The client's machine to run smoother and drivers installed fast since they would buy mul…

To be fair Microsoft was always shitware. I don’t remember a time when using a Windows machine just worked, didn’t take up gigabytes of space, didn’t crash, and didn’t get messed up by simply using it requiring a yearly or semi-yearly reinstall.

That happened all the time. My Windows machines, from XP all the way up through early Windows 10, just worked. They didn't crash. And they certainly didn't need to get reinstalled for no reason. Your experience, while unfortunate, is not remotely typical.

Re: LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent

#569

Post by mixmastamyk »

hparadiz wrote: post #448
mixmastamyk wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of bad ideas have come to Linux, like non-consensual telemetry, mobile-first interfaces etc. Don’t believe? Run OpenSnitch. Traditional CADT means features get lost over time. It is not immune from these forces, just not a focus by the powers that be. Fewer developers remember the good old days of Y2Kas as well, meaning they don’t resist these forces instinctively, since they grew up in iOS captivity.

Telemetry is anything including a process list. If you're talking about eBPF it's also used for debugging and server fleets and recently in basic task managers. Any data can be used to take a magnifying glass to the system. The kernel has literally thousands of toggles for this from networking to threading. And yes a program can see what your kernel supports and yes it can refuse to run if you're not running a specif…

How do you think they work?

I’m talking about mostly about consent above, maybe wasn’t clear.

Re: LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent

#570

Post by frollogaston »

adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #165
bcraven wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Prevent this software having unfettered access to your machine by giving some other software unfettered access to your machine"

That's a hot-take, but yeah. Something like that. Probably more like, "Prevent adversarially installed software from having unfettered access to your machine by giving software you specifically requested unfettered access to your machine." If it makes you feel safer, you can just tell it to give you the commands run them yourself. The point is, I'm not a Windows sysadmin so idk how to do stuff like this--claude does.

Yeah it's reasonable to trust Claude more than whatever the heck LG shipped
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