Do you trust the hardware you purchase at the store to be free of security comprising spy technology? Well you shouldn’t, just a few years ago Sony was sued for installing root kits on computers that inserted certain cd’s. Now Samsung has admitted to installing Starlogger keylogger on brand new laptops without the users consent under the guise of gathering performance data on the machines. After a user found the software on 2 separate laptops he contacted Samsung to get to the bottom of the software in question:
On March 1, 2011, I called and logged incident 2101163379 with Samsung Support (SS). First, as Sony BMG did six years ago, the SS personnel denied the presence of such software on its laptops. After having been informed of the two models where the software was found and the location, SS changed its story by referring the author to Microsoft since “all Samsung did was to manufacture the hardware.” When told that did not make sense, SS personnel relented and escalated the incident to one of the support supervisors.
The supervisor who spoke with me was not sure how this software ended up in the new laptop thus put me on hold. He confirmed that yes, Samsung did knowingly put this software on the laptop to, as he put it, “monitor the performance of the machine and to find out how it is being used.”
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