News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on HP installs system-slowing spyware on its PCs. Parent comment

Re:HP installs system-slowing spyware on its PCs by pc86 on Tuesday November 28, 2017 @10:41AM (#15798183)
They all pose the same danger the same way any car on the road can veer into your lane and kill you. It doesn't mean that's likely or even probable. Yes, by definition closed source software can be changed to do something you don't like without telling you.

But specifically Windows has the track record that it will do this, and when you attempt to stop it, it will attempt to go around you and keep doing it. Random drivers and Raspberry Pi firmware do not have this track record, and so saying they "all pose the same danger" is technically accurate, it's disingenuous to the point of being borderline untrue.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:HP installs system-slowing spyware on its PCs by cmurf on Tuesday November 28, 2017 @02:09PM (#15800340)
It's not the same danger in the same way, until car steering, et al, have a dependency on proprietary firmware that we can't inspect and understand. In the meantime, the mechanical components can be cut open, their operation understood. What's more likely than uncommanded veering, is you lose power steering, and can't easily steer.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:HP installs system-slowing spyware on its PCs by majewsky on Tuesday November 28, 2017 @04:44PM (#15802106)
Modern cars have a lot of electronics involved in things like steering, and some researchers already demonstrated that they can take over the steering of a car from remote by exploiting vulnerabilities in those electronics.
[ Parent | on HN ]