Flaws in tech support tools open PCs to attack

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Wrong: Have you ever called tech support at a major PC vendor?

Obviously not.

In all of the calls that I have made, which is several a year, they have never, ever, ever asked to log into any machine from the internet. In fact I have never, ever even heard of this occurring to anyone that I know.

If you ever had called or chatted with a tech support "agent" then you would know that they _ALWAYS_ tell the supplicant to restore the machine to a factory state using the hidden hard drive partition or the disk set delivered with it. That's the SOP of PC support: make the user restore the system and check for functionality. If the poor customer refuses because of they refuse to lose all data and programs on their PC, the agent will respond that the user must have installed or done something to "break" Windows (OS, apps and drivers) and the PC warranty does not cover those events. Don't ever tell them that you changed the hardware in any way as that's not covered either.

Their policy is that the machine worked when you got it, and it will work when you restore it and their warranty goes only that far. The PC vendors have taken the position that they can't warrant against user stupidity or the unreliability of windows as time and updates pass and I can't blame them for that. They will tell you if the machine has problems _AFTER_ a restore, then you can return it for service.

This backdoor "Support Agent" stuff will never "help ordinary non-technical people." In fact, it more likely to be the cause of problems than a solution path.

Now go back and get some more cranial enhancements before we need to buy you flowers.; Posted by: msolgeek Posted on: 02/27/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use