I found this whole Lenovo Adware-gate very hypocritical. Why everyone blames the messenger Lenovo but not the source Superfish? Why? Is it because Lenovo is a Chinese company whereas Superfish is a Iserali-American company based in Silicon Valley? Before this adware-gate, EVERY PC manufacturer bundles adware, HP, Dell, Acer, Lenovo, Asus to name a few top players(Apple perhaps is the only exception as I don't count t…
Lenovo had a chance to redeem itself by apologizing, removing the software and quickly distancing itself from the company. They screwed up by denying there was problem in the first place. Which means they were defending both their decision to install Superfish as well as, by proxy, Superfish itself. Thus they are seen to be either incompetent (can't trust them) or malicious (also can't trust them). Also consumers nev…
Lenovo's Response to Its Dangerous Adware Is Astonishingly Clueless
171–180 of 225 posts
Re: Lenovo's Response to Its Dangerous Adware Is Astonishingly Clueless
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
Let's not get too hyperbolic here. Lenovo compromised user security for profit. There should be consequences for such gross misconduct.
Re: Lenovo's Response to Its Dangerous Adware Is Astonishingly Clueless
#173That's one example of management being utterly technologically incompetent, which unfortunately is the case in a lot of Chinese companies.
Superfish is an American company. Lenovo may have been dumb enough to be suckered by it, but they weren't dumb enough to create it.
Re: Lenovo's Response to Its Dangerous Adware Is Astonishingly Clueless
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
The people who made the decisions involved here essentially hacked hundreds of thousands of PCs and defrauded their customers. I don't expect anyone in Lenovo to be punished for a crime, but there's no doubt they did something clearly unethical and borderline illegal. Their best possible defense is that they were just incredibly negligent.
Re: Lenovo's Response to Its Dangerous Adware Is Astonishingly Clueless
#175Microsoft 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
This is the right action from their side, most of the users are not security specialists, somebody should watch out for them.
Re: Lenovo's Response to Its Dangerous Adware Is Astonishingly Clueless
#176Earlier 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.
The Lenovo one is a continuation of the IBM one. You get to tick what you want, they show what the existing installed version is, as well as changelogs. There has never been any misrepresentation. I believe corporate types use the system updater too, and pissing them off by installing garbage would quickly annoy valuable customers.
It does not let you install or update the crapware that comes with systems. It is actually quite difficult to get that stuff other than saving it when you get a new system. BTW IBM/Lenovo have historically had way less crapware than other vendors. I think Lenovo got complacent in this case, hearing "you guys do less crapware than the others" and confusing it with "you are doing a perfect job". Less worse is not the same as doing good.
Someone's useful add-on is someone else's garbage. They have some software called Access Connections which provides more gui and control over networking, such as which access points to connect to based on location profiles and who knows what else. I don't want that since I mostly use Linux, and Windows does a good enough job when I am using it. The system updater has never installed it, nor tricked me in any way.
Re: Lenovo's Response to Its Dangerous Adware Is Astonishingly Clueless
#177Kudos 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.
> I left a completely benign post that didn't go with the pro-Microsoft/anti-Google narrative -- saw -11 within less than 60 seconds.
"Benign?" You accused a dude of being a lying Microsoft shill because he said that a recent Android version ran slowly on his device.
Re: Lenovo's Response to Its Dangerous Adware Is Astonishingly Clueless
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
And, strangely, I didn't say otherwise. The part that 'nailer' is correcting is your statement that "There is absolutely and unequivocally either brigading Microsoft fans, or paid shills, hitting HN hard.". You accused him (and me, and others who voted up this story) of being either a "brigading Microsoft fan" or a "paid shill". Your comments are being downvoted because individual users think that they are rude and f…
You accused him (and me, and others who voted up this story) of being either a "brigading Microsoft fan" or a "paid shill". Sorry, but that's just false as far as I can tell. He cited those things as the reason for his other comment's moderation. Please quote the text from which you draw your conclusions of attribution.
jhou2: the amount of positive press that MS has been garnering recently on HN is impressive
engendered: Don't think it is purely happenstance. There is absolutely and unequivocally either brigading Microsoft fans, or paid shills, hitting HN hard.
My interpretation might be wrong, but I take jhou2's "positive press" to mean stories such as this one appearing on the front page. I interpret 'engendered' as saying that these stories would not appear on the front page if it were not for "brigading Microsoft fans" or "paid shills". Since the story is on the front page because of user upvote, and although there could be dispute about all vs most vs some, I read this to be accusing those who voted up the story as being one of these things.
In my read, he attributes the downvotes on his comments to the same faction, uses this as evidence that the faction exists, and thus can also be held responsible for elevating this and other Microsoft-positive stories to the front page. I think he's wrong, don't think the "brigading Microsoft fan" has much of an influence on HN, and doubt that Microsoft is paying anyone for getting things on the front page.
I'd happily consider evidence to the contrary, but I think the downvotes to engendered's comments are due to other factors, and that the pro-Microsoft stories are appearing more frequently on HN because they periodically act as a positive force. I don't know how prevalent my attitude is, but I find these stories interesting in a "Dog Bites Man" fashion. I am more likely to vote up a good deed done by Microsoft because I find it to be more noteworthy than a good deed done by others.
Re: Lenovo's Response to Its Dangerous Adware Is Astonishingly Clueless
#179Microsoft 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
Every AV should be doing this. Is MS the only one doing it?
ESETs NOD32 prevents Superfish from being installed. I'm not sure if it does any more than that though.
Re: Lenovo's Response to Its Dangerous Adware Is Astonishingly Clueless
#180I warned all my friends and colleagues who use Lenovos, and their answers were all the same. "Who'd be crazy enough to use the default install? First thing I did was (a fresh reinstall of Windows|install Linux)." (Edit: Obviously this is not representative of the general population, and I didn't mean to suggest it was. I was just noting that my efforts to warn people about the untrustworthiness of Lenovo were thwarte…
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 followed this a few weeks ago:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-CA/windows-8/create-reset-re...
Got me a 8.1 ISO, installed with a volume key.