They were also found on the restore partition so a full wipe and fresh install would eliminate the issue. AceMagic have also claimed that the issue was isolated to the first round of shipments.
It’s more than likely they “borrowed” some other Chinese company’s cloned Windows drive and used it for their install rather than roll their own. Could be they were malicious but coming out and claiming it was an error so quickly doesn’t really push that narrative hard.
If they weren’t the original malicious actor, then their quality control sucks. Either way, they shipped a booby-trapped system. Trusting them again will be hard for a lot of people.
We’re going to agree to disagree about that. Being caught red-handed would trigger an immediate mea culpa if they want to preserve plausible deniability and try again later.
Sure. I’m just saying that if a company is caught putting spyware into their products, I’m not going to trust them to suddenly fix it. If they cared, they should’ve caught this with internal QA.
So either they’re negligent or malicious. If the former, they’ll probably be negligent again. If the latter, they’ll be more sneaky next time. Either way I don’t trust them.
My point is that we know there’s spyware on the image, so we should suspect malware elsewhere as well. Until the hardware is audited, we should assume that hardware is compromised as well.
This is why we do fresh installs on new hardware. Preferably Linux 🙂
Unfortunetaly, that does close to nothing when the issue is spyware on firmware
According to this Tom’s Hardware article (https://www.tomshardware.com/desktops/mini-pcs/mini-pc-maker-ships-systems-with-factory-installed-spyware-acemagic-says-issue-was-contained-to-the-first-shipment) it isn’t firmware based spyware but just existing on the machine drive.
They were also found on the restore partition so a full wipe and fresh install would eliminate the issue. AceMagic have also claimed that the issue was isolated to the first round of shipments.
This article says the same thing, but it’s worth people being aware that firmware is a vector.
It’s reasonable to consider whether to trust a company that shipped spyware in the first place. I would have a hard time with that.
Better stop using any modern cellphone ever then.
Trying to, but credible alternatives just don’t exist. I really want a Linux phone, but battery life and basic features just aren’t there.
It’s more than likely they “borrowed” some other Chinese company’s cloned Windows drive and used it for their install rather than roll their own. Could be they were malicious but coming out and claiming it was an error so quickly doesn’t really push that narrative hard.
If they weren’t the original malicious actor, then their quality control sucks. Either way, they shipped a booby-trapped system. Trusting them again will be hard for a lot of people.
We’re going to agree to disagree about that. Being caught red-handed would trigger an immediate mea culpa if they want to preserve plausible deniability and try again later.
Yes but that’s not the issue
How do you know? They find spyware not in firmware, but that doesn’t cover what they didn’t find.
Because the issue is what they did find. If they hadn’t found it there would be no article.
Sure. I’m just saying that if a company is caught putting spyware into their products, I’m not going to trust them to suddenly fix it. If they cared, they should’ve caught this with internal QA.
So either they’re negligent or malicious. If the former, they’ll probably be negligent again. If the latter, they’ll be more sneaky next time. Either way I don’t trust them.
I understand. I’m just not sure why you’re replying to me with this.
My point is that we know there’s spyware on the image, so we should suspect malware elsewhere as well. Until the hardware is audited, we should assume that hardware is compromised as well.
Nothing in this article said anything about the device firmware being compromised
I didn’t say that
Hopefully it’s not built into a rom chip on any number of custom components in these mini PCs making it software independent.