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Last post Author Topic: Preloaded spyware, courtesy Lenovo  (Read 26120 times)

xtabber

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Re: Preloaded spyware, courtesy Lenovo
« Reply #25 on: August 13, 2015, 10:48 AM »
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.....

Lenovo used Windows anti-theft feature to install persistent crapware

ewemoa

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Re: Preloaded spyware, courtesy Lenovo
« Reply #26 on: August 13, 2015, 11:37 PM »
Thanks for pointing this out.



Interesting related commentary here:

  https://news.ycombin...com/item?id=10039306
« Last Edit: August 14, 2015, 01:02 AM by ewemoa »

xtabber

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Re: Preloaded spyware, courtesy Lenovo
« Reply #27 on: September 25, 2015, 08:58 AM »
And yet again!!!

Lenovo insists that they have only ever loaded spyware on consumer products, not their business oriented Think line (ThinkPad, ThinkCentre, etc.).

That also turns out to be a lie.

tomos

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Re: Preloaded spyware, courtesy Lenovo
« Reply #28 on: September 25, 2015, 09:53 AM »
Lenovo insists that they have only ever loaded spyware on consumer products, not their business oriented Think line (ThinkPad, ThinkCentre, etc.).

That also turns out to be a lie.

not wanting to minimise this in any way, but there is an interesting comparision there at the end
=>
Had this been any other PC vendor, this might be a triviality. Certainly Microsoft is doing far more tracking in Windows 10.

But trust is the price Lenovo pays for their previous behavior. Those of that recall the company's initial reaction to Superfish, dismissing it out of hand, have a hard time trusting them again.
Tom

xtabber

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Re: Preloaded spyware, courtesy Lenovo
« Reply #29 on: September 25, 2015, 12:04 PM »
Comparisons with Microsoft, Google and others are spurious in that those companies publicly acknowledge a business model that depends on collecting information for advertising and marketing purposes.  They also generally provide clear information on what they are doing and how to opt out, although warning that can reduce the functionality of their products.

Lenovo is a hardware vendor. They have no business collecting this kind of information unless they are reselling it to third parties, which would appear to be the case here. 

The fact that this latest spyware uninstalls itself after 90 days is a dead give-away that Lenovo was fully aware of the damage this could do to their already abysmal reputation.




IainB

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Re: Preloaded spyware, courtesy Lenovo
« Reply #30 on: September 25, 2015, 04:51 PM »
I'm beginning to give up. I mean, what is the point?
"Resistance is futile!", as the soldiers on the Vogon constructor fleet said.
I suspect that there is already more than sufficient evidence to demonstrate that users are being so ceaselessly bombarded/inundated with reasons or arguments to substantiate/justify them being spied upon (for whatever reason, and whether it is by a nation's government, or some corporation, or whoever else wants to justify doing it) that they are beginning to accept it as a de facto condition of using the Internet or any telecommunications device in a Western society. It is a remorseless attack on our freedoms.

The freedoms have arguably, by now, already been lost, whilst we were sleeping, taken by those with more power than our pathetic franchise gives us, and possession being nine-tenths of the law, we are unlikely to be afforded any leeway to repossess them.

So, here we are now, seemingly left in the impotent and feeble position of considering/debating to what extent we will "allow" our freedoms to be further eroded, all the while pathetically deluding ourselves and pretending to believe that we actually have some say in the matter.

In such a storm, we will probably tend to become (or may already be becoming) desensitised to the matter.
Whenever I read this sort of discussion thread, for example, I experience ennui. I sometimes think I should change my email address to [email protected], and have done with it. I used that email address as the recommended fake browser html header when I was using JunkBuster some years back, but at the time I did not imagine that it would come to this.

Shades

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Re: Preloaded spyware, courtesy Lenovo
« Reply #31 on: September 25, 2015, 06:27 PM »
With the amount of tracking and spyware that comes with new versions of Windows itself and the additional spyware the manufacturer decides to put on your laptop...how is this different than running an older version of Windows?

The net result is actually the same!

The only thing you don't know with an older version of Windows is who actually collects the info from your computer. With a new PC you know at least it is Microsoft and the manufacturer/selected partners. But if that is some sort of reassurance. As long as I can make my own PC's, I will. The headache of pre-fabricated PC's really isn't worth it, in my point of view.