
Lenovo’s Chief Technology Officer Discusses the Superfish Adware Fiasco - ghosh
http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/bits/2015/02/24/lenovos-chief-technology-officer-discusses-the-superfish-adware-fiasco/?ref=technology&_r=3&gwh=F9921B33C9B667F4C8D3A476C6396E4B&gwt=pay&referrer=
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x0x0

       Q. How did Superfish even get onto Lenovo machines in the first place?
       
       A. The original motivation for this was that the product team was being 
       asked, "Can we do something to improve our consumer experience?" Someone had 
       the idea to improve their shopping experience in a novel way — not to own 
       their experience, but just, if the consumer is looking at a desk, can we 
       suggest an alternative product that looks like that desk? The motivation was 
       to enhance the experience. 
    

This is some amazing bullshit: nothing like ads on my computer to 'improve my
experience'. And if this is all about improving my experience, why is Lenovo
getting paid by the adware vendor? It's pretty damn annoying the interviewer
didn't push on this at all.

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m3rc
Not only that, but if that piece of fantastical bullshit is actually way worse
if taken at face value.

"Obviously, in retrospect, if we had known what that meant in terms of how it
was implemented, we would have never done it."

So they decided that the one thing their customers were missing from their
experience was a targeted ad system, and they decided to implement that
without doing _any_ research into the company ?! They just went ahead and
stuck a comprehensive spyware system into their laptops and did so without any
knowledge of how it would work? There is no way that can be spun into a better
version of events than "we're greedy assholes". That is pretending you weren't
malicious by claiming you run a business like a bunch of high schoolers

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IvyMike
> The original motivation for this was that the product team was being asked,
> “Can we do something to improve our consumer experience?” [...] The
> motivation was to enhance the experience.

This nonsense could have been addressed with one follow-up question: Peter
Hortensius, since it was so experience enhancing, do you have Superfish
installed on your personal machines at home, and on your employee machines at
Lenovo? Why not?

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ChuckMcM
Actually it isn't nonsense. Some people, especially those who are non-
technical consider everything their phone/tablet/laptop to do as 'magical' and
incomprehensible. And to that group you can explain something with only the
positive aspects and they will endorse it. To use a contrived example you can
describe outdoor playgrounds as a fun way for your kids to exercise, or you
can explain that they create about a dozen ways for your kids to break bones
and get concussions. Both are "true".

To a product designer, it no doubt sounds great that you can share ideas with
your customers based on things they are looking at. They probably don't probe
too deeply into either _how_ that works, or in the hands of someone
unscrupulous what it might allow. Because they are shipping stuff an moving
forward.

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ron0c
>We are digging through. By the end of the week you will get an absolute
statement on that. I do not believe there is any. But I want to be 1,000
percent sure.

Lenovo could come out ahead on this thing IMO if they are honest and really
clean up their default builds from here on out.

Take note from your new acquisition Motorola and how they just add a little
bit here and there to the AOSP builds. Not flood them with a bloatware and
Motorola Email, Motorola Browser, and such like some companies do.

