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A part of me wants to go "Un-freaking-believable!" The other part is like, "You really did not see this coming?" The worst part is that this was probably done
by krylon 11y ago
A part of me wants to go "Un-freaking-believable!"
The other part is like, "You really did not see this coming?"
The worst part is that this was probably done for ridiculous reasons. If they had put the certificate on their systems to allow the NSA to spy on their customers (just as hypothetical example), planting such a certificate would probably be a reasonable approach. But in the case of Lenovo and Superfish, this was done to show f___ing advertisements to users, and I am certain in Dell's case their reason is not much better. And for that, they put their customers security at risk. For freaking advertisements and (Dell's claim, I think) making life slightly easier for their support staff.
Seriously, what were these guy thinking?
- eitland 11y agoOnly thing that should be surprising is it doesn't seem to be intentional: there is more than plausible deniabiliy here IMO. OTOH Dell used to bundle adware openly around 2007 and a lot of manufacturers still bundle badware/scareware. (Yes, I'm talking about McAfee here.)
- ultramancool 11y agoI'm still unclear on why they need a root certificate with code signing privs to "make life easier for their support staff".
- krylon 11y agoMe too. Either, this as was one of the worst ideas ever, or one of the lamest excuses ever. (At least in the world of software deployment.)