[GRLUG] Some Viruses Come Pre-Installed

David Pembrook david at pembrook.net
Fri Mar 14 17:11:05 EDT 2008


Michael Mol wrote:
> 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.
>
>
>   

good point... If the hard drive is dead.. well.. they won't know, 
otherwise...

I'd pull the hd and whip it clean in another machine last resort... it 
crashed oh my... i wonder how that happened.

Dave


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