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Lenovo Statement on Superfish

news.lenovo.com

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Re: Lenovo Statement on Superfish

#61

Post by Kurtz79 »

grecy wrote: post #42
eropple wrote: post #4

> We have thoroughly investigated this technology and do not find any evidence to substantiate security concerns. I try to be measured around here, as hard as I can. I can't formulate a polite way to respond to this claim. Lenovo, you are full of shit, and maliciously so. There is no excuse, nor forgiveness, for what you've done here.

> We have thoroughly investigated this technology and do not find any evidence to substantiate security concerns. I work at a large Telco/ISP and I understand how this kind of thing happens (though I'm not excusing it). First they come to the tech people and we explain exactly what's going on. Our managers translate it so they can understand it, and push it up with their name on it. Those Directors translate it so th…

To be honest, it seems something coming out of PR/Lawyer guys rather than actual engineers.

I mean, the statement is pretty clear and leaves little room for doubt, it would take a lot of simplification and misunderstanding to twist a proper technical analysis (provided it has been done, or even asked) to this level.

Re: Lenovo Statement on Superfish

#62

Post by rossng »

pja wrote: post #32
eropple wrote: post #4

> We have thoroughly investigated this technology and do not find any evidence to substantiate security concerns. I try to be measured around here, as hard as I can. I can't formulate a polite way to respond to this claim. Lenovo, you are full of shit, and maliciously so. There is no excuse, nor forgiveness, for what you've done here.

Can you ever imagine Apple pulling a stunt like this? No, because it’s astonishingly user hostile: Lenovo should be hanging their head in shame, not making out like it’s no big deal.

No company is immune to making ridiculous statements - Apple told people not to hold the iPhone 4 the 'wrong way', for example[1].

I can believe that management at Lenovo simply can't understand how serious this incident is - they're unlikely to have the technical knowledge needed to understand how severe the security problem is. I'm sure there are hundreds of Lenovo engineers tearing their hair out in frustration right now. Not that this excuses the management - they should be listening to their engineers.

[1] http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/24/apple-responds-over-iphon...

Re: Lenovo Statement on Superfish

#63

Post by xienze »

tyho wrote: post #27

> The relationship with Superfish is not financially significant; our goal was to enhance the experience for users. I would prefer for this to be a lie than for it to turn out for this statement to be true. Surely nobody at Lenovo honestly belived that ad injection improved user experience?

> Surely nobody at Lenovo honestly belived that ad injection improved user experience?

I can see the marketing folks honestly believing this. See, the problem with people in marketing is that they come up with ideas that sound good in theory but neglect to consider the implications.

"Wouldn't it be great if I was presented with offers to buy things based on context clues in the web pages I'm browsing?"

"Wouldn't it be great if I didn't have to enter passwords all the time?"

After the marketing brainstorm session the engineers are asked "can this be done?" And the answer is usually "Yes, but..." This is the point at which the marketing droid zones out. "Make it so!"

So yes, I do believe someone in marketing thought this was a great idea. And if it worked perfectly without compromising security, it probably would be a good idea. But there's always compromises in technology, and the marketers either can't grasp or don't care about the consequences.

Re: Lenovo Statement on Superfish

#65

Post by chinathrow »

eropple wrote: post #4

> We have thoroughly investigated this technology and do not find any evidence to substantiate security concerns. I try to be measured around here, as hard as I can. I can't formulate a polite way to respond to this claim. Lenovo, you are full of shit, and maliciously so. There is no excuse, nor forgiveness, for what you've done here.

Indeed. I have been buying IBM and then Lenovo Thinkpads for ages. I hate the thought that my next machine will be another brand.

Lenovo: One customer lost. More to be lost.

Re: Lenovo Statement on Superfish

#66

Post by nfoz »

tyho wrote: post #51

Microsoft seems to have a vice like grip over OEM's regarding preloading windows on every product they sell without exception, IMHO this is a terrible thing, but can't they do at least a little good and prevent OEM's from shipping anything other than a pristine image with no preloaded software? Surely the endless bundled crapware from every OEM just gives Windows a bad reputation in the long term. The popularity of c…

The Android ecosystem is suffering the same problem.

Re: Lenovo Statement on Superfish

#67

Post by flyinghamster »

I have a ThinkPad T61 that I bought refurbished a couple of years ago. One thing that I really like about it is that it came with a clean Windows 7 installation.

But now, there's no way in hell I'd buy a Lenovo. Trust is not easily regained once broken.

Re: Lenovo Statement on Superfish

#68

Post by expatredditor »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #36
tyho wrote: post #27

> The relationship with Superfish is not financially significant; our goal was to enhance the experience for users. I would prefer for this to be a lie than for it to turn out for this statement to be true. Surely nobody at Lenovo honestly belived that ad injection improved user experience?

This would SEEM obvious because as techies we hate ads. But you can't extrapolate this to the general population. There was one time when I visited my mother. We started her instant messaging program, and we were presented with special offers. I recognized it as such within half a second, so I almost automatically checked the 'Do not show this again' checkbox. My mother alarmed me: "No, do not make it go away! I want…

Why would you live with a person like that?

Re: Lenovo Statement on Superfish

#69

Post by ProAm »

grecy wrote: post #42
eropple wrote: post #4

> We have thoroughly investigated this technology and do not find any evidence to substantiate security concerns. I try to be measured around here, as hard as I can. I can't formulate a polite way to respond to this claim. Lenovo, you are full of shit, and maliciously so. There is no excuse, nor forgiveness, for what you've done here.

> We have thoroughly investigated this technology and do not find any evidence to substantiate security concerns. I work at a large Telco/ISP and I understand how this kind of thing happens (though I'm not excusing it). First they come to the tech people and we explain exactly what's going on. Our managers translate it so they can understand it, and push it up with their name on it. Those Directors translate it so th…

Here is it should have been written:

> We have thoroughly investigated this technology and please don't sue us.

Re: Lenovo Statement on Superfish

#70

Post by 0x0 »

tyho wrote: post #51

Microsoft seems to have a vice like grip over OEM's regarding preloading windows on every product they sell without exception, IMHO this is a terrible thing, but can't they do at least a little good and prevent OEM's from shipping anything other than a pristine image with no preloaded software? Surely the endless bundled crapware from every OEM just gives Windows a bad reputation in the long term. The popularity of c…

Exactly. If I were CEO of Microsoft now I'd terminate Lenovo's Windows OEM contract just for tarnishing the reputation of Windows.

That would probably put Lenovo out of business, actually. Might get other OEMs to take notice too :)

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