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FBI Investigating Mystery Laptops Sent To US Governors
itwbennett writes "The FBI is trying to find out who is sending laptops to state governors across the US, including the governors of Wyoming and West Virginia. The West Virginia laptops were delivered to the governor's office on August 5, according to the Charleston Gazette, which first reported the story. Kyle Schafer, West Virginia's chief technology officer, says he doesn't know what's on the laptops, but he handed them over to the authorities. 'Our expectation is that this is not a gesture of good will,' he said. 'People don't just send you five laptops for no good reason.'"
Hidden, malicious hardware.
http://u3.com/support/default.aspx#CQ3
They finally came out with an uninstaller for it. Quick and easy, but back up all your data as it wipes the entire flash drive.
"A REAL computer has ONE speed and the only powersaving it permits is when you pull the power leads out of the back!"
Doesn't work in Linux, as the GP asserted. Have to stick it in a Windows box just to run the uninstaller.
As far as I'm concerned it's defective from the vendor and I personally don't buy any USB thumbdrives with U3 installed on them.
If I accidentally buy one with it on there and realize it after I get it home and open the package, I take it back. Sorry, but no.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
I work in the WV state government as well. I'm a system/network administrator in an agency and we've been batting this around for a while trying to come up with ideas and motives. Personally, there is no way I would ever consider allowing these machines onto my network in any capacity. If for some reason we really thought we had to power them on, they go on a dedicated switch connected to our testing cable modem connection, with a spanned port going to a dedicated snort box. IMO either give them to the feds to work with, or destroy them without powering them on. There is no sense in introducing an unknown unmanaged machine into a government network.