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Programmer Finds Way To Liberate Ransomware Affected Smart TV, Thanks To LG (theregister.co.uk)
Television production factory LG has saved Darren Cauthon's new year by providing hidden reset instructions to liberate his Google TV from ransomware. From a report on The Register: The company initially demanded more money than the idiot box was worth to repair the TV and relented offering instructions for resetting the telly after Cauthon took to Twitter to express his displeasure. The infection came after the programmer's wife downloaded an app to the TV promising free movies. Instead, it installed the ransomware, with a demand of US$500 to have the menace removed. Cauthon said LG offered factory reset steps which are not publicly revealed nor known to its customer support technicians. He says a family member showed him the TV over Christmas laden with ransomware purporting to be a FBI message bearing a notice that suspicious files were found and the user has been fined.
Welcome all to a world where you don't own nor are allowed to alter the software on items you purchased outright. Be glad that you can still begrudgingly get the information you need on some products to restore an item to factory condition. Remember, only criminals want to tamper with the perfection companies provide. Want to modify something? Be prepared for jail time.
I am still trying to figure out why the person's profession or skill set even matters in this story?
"LG gives user unpublished reset instructions" is more appropriate of a title.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Twitter seems to be a pretty effective place to take your complaints about a product/company in order to get satisfaction. It's far more likely to get a response, it seems, than other methods like contacting them directly. I suppose the lesson is that companies are eager to quickly (or more quickly) react to potential bad publicity than they are about the complaints of one specific customer.
FTA: "With the TV powered off, place one finger on the settings symbol then another finger on the channel down symbol. Remove finger from settings, then from channel down, and navigate using volume keys to the wipe data/ factory reset option."
It sounds like the common procedure to enter the Android boot loader. Anybody wants to "fastboot oem unlock" that TV?
They have no purpose. Most people now simply use TVs as monitors for a set top box and if you need any more functionality simply plug your computer or tablet into a normal TV. Why anyone would pay a significant extra amount of cash for an oversized underpowered android tablet I have no idea.
No, programmer didn't find shit. He was given the instructions, it's that fucking simple.
That people believe such "warnings" in large enough numbers to make it worthwhile for the crooks to make them, is a sign, that FBI has an image problem.
It is an organization we fear, rather than one we trust (such as to hunt the scammers down). And they had this image problem for so long now, one can begin suspecting, it is not just a perception...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Well, a programmer is probably technical enough to understand that the device might have a factory reset function, and if it turns out that the wife is being scapegoated, a programmer is also likely in a position to know enough to be dangerous.
One of the biggest problems in IT and CIS is the assumption that if one is capable on one's particular field, that one is capable in all fields. This simply isn't true in most examples; most people are jack-of-all-trades or are master of a single discipline, and some are jack-of-all-trades and maybe master of one or two in particular. No one is master of all trades.
I will agree that the bulk off the summary is crap. It goes off onto a tangent but doesn't adequately flesh-out that tangent.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I have an LG smartphone, and I can tell you that the procedure for getting into the recovery is not as simple as other brands of phones (e.g., HTC). Usually, you would just hold down a button while the device powers on and boots up. With the LG device, you have to hold the button down until it STARTS to boot, then release the button, and then press it again. The timing is critical, and it doesn't often work the first time.
With the television, you have even more buttons to worry about, so trial and error would take a very long time.
They offer, what the manufacturer believes you want in one package.
I too would rather just buy a nice 65" monitor — because I have a capable set-top box running my IPTV apps and a nice surround-sound setup already — but there aren't any good ones for sale. Or, rather, there are, but they all have the "smart TV" built into them — and I am as annoyed about paying for the "smart" features and the extra hardware they require (USB-readers and WiFi), as people used to be about paying the "Microsoft Tax".
But there is no alternative at the moment. Which means, people like me (and you) are a tiny minority... I guess, it would cost the manufacturers more to make and ship the separate models without these add-ons, than to simply bundle it all in.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
How hard would it be to engineer a reset pinhole into the next model for user factory resets?? Id be fine with clearing all memory and loading from a static ROM. It's not that difficult to load the upgraded OS/Apps from online again.
Life is not for the lazy.
A programmer is much, much more likely to pirate.
A programmer is more likely to pirate "properly." A non-programmer (e.g. a programmer's wife) is more likely to screw things up by blindly installing Free Warez.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
customers should be allowed to do factory resets on their televisions, WTF is wrong with LG, that info should be in the documentation that comes with every new television sold!!!
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing