[GRLUG] Some Viruses Come Pre-Installed

[Michael Mol]

On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 4:48 PM, David Pembrook <david at pembrook.net> wrote:
> john-thomas richards wrote:
>  > On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 10:40:33AM -0400, Casey DuBois wrote:
>  >
>  >> Interesting story about Pre-Installed Viruses on Retail devices.
>  >>
>  >> http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/WireStory?id=4446944&page=2
>  >>
>  >
>  > I bought my wife a laptop that came with a virus pre-installed.  I
>  > cannot remove the virus until the warranty is up (strangely, the
>  > manufacturer, HP, voids the warranty if I replace the virus with Linux).
>  > Alas.  In a year or so I can wipe out the virus and put Debian on it.
>  > My wife even asked me if I would.  :-)
>  >
>  Why wait?
>
>  You could make those nice restore cd/dvd's that they never bother to
>  include any more... Use it with Linux, if it need factory work, restore
>  the original os.

Unless the factory work makes restoration impossible.  This could
happen in the case of a bad CD-ROM drive, bad hard drive, or a variety
of mainboard failures.  True, you might be able to put the hard
drive(assuming it works) in a different box, but that's still more
work than a simple restoration.


-- 
:wq