from Hacker News

Proprietary Software Is Often Malware

by aamederen on 6/18/18, 2:21 PM with 14 comments

• by crankylinuxuser on 6/18/18, 3:27 PM

  I also am reminded about FTDI's (edit: Windows Update - pushed ) malicious driver/firmware update that bricked the VID/PID of what the driver detected as "counterfeit" FTDI serial to usb transceivers. The resulting change made was to set the VID=0000, PID=0000 thus unbinding the associated drivers from being able to identify the hardware.

  Torvalds, within a few days, allowed a kernel patch of usbserial.ko to allow usage from 0000:0000 to rewrite the firmware to fix the devices.

  This was an example of a chip company destroying hardware arbitrarily, thus showing another treacherous computing in proprietary software.

• by archgrove on 6/18/18, 3:32 PM

  Well sure. If you basically redefine Malware to be "Anything other than GPL software", then you're going to consider most software malware. That doesn't mean it's the definition of Malware that most (i.e. all) other people will use, and it doesn't really advance the discussion. It mostly continues to make GNU look like fringe lunatics.

  Moreover, whilst I don't really object to hyperbole in pursuit of a crusade, I don't greatly appreciate this type of cross-talk. It's hard enough to keep family members free of actual malware without confusing them with comments like "iOS itself is malware".

• by thosakwe on 6/18/18, 3:26 PM

  I think it's very important to note the source of this document, as well as any biases that source may have.

  For example, this piece was written by GNU, which is by and large a proponent of free software.

• by SketchySeaBeast on 6/18/18, 3:33 PM

  "A proprietary program puts its developer or owner in a position of power over its users. This power is in itself an injustice."

  This seems to be slightly ideologically loaded.

  Absolutely, there's some shady stuff going on in a lot of places, and they do post some good examples, but I'm not sure that their argument for free software is supported by their evidence.

  I'm not sure what the alternative is - 100% free, non-monetized software? Is every piece of software to be developed gratis, and for every developer to rely on the generosity of strangers to make a living?

• by ppeetteerr on 6/18/18, 3:29 PM

  The entire argument rests on the understanding of malware ("Malware has a malicious intent, acting against the interest of the computer user" - Wikipedia). Most of the arguments against Microsoft, Apple, etc. point to features of the software that make certain processes possible (e.g. control over an app after it has been installed)

• by pitaj on 6/18/18, 3:23 PM

  How often?

• by kruhft on 6/18/18, 3:21 PM

  In what way? Format lock in?