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

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

#321

Post by flibberbit »

As much as that sucks, it's not all that surprising. You decided to try to undercut everyone else who desired a living wage. That's not to say getting infected with malware is "what you deserved", nobody should have their security compromised. What I'm saying is that you compromised your security by not working with people you can trust, people who are asking for a living wage and thus don't have to resort to putting malware into the products they create.

People in China aren't bad people, they're just people put into a tough situation. It's plenty easy to get good quality products out of China, just like anywhere else. The problem is that few people are willing to pay the real price for products, they want cheap regardless of consequences.

As someone also in the electronics design and manufacturing space I find this type of behavior very troubling. I demand what I consider a fair wage for my work and in return I also try to support other people in the industry also getting a fair wage. If all you do is buy the cheapest possible services you are really telling others they should do the same and not support you. The only solution I see is to stop pushing the costs of your business onto others that can't afford it. Go buy quality used hardware from people you can trust rather than complaining that a former colony of yours is trying to steal something from you.

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

#322

Post by tekknik »

danieltanfh95 wrote: post #114
3pt14159 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what? I don't care anymore. When this type of thing happens it's almost always China. Whether it's intentional malware or a lack of QA, how could one tell? They have such a reputation for both I don't know why we still let their electronics into our countries.

it's because chinese goods are consistently good that anything bad is news. ironic isn't it literally everything is made in china, if the quality is as bad as you say the world would have fallen apart. It seems critical thinking is rare among news outrage these days. The same comments were said of Japanese products back in the day, "IP thieves", "shitty quality", and here we are decades later praising Japanese produc…

> literally everything is made in china, if the quality is as bad as you say the world would have fallen apart.

no not literally everything. and who’s not annoyed by shopping on amazon and having to weed through all the cheap chinese “solutions”? The only time you get something quality from China is if some other company outside China is commissioning them to build their stuff with high standards. the rest of Chinese “innovation” is seeing how cheap they can make something before it does literally fall apart.

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

#323

Post by tekknik »

csmpltn wrote: post #316
MathMonkeyMan wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no expert, but I'm also not convinced that the device contained malware. > We sent the file for proper malware analysis which did confirm that it did indeed contain malware. The malware would collect user data and send it to a remote address. Presumably it would be a way to steal company information such as designs, accounts, and so on. Pretty shady stuff! Or, you know, it might be doing anything at all on the in…

There's nothing in this analysis report which proves beyond doubt that this is malware. There's plenty of software out there that behaves this way. I don't think they have solid ground for claiming they've been hit with malware here.

The next question is why are people defending China so hard here? Near 1/2 the posts here look like they’re from the $0.50 party.

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

#324

Post by tekknik »

carapace wrote: post #174
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…

This has already happened: smartphones and wifi. People financed it themselves by buying the things. (Wifi can see you: "The next big Wi-Fi standard is for sensing, not communication" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29901587 ) FWIW, I think whether we build a dystopia or utopia depends on whether or not we can make our rulers live under the same panopticon as the rest of us.

Theres also wifi cracking toasters and other household appliances.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hacked-from-china-is-your-kettl...

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

#325

Post by gigaflop »

wlesieutre wrote: post #234
gigaflop wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like that isn't available for those in the US, since the redirect takes me to a 'not available' page. Are the 'Signature Edition' versions at all available in the US?

Hmm good question, I just took what came up in Google which is apparently the "English (Grenada)" site. Maybe they've dropped this in the US.

It looks like they no longer offer it: https://www.howtogeek.com/402888/looking-for-a-microsoft-sig...

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

#326

Post by MathMonkeyMan »

tekknik wrote: post #323
csmpltn wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing in this analysis report which proves beyond doubt that this is malware. There's plenty of software out there that behaves this way. I don't think they have solid ground for claiming they've been hit with malware here.

The next question is why are people defending China so hard here? Near 1/2 the posts here look like they’re from the $0.50 party.

Because claims need to be backed up by evidence, even if we love to proceed with prejudice.

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

#327

Post by webmaven »

tempnow987 wrote: post #218
webmaven wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? Several ways: 1. Repurposing product listings for something unrelated and keeping the old sales data and reviews 2. Merging product listings to aggregate unrelated sales data and reviews 3. Fake reviews that were un…

> Several ways: > 1. Repurposing product listings for something unrelated and keeping the old sales data and reviews Sure - but this seems trivially solvable by Amazon - you can't tell that a product listing for a knife set is not a tech product?? > 2. Merging product listings to aggregate unrelated sales data and reviews Again - def happens I think. But can't these go through some type of review? The ones I've seen…

"Why doesn't Amazon stop this from happening?" is a different question from "How does this happen?".

Any system Amazon puts in place will have a lot of false positives that require human review. And that is entirely aside from the fact that underhanded sellers will try to flood such a system with automated disputes until Amazon relents.

> The ones I've seen are WAY off when you look deeper.

You're assuming these disparate merges happen in a single step.

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

#328

Post by AlwaysRock »

nyx wrote: post #258
AlwaysRock wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

I haven't thought about Clover in forever, but didn't it add tabs to your existing Explorer, versus being an Explorer clone plus tabs? The behavior required for the former probably looks a lot like malware to a heuristic detection engine.

Oh. You could be right. I don't remember, I just naively assumed because it had a different shortcut icon it was a different program.

Do you know of an alternative? I was partially hoping that when I mentioned it someone would say, "I did the same thing but now I use X."

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

#329

Post by tgv »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #292
tgv wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really something entirely different than malware. You know that Amazon books on kindle are subject to that. It's not malware on the Kindle, it's their whole schtick.

That's really something entirely different than malware. You know that Amazon books on kindle are subject to that. It's not malware on the Kindle, it's their whole schtick. At the time it was suspected, but unknown. I remember the outrage, I'm not sure If I was lurking on here before I made an account, or I read it on slashdot or digg or something. Here are the HN comments from the time. https://news.ycombinator.com/…

Interesting, but at least some people seem to have been aware.

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

#330

Post by ashwagary »

seneca wrote: post #230
ashwagary wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have a hard time admitting that what Snowden/Assange revealed about the US is much more damning, from infected servers to keyloggers built into USB cables. I find China is useful as a mirror to the US. If they are doing something problematic, it's highly likely the US gov is too but just hasn't disclosed it to the public.

> I find China is useful as a mirror to the US. If they are doing something problematic, it's highly likely the US gov is too but just hasn't disclosed it to the public. You think the US is engaging in systematic genocide? I'm guessing not. If so, you should consider why you would say something so ridiculously out of step with reality.

Seems my reply was possibly too on the nose of got flagged. Hopefully, you read it before it was removed.
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