https://www.microsoft.com/en-gd/store/b/signaturepcs

Autorun USB malware is very common

There's a fun story documented on Darknet Diaries (https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/22/) about a wind farm that got hacked. The "malicious" actor had found his way into their infrastructure and installed some idle cryptominers. But he was also taking the time to maintain all the infrastructure; applying updates and patches on a regular basis in an effort to keep other would-be hackers out. The security consultant discloses all of this to the company. Well, the story ends with the company making a business decision to leave things as they are. They were effectively getting free IT.

that hasn't worked since windows xp sp2.

Also why would Windows Ultimate indicate piracy? Wouldn't it be weird if "Windows Home" flashed up on the screen while booting an industrial machine? It's more likely to make sense that Windows Home isn't licensed for use on industrial machines.

Well, they would if they knew. I have purchased a variety of random computing hardware from Chinese suppliers and despite the product pages claiming they had no on-board OS installed, they came with cracked versions of Windows. They do it because customers want an OS but don't want to shell out for a license. It costs them nothing to pirate software (especially when they lie about it) and getting caught and actually blocked is very hard. This isn't like them intercepting a shipment of counterfeit purses where you can clearly tell by looking at the item. You'd have to boot the computers and then verify that they have an OS installed and then that it's properly licensed, which is well out of reach for a random customs officer.

> why would Windows Ultimate indicate piracy?

It's a very expensive license and, if you have any experience pirating Windows (I cough don't) that's usually what you find since if you're going to steal something, why steal the shittier, less featurefull version?

Microsoft sells an embedded, stripped down version of Windows with extended support life for industrial machines like this. Ultimate is intended for workstations and power users.

It could only happen in China - because the author bought dubious stuff from unknown third party on AliExpress. Craiglist scams happen mostly in US because people don't use it elsewhere.

Sort of like how you shoot the arrow first and then draw a target around it, 100% bullseye.

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 products. Its hilarious at this point.

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.

I'd say Chinese manufacturing is a little cheaper and a lot lower quality, and generally the price difference is not remotely sufficient to make up for the loss in performance. You need a company in the middle who cares about their reputation to be safe buying it.

It was a different time: https://www.nytimes.com/1952/01/13/archives/japanese-machine... "The Japanese flair for imitating, but not equaling, the manufactures of occidental nations has caught up with her machine-tool industry, ..." (1952)

First it was imitating, but not equaling, then it was imitating with equal quality but a little cheaper, and a few generations later nobody remembers that "Made in Japan" ever meant anything but high quality.

And that's why nowadays things like washing machines and refrigerators which used to last decades now break within the first year or two.

> The same comments were said of Japanese products back in the day, "IP thieves", "shitty quality", and here we are decades later praising Japanese products. Its hilarious at this point.

But these stereotypes lasted only for a decade tops! I have not seen the same commitment to quality that Japanese brands produced. I believe it is a cultural difference, Japanese take great pride in workmanship.

Most people won't remember it because it's too long ago

Stuxnet, Pegasus, Vault 7 tech are far more dangerous with that capacity to cause real harm to actual people. Who developed these?

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 same time people like Carl Icahn came along and stripped a company that was cheap to buy, but also sat on a pile of cash. And again, if he could 'drive value' for the share holders, said company was a target.

Eventually state-level politics appear - artificially low-prices Chinese goods because the CCP fix the exchange rate, or subsidise an entire market to corner it globally.

Rinse repeat, and that's where we're at now.

Western MBAs and politicians think they know that manufacturing is just a fungible commodity and think that we're exploiting cheap Chinese labor to 'drive shareholder value'.

While they have this myopic focus on quarterly results, the CCP has a 100- and 500-year plan, and is happily exploiting that myopia for strategic economic and military value, including subsidizing massive undercutting of entire industries in order to kill all but their own. The result is that they are gaining the deep know-how of manufacturing, the ability to compromise their adversaries' military gear at the component level, and the ability to choke off supply chains.

Although there is still barely time to repair this, it will go down as a strategic blunder of historic proportions.

Western manufacturers are constantly pulling their factories back from China, many having gained an ultimate net loss from moving in in the 90s and now relocating again.

And sure Chinese labor isn't as cheap, they've moved up the value chain some, but it is still cheap enough compared to US wages to make items and ship them here - particularly with China's lax environmental and labor laws.

The relocations to even cheaper labor-rate counties are still an improvement, as at least they aren't creating all levels of strategic disadvantage...

Which is just a business buzzphrase for "Greed."

The West is being eaten alive by its own greed, and the Chinese are just watching us do it.