Some Viruses Come Pre-Installed

March 13, 2008 By JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Technology Writer

(AP) -- From iPods to navigation systems, some of today's hottest gadgets are landing on store shelves with some unwanted extras from the factory - pre-installed viruses that steal passwords, open doors for hackers and make computers spew spam.

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• Doug_Huffman - Mar 13, 2008
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  Chinese 'economy,' the gift that keeps on giving. Hmmm, no mention of WalMart, d'ya think they are excepted or censoring the news.
  
  Do not patronize China's client WalMart.
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• RichManJoe - Mar 13, 2008
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  I have often wondered how easy it would be for a government to plant a sleeper virus in PCs and cell phones for disabling or creating havoc in our communication system upon command.
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• Argiod - Mar 14, 2008
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  "It's the digital equivalent of the recent series of tainted products traced to China, including toxic toothpaste, poisonous pet food and toy trains coated in lead paint."
  
  Obviously, China doesn't like us as much as it likes our dollars. This is what you get when you ask your enemies to make stuff for you. Looks like China hasn't forgotten the Opium Wars yet.
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• superhuman - Mar 14, 2008
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  @RichManJoe:
  It would not be that easy, luckily there are quite a few software gurus out there who know theirs computers inside out and they would quickly rise an alarm.
  For example theres no way currently to communicate over the internet in a way that can be hidden from someone who is monitoring the network closely enough.
  
  We also have Open Source which is very valuable since it gives you a safe alternative which you can always turn to.
  With open source you can compile your own OS (with your own compiler written in assembler if you are paranoid enough ;).
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• youknowyouloveit - Mar 14, 2008
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  @superhuman:
  Surely secure ssh tunnels mean you can communicate without the traffic being readable.
  
  After that a network of proxies and pass-through servers could mean all but the most determined monitoring would not even reveal the fact there was a connection at all?
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• superhuman - Mar 14, 2008
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  Yes, you wont be able to read the traffic but the fact that the tunnel is/was established will be plainly visible, you just need to log connections which isn't hard. Most firewalls will notify you of an attempt to connect to a remote server and will also log it.
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