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We purchased a machine from China and it came with malware preinstalled

rmcybernetics.com

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Re: We purchased a machine from China and it came with malware preinstalled

#161

Post by azinman2 »

someperson wrote: post #143
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We should have never allowed them What does this mean?

I think the person you're replying to meant that China should not have been allowed to join the World Trade Organisation without further requirements.

Or stay in it when it became clearly asymmetric.

I think the hopes were that China would benefit from trade and developed its own industries in a largely decentralized fashion (which happened). What didn’t follow was the assumption that this would cause them to become less authoritarian and more democratic.

Quite the gamble in the end; I don’t think those responsible over many decades realized what the consequences would be for getting this wrong. They all were championed by equally blind stock-market driven CEOs who wanted cheap labor, low/no environmental laws, no unions, a helpful and competent government, and new large markets who didn’t already have lots of stuff.

The US has gotten terrible at long term vision, while China has nothing but long term vision and long term memory.

Re: We purchased a machine from China and it came with malware preinstalled

#162

Post by mellavora »

bruce343434 wrote: post #104
titzer wrote: post #37

I am more than a little concerned that since the miniaturization and commoditization of spy hardware (miniature microphones, cameras, and wireless communication), that run-of-the-mill consumer electronics are being bugged by default. Given the cost is pennies or just a couple dollars, from an espionage perspective, it'd be worth it to spend a few hundred million or even billion putting bugs into literally everything…

What would the chips connect to in order to phone home? My protected home wifi? A random telecom carrier for which it will have to have, by chance, a valid prepaid sim card?

Hey, Alexa, please tell me what random devices in my house are connecting to the internets?

Hey, Roomba, did you download the latest firmware yet? Great! Now go clean the dining room, I have a top-secret meeting in there in 10 minutes.

Hey, Alexa, set the dining room lights to "top-secret meeting" mode.

Re: We purchased a machine from China and it came with malware preinstalled

#163

Post by cronix »

starfallg wrote: post #41
01acheru wrote: post #14

Hug of death probably so I cannot read the article. Anyway that's the reason why I don't buy Chinese crap anymore. I'm not saying that I don't buy anything made in China, almost everything is made in China, but everyone should avoid Chinese crapware. If something doesn't match the description send it back, if you find random executables that you cannot identify send it back, if you are asked to register on some weird…

>I'm not saying that I don't buy anything made in China, almost everything is made in China, but everyone should avoid Chinese crapware. If you spend just a small bit of effort, you can look for items not made in China. They are usually higher quality. Japanese companies (and increasingly large American ones) are moving / have moved their production elsewhere due to an increasingly hostile business environment in Chi…

> Sony makes their phones in Thailand, speakers/headsets in Malaysia. Panasonic produces a lot of consumer electronics in Malaysia. Samsung makes some of their phones in Vietnam, and the high-end ones in Korea. Their fridges are also made in Thailand/Korea. Google makes their Nest line of products in Thailand/Vietnam now. Some Netgear Arlo products are made in Indonesia, (some?) Netgear switches are made in Thailand.

Made/Manufactured/Assembled in X country doesn't mean not using Made/Manufactured/Assembled parts from Y country in the process. Take the Cisco router manufactured in Thailand. Out of the thousands of individual components on the circuit boards, not a single IC within it was manufactured in China?

Re: We purchased a machine from China and it came with malware preinstalled

#164

Post by tempnow987 »

Datenstrom wrote: post #92
chias wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a bluetooth dongle on Amazon recently. didn't work out of the box, and the instruction booklet told me I had to download and install an unsigned device driver that I should download from a specific dropbox link. I tried to write a measured review on Amazon explaining the problem, but Amazon rejected the review. I threw it away and composed an angsty tweet [1], but I really should have returned it. [1] https:…

I very rarely write negative reviews, but every time I have was for something of this magnitude and not once has any ever been left up on any platform.

Same.

What I don't get is that on Amazon I've purchased 10's to 100's of thousands in product (was an early user, business account admin etc). Of all the reviews that SHOULD have credibility, someone who doesn't review a lot and buys a TON of product - you think would be slightly credible?

Instead, for those (few) times I've posted a clearly negative review - gone for whatever reason. If you buy enough from Amazon, especially in last 5 years or so, you got some total absolute trash in there.

"Genuine" Apple products absolutely totally 100% fake trash. How amazon's supply chain thinks these are legit is mind boggling.

I've had such bad luck with "genuine" and "oem" battery replacements I've given up - most of these things are just crap scam stuff.

I'm actually curious how this even happens sometimes, some of the used crap was BADLY used, think of a bunch of electric pencil sharpeners for an office, all "new" that are filled with old pencil shavings, scratches etc etc. Product reviews that when you go back to understand how the piece of trash product got 5 stars you realize the reviews DO NOT EVEN RELATE TO THE PRODUCT you purchased. I mean, how does this even happen?

So you get out the review - hey, this things was garbage, and many of the 5 star reviews were for a knife set it looks like instead of a powerbank. Review rejected :)

Re: We purchased a machine from China and it came with malware preinstalled

#166

Post by oasisbob »

yorwba wrote: post #76
starfallg wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm not saying that I don't buy anything made in China, almost everything is made in China, but everyone should avoid Chinese crapware. If you spend just a small bit of effort, you can look for items not made in China. They are usually higher quality. Japanese companies (and increasingly large American ones) are moving / have moved their production elsewhere due to an increasingly hostile business environment in Chi…

If you buy a Sony product made in Thailand, what protects you from encountering crap like in the article is not that it's made in Thailand instead of China, but that Sony has a reputation to protect and the expertise to do proper quality control. If you buy stuff directly from a Thai company that you never heard of before just because their product was the cheapest, you'll have to do your own testing and will likely…

> but that Sony has a reputation to protect and the expertise to do proper quality control.

They don't, though. Sony, like many other companies, makes products for developing nations which are not sold in more affluent Western countries. ("World" products)

Trying to buy replacement Bluetooth earphones in India really opened my eyes on this one. The store I was buying from had a strict NO RETURNS policy, but still bent the rule when the headphones weren't iPhone compatible (scratchy distortion). After opening two more pairs of Sony with the same problem, they decided to stop and just gave my money back.

This wasn't a budget model - it's a model which you'll never see in the US or EU. Their products aren't just differentiated by country of manufacture, but by the intended market. Depending on brand name isn't enough.

Re: We purchased a machine from China and it came with malware preinstalled

#167

Post by [deleted] »

rafale wrote: post #134
DrBazza wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "efficient" MBA eloi outsourced everything to morlocks a long time ago. This is the biggest weakness of the West - and it all stems back to "share holder value". Companies, US ones, in particular, seem to have some absurd drive to pay endless dividends to shareholders, and drive 'value' via share price, by appearing to be profitable. In other words, get stuff from the cheapest provider. It didn't help that at the s…

It wouldn't be so bad if we outsourced to countries that are ideologically compatible with the West. The problem is China. Not outsourcing itself.

[deleted]

Re: We purchased a machine from China and it came with malware preinstalled

#168

Post by AlwaysRock »

Datenstrom wrote: post #92
chias wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a bluetooth dongle on Amazon recently. didn't work out of the box, and the instruction booklet told me I had to download and install an unsigned device driver that I should download from a specific dropbox link. I tried to write a measured review on Amazon explaining the problem, but Amazon rejected the review. I threw it away and composed an angsty tweet [1], but I really should have returned it. [1] https:…

I very rarely write negative reviews, but every time I have was for something of this magnitude and not once has any ever been left up on any platform.

I tend to write something like, "Didnt work. 1 star" At least that stays up most of the time.

Re: We purchased a machine from China and it came with malware preinstalled

#169

Post by ClumsyPilot »

01acheru wrote: post #14

Hug of death probably so I cannot read the article. Anyway that's the reason why I don't buy Chinese crap anymore. I'm not saying that I don't buy anything made in China, almost everything is made in China, but everyone should avoid Chinese crapware. If something doesn't match the description send it back, if you find random executables that you cannot identify send it back, if you are asked to register on some weird…

"If you find random executables that you cannot identify send it back, if you are asked to download a sketchy application"

That means I should send back laptops made by Sony and Dell too though?

Re: We purchased a machine from China and it came with malware preinstalled

#170

Post by AlwaysRock »

csmpltn wrote: post #30

The malware analysis report they've ordered ( https://www.rmcybernetics.com/files/pdf/Malware-analysis-Fly... ) is extremely light on details. Yes, some things look suspicious (packing, lack of signatures, hardcoded IP addresses/hostnames, network traffic) - but I'm not seeing any clear-cut evidence that this is malware?

It's frustrating. I've seen anti malware software pick up anything that has a file name in Mandarin as malware. I used to use a great little program called Clover which was basically File Explorer for Windows but it allowed tabs. I stopped using it after a while because anti malware kept flagging it. Did it have malware? Maybe! I couldnt really get a good answer and I figured having tabs in file explorer isnt worth it.
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