Earlier quoted context omitted.
Theft? Seriously?
They were making money (tens of millions) from software illegally installed, so definitely.
Do you know what the word "theft" means?
Lenovo Caught Installing Adware on New Computers
431–435 of 435 posts
Re: Lenovo Caught Installing Adware on New Computers
#432Earlier quoted context omitted.
but apparently no one did a security review It doesn't take a "security review" to spot a gaping security and privacy violation like this. Any engineer with even the slightest clue of how a browser and "the internet" works would have called this out during the first "How does this product work?"-presentation. Let's not pretend Lenovo is staffed with monkeys.
“Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence.” Remember stuff like this: http://www.cryptofails.com/post/70059600123/saltstack-rsa-e-... (Which, possibly unfairly, is one reason I'm leaning more towards ansible than saltstack to this day -- I mean, if stuff like that got through... what else, in more complex areas of the system?)
I generally agree, but this is a situation that can be explained by either an embarrassing level of incompetence or a pretty minor amount of malice (or even indifference). So I'll assume malice until I see them own up to that much incompetence.
Re: Lenovo Caught Installing Adware on New Computers
#433I feel bad for Lenovo's customers, but I also feel bad for people who bought Lenovo stock, thinking they were investing in smart people who wouldn't risk on such a shity strategy.
Re: Lenovo Caught Installing Adware on New Computers
#434Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that is fine, personally. Obviously others might not. You have to specifically agree to install/allow PunkBuster, and you can choose to play on servers that don't use PunkBuster. With Lenovo not only is there no opt-out, but you're not even aware of the adware and root CA installation. The "spyware" only spies on modifications to the game client in any way and tries to detect non-human involvement, which of c…
It's not fine because, as is the case with Superfish, this type of software leaves gaping security holes that blackhats can exploit no matter how noble the vendor is.
What security holes does PunkBuster introduce? Adware like Superfish and game client modification detection like PunkBuster are very different kinds of software. I do not support anything like Superfish.
Re: Lenovo Caught Installing Adware on New Computers
#435Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure what you mean with "non-traditional keyboard", but Lenovo did change the keyboard in the 3rd generation Thinkpad X1 Carbons, reverting the layout of the 2nd generation to a more conventional one: with six rows instead of five. Glad they did. Ars Technica just reviewed the 3rd generation version: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/02/thinkpad-x1-carbon-re... .
As far as I am concerned this one has the non-traditional keyboard (CTRL is NOT in the lower left corner). Mess with my muscle-memory and you're sure I will never buy your laptop. Same reason I'll never consider MacBooks: Non-standard keyboard.
> As far as I am concerned this one has the non-traditional keyboard (CTRL is NOT in the lower left corner).
OK, that's one part of non-traditionalism :-) Luckily, the Ctrl and Fn keys' functions can be swapped in the BIOS (but obviously, the key labels will stay put).
I referred to the strange setup of the Caps Lock key, and the missing 6th row with function keys. (Although the functioning of the function keys is different in the 3rd generation model than in the 1st generation model).