Lenovo's Response to Its Dangerous Adware Is Astonishingly Clueless • Hacker News Board

Re: Lenovo's Response to Its Dangerous Adware Is Astonishingly Clueless

#151

Post by fnordfnordfnord » Fri, Feb 20, 2015, 7:06 PM UTC

fown9 wrote: post #40

jamieb wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why buy a computer from a company that has ties to the US government, an authoritarian government that supports dictators in Africa, the Middle-East, South America, and East Asia, including torture, drug smuggling, misogyny, and has itself engaged in abduction, detention without trial, and in relation to this case, illegal interception of communications?

1.) Which US computer company has ties to US government? Literally owned by the government? 2.) How is US government authoritarian? Have you actually lived in a country that has no elected representative?

1.) Lenovo isn't owned by the CCP.

2.) In the way that a company can be compelled to comply with an order from the government, including the requirement that the company may not disclose to anyone the nature of that order or the gag order, and that there is effectively no way to challenge such orders in a court of law.

>Have you actually lived in a country that has no elected representative?

Yes. What difference is that supposed to make?

Re: Lenovo's Response to Its Dangerous Adware Is Astonishingly Clueless

#152

Post by powertower » Fri, Feb 20, 2015, 7:08 PM UTC

engendered wrote: post #54

jhou2 wrote: post #26

Kudos to MS, srsly. lol the amount of positive press that MS has been garnering recently on HN is impressive.

Don't think it is purely happenstance. There is absolutely and unequivocally either brigading Microsoft fans, or paid shills, hitting HN hard. There was a garbage post on the front page yesterday and I left a completely benign post that didn't go with the pro-Microsoft/anti-Google narrative -- saw -11 within less than 60 seconds.

> There is absolutely and unequivocally ...

I down-voted you for this and nothing else that further followed.

Because anyone that believes in a) absolute objective truth and b) that they posses that said truth, is a person that will generally be wrong in many ways on whatever follows (or at the least, if this was an out-of-the-character emotional response, it will lack the needed logic and reason based evidence to support the statement).

Also, starting out a discussion with kill terms that accuse and label anyone who does not agree with the given POV, is not cool.

Re: Lenovo's Response to Its Dangerous Adware Is Astonishingly Clueless

#153

Post by untog » Fri, Feb 20, 2015, 7:09 PM UTC

engendered wrote: post #54

jhou2 wrote: post #26

Kudos to MS, srsly. lol the amount of positive press that MS has been garnering recently on HN is impressive.

Don't think it is purely happenstance. There is absolutely and unequivocally either brigading Microsoft fans, or paid shills, hitting HN hard. There was a garbage post on the front page yesterday and I left a completely benign post that didn't go with the pro-Microsoft/anti-Google narrative -- saw -11 within less than 60 seconds.

Oh, please. Your post was downvoted because it accused people of being MS shills - just like this one.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9074704

Re: Lenovo's Response to Its Dangerous Adware Is Astonishingly Clueless

#154

Post by ihnorton » Fri, Feb 20, 2015, 7:12 PM UTC

chadgeidel wrote: post #129

rogerbinns wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lenovo does this for you with their system updater. It downloads and updates all drivers for your system, including bios updates and configuration tweaks that affect power and stability. It will install on a fresh install from Microsoft media - ie there is no need to keep what was preinstalled on the system. http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/documents/ht080136

I don't use those because i don't trust the manufacturer-provided "system updater" to only download drivers. What's to prevent them from surreptitiously installing their add-on garbage. Even if it currently does not do that, I just don't trust it to not do that in general.

For Lenovo you can download the SCCM package for the given model. Includes all necessary .inf files and does not install anything itself (designed for use in corporate deployments).

Re: Lenovo's Response to Its Dangerous Adware Is Astonishingly Clueless

#155

Post by nothrabannosir » Fri, Feb 20, 2015, 7:14 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #97

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every AV should be doing this. Is MS the only one doing it?

Defender is my current Windows anti-malware software of choice. Basically, because they don't feel they have to shill so hard as the other AV companies, and this makes their user experience suck the least.

Yes, and: it's preinstalled on Windows 8, it costs nothing, and it's made by the very same company whose product it tries to protect, so incentives and motivation are clear (an exception to "if you're not paying you're the product").

It's quite a convincing product, quickly becoming an integral part of the OS. And rightfully so.

Re: Lenovo's Response to Its Dangerous Adware Is Astonishingly Clueless

#156

Post by ChuckMcM » Fri, Feb 20, 2015, 7:21 PM UTC

engendered wrote: post #54

jhou2 wrote: post #26

Kudos to MS, srsly. lol the amount of positive press that MS has been garnering recently on HN is impressive.

Don't think it is purely happenstance. There is absolutely and unequivocally either brigading Microsoft fans, or paid shills, hitting HN hard. There was a garbage post on the front page yesterday and I left a completely benign post that didn't go with the pro-Microsoft/anti-Google narrative -- saw -11 within less than 60 seconds.

People do have strong opinions and favored suppliers and sports teams, but generally there is a polite way and an impolite way to disagree with something :-) Stating that a given sports franchise "sucks" and anyone who thinks it doesn't is "stupid" is a great way to start a brawl in pretty much any sports bar, and discussion forums like HN are no different.

And like sports teams, companies are constantly changing they are getting new employees and new management and new ideas. So the idea that any company is "good" or "bad" is unsupported on its face, all we can ever say is that "this action" or "this decision" was good or bad and criteria by which we have judged it.

Microsoft's decision to immediately cleanse this injector code as 'malware' was, in my opinion, a "good" decision. Based on the reasoning that it is better for the users and folks like my Dad who doesn't know how to get it off his system is helped by this.

Re: Lenovo's Response to Its Dangerous Adware Is Astonishingly Clueless

#157

Post by notsony » Fri, Feb 20, 2015, 7:23 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #135

buro9 wrote: post #13

Microsoft is currently doing Lenovo's work for them: https://twitter.com/FiloSottile/status/568800260111388672 The latest version of Windows Defender is actively removing the Superfish software and the cert. The text of the definition is here: http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=us7iXvkn

At least "Lenovo US" is owning up to it. https://twitter.com/lenovoUS/status/568578319681257472 Not sure how they're connected to the "Lenovo" that issued that statement.

Seems to be a lot of self-righteous moral crusaders on Twitter, and some on HN too, who won't be satisfied until they see Lenovo employees hanging from lamp posts...

Re: Lenovo's Response to Its Dangerous Adware Is Astonishingly Clueless

#158

Post by knd775 » Fri, Feb 20, 2015, 7:29 PM UTC

rcthompson wrote: post #73

mattmanser wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On that note, Microsoft seem to have taken down the windows digital downloads, OEM CD keys don't work. How would you do a fresh install now?

I didn't ask them. Maybe piracy + "I have a Windows license so it's ok-ish" rationalization.

Piracy is actually quite hard on Windows 8+. The way it is licensed is way different from the past and the current circumvention methods require repeated reactivation and break a lot.

Note: I do own Windows 8.1 Pro, so don't think this is based on my experience pirating the software. I merely have examined the licensing system for some software I was writing.

Re: Lenovo's Response to Its Dangerous Adware Is Astonishingly Clueless

#159

Post by mchahn » Fri, Feb 20, 2015, 7:29 PM UTC

Last night I fired up a brand new HP stream desktop with windows 8.1 (only $179!). It had a Superfish icon on the desktop. When I get home I'll check for the cert.

So maybe Lenovo isn't the only offender.

Edit: Duh. It was snapfish, not superfish. I've been reading about superfish so much that's what I saw.

Re: Lenovo's Response to Its Dangerous Adware Is Astonishingly Clueless

#160

Post by x0x0 » Fri, Feb 20, 2015, 7:50 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #156

engendered wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't think it is purely happenstance. There is absolutely and unequivocally either brigading Microsoft fans, or paid shills, hitting HN hard. There was a garbage post on the front page yesterday and I left a completely benign post that didn't go with the pro-Microsoft/anti-Google narrative -- saw -11 within less than 60 seconds.

People do have strong opinions and favored suppliers and sports teams, but generally there is a polite way and an impolite way to disagree with something :-) Stating that a given sports franchise "sucks" and anyone who thinks it doesn't is "stupid" is a great way to start a brawl in pretty much any sports bar, and discussion forums like HN are no different. And like sports teams, companies are constantly changing the…

Better yet would be killing any komodia cert (I don't think that's what they did), since even the spy-on-your-kids products have the effect of breaking ssl.