4 ms·

At least with a PC, it's relatively easy to put in a fresh install, either Windows or some other operating system, which everyone in tech should do considering

At least with a PC, it's relatively easy to put in a fresh install, either Windows or some other operating system, which everyone in tech should do considering the recent HP/Lenovo issues (although I'm not sure if it would help I this situation if this particular exploit was in the official drivers). It's considerably harder with phones, with all of them running non standard, non upstreamable kernels, and consumers not really having alternative OSes like we do with PCs.

tga 9y ago
Most PCs come without Windows installation media and instead rely on a restore partition (keylogger included). If you try to install off random other media (e.g. MSDN), it will not recognize the OEM license that comes with the computer. Because of this, there is no trivial way (edit: OK, without buying Windows again) to get a vanilla install including only the Microsoft keylogger, but not the HP one.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  There's a trivial way, it's just not zero added cost if your PC was bundled with Windows: buy a retail version of Windows.
- pnutjam 9y ago
  Not true, you can reinstall the same version and it will pick up the licensing from the BIOS. You can even extract the key from the BIOS to use on a VM (same hardware) if your running linux. It's even very easy to get the install media direct from Windows, not like back in XP days. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10I...
  - tga 9y ago
    Thanks, this used to be an issue at least Windows 8. I'm happily surprised if it's now as easy as downloading the ISO from Microsoft and reinstalling it on an OEM machine.
fpoling 9y ago
If the driver is not written by Microsoft, that new Windows installation will downloads it and quite likely it will be same HP driver with keylogger.
Erlich_Bachman 9y ago
If you really want to help this cause, you might wanna look at Librem 5 phone (https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/ https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/). They are making an open hardware Phone with a fully open-source OS based on Linux (debian).

tga 9y ago

Most PCs come without Windows installation media and instead rely on a restore partition (keylogger included). If you try to install off random other media (e.g. MSDN), it will not recognize the OEM license that comes with the computer. Because of this, there is no trivial way (edit: OK, without buying Windows again) to get a vanilla install including only the Microsoft keylogger, but not the HP one.

dragonwriter 9y ago
There's a trivial way, it's just not zero added cost if your PC was bundled with Windows: buy a retail version of Windows.
pnutjam 9y ago
Not true, you can reinstall the same version and it will pick up the licensing from the BIOS. You can even extract the key from the BIOS to use on a VM (same hardware) if your running linux. It's even very easy to get the install media direct from Windows, not like back in XP days. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10I...
- tga 9y ago
  Thanks, this used to be an issue at least Windows 8. I'm happily surprised if it's now as easy as downloading the ISO from Microsoft and reinstalling it on an OEM machine.

fpoling 9y ago

If the driver is not written by Microsoft, that new Windows installation will downloads it and quite likely it will be same HP driver with keylogger.

Erlich_Bachman 9y ago

If you really want to help this cause, you might wanna look at Librem 5 phone (https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/ https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/). They are making an open hardware Phone with a fully open-source OS based on Linux (debian).