In the digital world, the police cannot even find thieves and corrupt officials in offshore areas. Although this is elementary.

Learning about security can greatly reduce risks but not to zero. Affected by malware nevertheless is not deserved. The criminals must still be held responsible.

Quote from: Bob P on February 19, 2024, 11:11:08So to all the people who buy these cheap mini PC's do yourself a big favor and to save yourself from having your personal information stolen do the same!

Firstly, this no longer helps if Trojans are embedded at the BIOS firmware level or in the device firmware.

Secondly, the majority of the population is so stupid and uneducated in IT, and most importantly monstrously lazy, that they will never implement such recommendations. Moreover, the majority do not read such press and learn about problems when they suffer financially. Losing serious amounts of money or private data teaches such ignoramuses the fastest. People who do not want to understand the risks should be punished, because themselves provoke increased risks for others. This applies to all human life, including "elections".

I had a similar experience with a Chinese mini PC and the name of the company is DreamQuest which I bought off of Amazon. One trojan and two malware viruses were on it and the version of windows 11 was already activated. I gave a one star review and the company that manufactured it reached out to me to offer a full refund probably so I change my review so they can sell more on Amazon to people who just turn it on and use before checking it and doing a scan before going on line. Wiped drive myself and did a reinstall of windows 11 and it has a digital license free from windows at no cost. So to all the people who buy these cheap mini PC's do yourself a big favor and to save yourself from having your personal information stolen do the same!

I had the same experience with Beelink mini PC GTR6 I discovered it too late as the hacker already sent messages to get money or he will spread all my data on the black web fortunately the account which he got data from it was an old account which I was not using it for several years but that was very dangerous and annoying the system was not cheap it was about 900 USD

All popular encryption(archive) tools have "back doors", i.e. deliberately weakened encryption system. Including PGP. And in general, the entire asymmetric encryption apparatus is built on the mathematics of elliptic curves.

By the way, the European Court of Human Rights (a funny construction after what happened in 2020, right?) has just formally recognized the inadmissibility of such methods (deliberately weakening encryption and obtaining access keys to correspondence) at the state level: hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng/#{%22itemid%22:[%22001-230854%22]}

as an obvious path to totalitarianism on the part of the ruling circles. Although this is again only in relation to the actions of the totalitarian authorities of Russia. What about Western governments? And there are facts of violation of these very rights. But who cares about the opinion of some funny court when such things are simply brazenly done with impunity in the quiet of offices?

Always proceed from the fact that there is no safe software, services and products, there are only rational methods that lead to minimizing your own risks to the best of your ability. And for this you need to constantly learn and understand, as well as have critical thinking.

Shouldn't zip is also considered as spyware. We comsumers take it for granted it isn't own by by cia?

I never claimed that this was legal. I claim that it is 100% safe and free. Thanks to the M$ policy, such methods maintain an overwhelming market share in the desktop OS market.

How idiotic do have to be to buy a key to a pirated version for money? But the opinion of the majority is wrong, because the majority are idiots (c). =)

Quote from: NikoB on February 13, 2024, 12:51:18Activation of any version of Windows from 2015 is free and safe.

How does it work? Why is it legal?

Quote from: Rick on February 13, 2024, 10:53:20You can get windows 10/11 keys for $10. If you don't know this by now in 2024 then you need more braincells.

Those who do this and pay for a pirated key that is not worth a penny are just the most complete idiots on planet Earth. Activation of any version of Windows from 2015 is free and safe.

You can get windows 10/11 keys for $10. If you don't know this by now in 2024 then you need more braincells.

Quote from: Korndog on February 12, 2024, 04:33:34Windows 11 home oem licensing is about $100. Don't believe other comments saying it's much cheaper. $143 on regular win 11 home, $120 for oem win 11 home. Check cdw website yourself. Large customers might get 5-10% off or $6-12. So yeah over $100 as article says.

You don't need an M$ license for home, just activate any version you want for free. Licenses are needed only for those who are engaged in business, because only in this case can copywriters prove the existence of financial damage to them, because the presence of profit proves the presence of losses. A private person who is not engaged in entrepreneurial (in its official, legal definition) activity is not in danger of using pirated copies of Windows from a company that illegally (with the deliberate connivance of the antimonopoly authorities of the United States and other countries) controls the bulk of the desktop OS market on the planet.

Windows 11 home oem licensing is about $100. Don't believe other comments saying it's much cheaper. $143 on regular win 11 home, $120 for oem win 11 home. Check cdw website yourself. Large customers might get 5-10% off or $6-12. So yeah over $100 as article says.

OEM licence is a lot less than a retail licence in their cost and their resell pricing. You can go to any system builder shops and ask them.

I am not saying that the OS was not pirated, I really don't know either it is or it isn't. But just to make the jump because retail licence cost is higher than the PC retail price is not a valid argument.

I expect notebookcheck to have higher quality articles.

Quote from: dbjungle on February 11, 2024, 10:07:51If you can't trust Chinese products after clean installing the OS then you can't trust any products.  I always clean install on my computers.  I don't recall seeing Acemagic on the Prism slides, but I do recall seeing Apple and Google.  Both "reputable" brands.

Do you trust the BIOS firmware (which you have all been prohibited from changing since 2016) or trust the secret coprocessors in all motherboards based on Intel (Intel ME) and AMD PSP chipsets, which are designed to monitor and control your PC in an undocumented mode, made in collaboration with US intelligence agencies?

It's just a matter of trust. And trust in the modern world, which is a cesspool of duplicity and deceit, is a sure sign of dementia.