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LG TVs and monitors said to surveil users and install bloatware without asking (www.notebookcheck.net)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 64 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (21 children)

I've used an LG monitor for about 5 years, and never install the manufacturer's software unless it looks genuinely useful. When I saw the Gamers Nexus video I went to check my installed apps, and sure enough there was LG's monitor app, installed silently without my knowledge. I used Bulk Crap Uninstaller to get rid of it.

To prevent this kind of thing in future, run gpedit.msc and enable “Prevent automatic download of applications associated with device metadata” under Computer Configuration → Administrative Templates → System → Device Installation.

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  • [–] 66 points 1 month ago (14 children)

    Or you could just change to an os that doesnt piss on its users constantly

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago*

    Indeed. I use Linux most of the time, and MacOS a bit of the time, but the old Windows desktop is still there for the infrequent times when I need it to work on old music projects. I have it too dual-booting into Linux, so even it spends most of its time in a more sane OS.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    Unfortunately, dual gpu and ray tracing setups don't work very well on linux.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago

    Mine works, but I guess it depends on your setup. My main GPU is a 7800XT and my secondary is a 3090 I use for video encode/decode. OBS while streaming and recording simultaneously (if I ever have time), video editing and HandBrake conversions. It just works with EndeavourOS. I can do ray tracing on the 7800 XT but it's not something I care about in games so I always turn it off.

    I'm sure if I ran dual 3090's in SLI it would be a pain in the ass but that's why I didn't try for that when upgrading my system, plus the power draw.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 month ago (7 children)

    Great; what OS has the equivalent of Group Policy and Active Directory besides windows?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago* (4 children)

    This is the one thing holding open source back, and the thing Linux users keep pissing on without understanding it.

    The CTOs inept nephew can manage your fleet of windows machines and you get all the checkbox security you need for compliance (and some real security):

    • Centrally managed
    • Logs that are fairly hard to manipulate
    • SecureBoot + Bitlocker

    That same feature set on Linux will cost you a ton of money in skilled staff if you want to check the same compliance checkboxes. (As for real security, who cares, no one is doing that anyway)

    Kind regards: someone who has managed Linux fleets.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (3 children)

    THANK YOU!

    So many people just don’t get it; happy to see someone rational who does.

    I WISH Linux had something like this, but it’s like NT 4.0; it doesn’t have it.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (2 children)

    It’s getting there, slowly.

    • Clevis can do network and TPM pinned disk decryption.
    • With Linux UKIs you can do self signed secure boot, we still need the mechanisms for central signing. This would actually be better that windows, you control your own PKI and Microsoft can’t sign garbage your machines boot.
    • Logs is a somewhat bogus argument - log falsification on Windows has been done too. But linux is rather unprotected in comparison.

    But the biggest issue is the mentality of ”I own my computer”. Sure, you own your private machine, but your company owns the computer you use for work and the data on it and has an interest in protecting that data from you. That particular threat model is hard to communicate, as Linux users normally don’t think of themselves as a threat vector.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

    Good to know they’re working on boot; what about something similar to AD and GPO?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    I hope no one tries to push GPO-like stuff on Linux. I get where you are coming from, but for example Puppet will give you a lot more power and and flexibility. There is no registry. ”Everything is a file” is actually true, you just manage a bunch of config files instead.

    As for AD, you have FreeIPA as the major contender. It works. You can also just join your Linux clients to your AD. Kerberos works just as expected.

    (RedHat actually tried pushing management of Gnome via FreeIPA á la GPO. It sucks, because the desktop environment is just a tiny part of what you might want to manage, so suddenly you need to have both that bullshit and your normal configuration management tool.)

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  • [–] 13 points 1 month ago* (2 children)

    I didn't watch the video, but maybe they said how this done.

    If it installed silently, it must be getting pulled in via Windows update right? Where Microsoft just sees this a regular old driver for a device I would imagine?

    I have an LG monitor, maybe about 5 years or older. But I don't have windows so I assume it knows nothing.

    EDIT: Nevermind. I went and watched the section at the beginning, and yep that is exactly how it is done. Does windows not even vet what a vendor hands them as a driver? Perhaps they don't care, but this seems like an easily exploitable route.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    I suspect the thoroughness of the vetting is inversely proportional to the size of the kickback to Microsoft.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago

    Got me curious. Quick search and I found three windows drivers that had keyloggers hidden in them. Go figure it was HP!

    • HP Notebook Keyboard Drivers: Keylogging code was discovered in the SynTP.sys file, which was part of the Synaptics Touchpad driver shipped with certain HP notebook models.

    • HP Audio Drivers: Researchers found keylogging features within the Conexant HD Audio Driver (specifically version 1.0.0.46 and earlier) used in various HP laptops and other Windows systems.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 month ago

    That's what I thought was happening here. The headline is a bit incorrect... the monitor didn't install the bloatware, Windows did.

    Now the drivers/software that Windows installed is likely from the MS store/update path and was made and signed by LG, but still. Plug this monitor into linux and it's not going to do it because linux doesn't have that mechanism.

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