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Class action lawsuit filed against Lenovo over Superfish

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Re: Class action lawsuit filed against Lenovo over Superfish

#111

Post by rhino369 »

mikeash wrote: post #88
rhino369 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is essentially the difference between Criminal law and civil law. Civil suits are typically designed to make you whole. You get what you actually lost. Sometimes putative damages can be awarded, which can look at the egregiousness of the actions of the plaintiff. I don't know if those are available here.

Then I guess the followup questions are: why aren't criminal charges being brought, and (if they're actually not) why aren't punitive damages being awarded?

Punitive damages would occur after any trial victory. This is just the very first step, essentially a legal accusation.

As to why the government hasn't tried to indict for criminal charges, there could be many reasons. The case might not be good. They might be waiting. They may think it's small fry stuff.

The doj doesn't go after everyone.

Re: Class action lawsuit filed against Lenovo over Superfish

#112

Post by a3n »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #108
a3n wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would seem to be a violation of the DMCA, as it is software preinstalled to allow the eventual side-stepping of the end-user's security measures (using an HTTPS-capable browser). "It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_A... EDIT: Considering the huge number of victi…

It would make my day to see companies (or the individuals who called for this retarded project) get punished under DMCA / RICO / CFAA. I bet we'd see those repealed real quick due to lobbying pressure if that kind of thing actually worked.

Nah, they'd just get revised by Congress, as part of the War on Citizens.

Re: Class action lawsuit filed against Lenovo over Superfish

#113

Post by ossreality »

tokenizerrr wrote: post #93
diyorgasms wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can only get windows updates if your network drivers work. With the Lenovos, Dells, and HPs I've been coming across early, Windows 7 and 8 are broken out of the box, usually with no network drivers. Strangely enough, Linux often works flawlessly with these same computers.

I've never not seen wired networking work. It's been at least five years since I've handled a laptop where wireless did not work out of the box.

How did you buy a laptop with an ethernet port in the last 5 years?

Re: Class action lawsuit filed against Lenovo over Superfish

#114

Post by ossreality »

woodchuck64 wrote: post #54
lessthunk wrote: post #24

.. reinstall any computer you get from scratch; Firmware Bios spying is of course much harder to get rid from.

Upvoted since reinstalling is a valuable skill to learn and cultivate.

put in disk. turn on computer. click next three times.

installing an OS just is't that hard these days.

Re: Class action lawsuit filed against Lenovo over Superfish

#115

Post by tragic »

jellicle wrote: post #36
roel_v wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's such a minor issue.

Hacking several million computers is minor? What qualifies as major, then? The Morris worm infected 2-3 orders of magnitude fewer computers... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_worm

Well, there are surely more than three orders of magnitude more computers connected to the internet today than the 60,000 Paul Graham reports people guessing at in 1988.

Put another way, as dreadful as it is, Superfish was never at risk of partitioning the internet. The harm is restricted to those luckless individuals who purchased a Lenovo laptop in the particular time frame at issue; quite possibly a crime, but not, playing devil's advocate for reluctant prosecutors, a 'something must be seen to be done or I'll be lynched' level crime.

Re: Class action lawsuit filed against Lenovo over Superfish

#116

Post by rdudek »

ChristianBundy wrote: post #101
rdudek wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couple of things here. Large companies most likely reimage the devices with enterprise license. For example, we order based on hardware configuration. Our company uses HP for everything, so we purchase the business class equipment with 3 year warranty on everything. Also, we don't use the version of Windows that comes with the devices, we reimage all our systems with our own using System Center Configuration Manager.

I'm curious, are you concerned with the fact that you can't get HP updates after your warranty is up?

Only updates we may be concerned for are BIOS ones with our full disk encryption compatibility with Check Point. None of our systems have any HP software so we don't need updates for those. We also control updates like java, flash, and windows ones too via SCCM.

Re: Class action lawsuit filed against Lenovo over Superfish

#117

Post by javajosh »

lamuerteflaca wrote: post #78
cynoclast wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only people who win class action lawsuits are lawyers.

Not true. The customer will see the company getting punished which is worth a lot more. They will think twice about doing something idiotic next time. This is what I call using your lawyer powers for good (and profit).

The analogy is getting your car stolen and telling the police, who find the car, keep it for their effort, and let you keep (one of) the floor-mats. You are saying that this is fair because the thief ended up in jail.

Re: Class action lawsuit filed against Lenovo over Superfish

#118

Post by seanp2k2 »

rebootthesystem wrote: post #42

Rule #1 of buying any pre-packged Windows computer: Clean install the OS from original MS disks, not from what might come with the computer. If you are running a business the cost is insignificant when compared with the aggravation and risk of crapware. This is also the reason we still build our own desktop computers: You know exactly what's in them, you can service them and generally get more performance and quality…

It's also amusing to me how many of the people who do this will install Windows from a "cracked" distro, as that is now more secure than what most manufacturers provide out-of-the-box. Sad when random ISO from public torrent tracker is more trustworthy than Official Disk Image from publicly-traded corporation.

Re: Class action lawsuit filed against Lenovo over Superfish

#120

Post by Animats »

acdha wrote: post #43
wehadfun wrote: post #29

Suprise that no market their computers as "crapware free".

Microsoft's trying to create a premium “Signature Edition” category with that as the selling point: http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/cat/Signatur...

That's funny. Take a look at that link. Microsoft, itself, is talking about how crappy their own product is in its normally delivered form.
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