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You cannot trust established players either. For instance, cheaper Samsung phones ship with a lot of shady software, as I found out helping relatives. And a lo

You cannot trust established players either. For instance, cheaper Samsung phones ship with a lot of shady software, as I found out helping relatives. And a lot of reputable software companies have sold out to peddling adware. Adobe is one, and there are a lot of others. Abandoned shareware or open source often resurface with adware installers.

matkoniecz 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk... > When inserted into a computer, the CDs installed one of two pieces of software which provided a form of digital rights management (DRM) by modifying the operating system to interfere with CD copying. Neither program could easily be uninstalled, and they created vulnerabilities that were exploited by unrelated malware. One of the programs would install and "phone home" with reports on the user's private listening habits - even if the user refused its end-user license agreement (EULA), while the other was not mentioned in the EULA at all. Both programs contained code from several pieces of copylefted free software in an apparent infringement of copyright, and configured the operating system to hide the software's existence, leading to both programs being classified as rootkits. > on about 22 million CDs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish > The installation included a universal self-signed certificate authority; the certificate authority allows a man-in-the-middle attack to introduce ads even on encrypted pages. The certificate authority had the same private key across laptops; this allows third-party eavesdroppers to intercept or modify HTTPS secure communications without triggering browser warnings by either extracting the private key or using a self-signed certificate.

matkoniecz 6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk... > When inserted into a computer, the CDs installed one of two pieces of software which provided a form of digital rights management (DRM) by modifying the operating system to interfere with CD copying. Neither program could easily be uninstalled, and they created vulnerabilities that were exploited by unrelated malware. One of the programs would install and "phone home" with reports on the user's private listening habits - even if the user refused its end-user license agreement (EULA), while the other was not mentioned in the EULA at all. Both programs contained code from several pieces of copylefted free software in an apparent infringement of copyright, and configured the operating system to hide the software's existence, leading to both programs being classified as rootkits. > on about 22 million CDs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish > The installation included a universal self-signed certificate authority; the certificate authority allows a man-in-the-middle attack to introduce ads even on encrypted pages. The certificate authority had the same private key across laptops; this allows third-party eavesdroppers to intercept or modify HTTPS secure communications without triggering browser warnings by either extracting the private key or using a self-signed certificate.