
Sennheiser headphone software installing root certificates onto users computers [pdf] - shrikant
https://www.secorvo.de/publikationen/headsetup-vulnerability-report-secorvo-2018.pdf
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hkt
From smart TVs to this. How awful.

Software is eating perfectly good peripherals and _totally_ ruining them.

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rbanffy
Why the hell would a headphone need software?

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dx87
I have a different set of sennheiser headpones, but they include software you
can install to emulate surround sound without the headphones actually needing
all the speakers for true surround sound.

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empath75
Something has gone wrong when you’re installing drivers for headphones.

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Crosseye_Jack
When you use any USB based audio device (headphones, soundcard, mic) you are
installing drivers to drive the product. Its just that 99.99% of the time the
standard USB Audio Drivers supplied with your OS will work just fine.

The issue is what happens when the headphones want to offer more functionality
beyond basic audio? Personally I try and stick with using "USB Composite
Device" to support more than one device class and then use USB "HIDRAW" [0] to
drive that extra functionality (But that's mainly because I can't be arsed to
get drivers signed and it does what I need it to do, YMMV).

[0]
[https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/hid/hidraw.txt](https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/hid/hidraw.txt)

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reacharavindh
I always avoid any crap software that comes with accessories like this. This
is why going away from 3.1mm audio jack was a loss.

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em3rgent0rdr
But even if use USB or Bluetooth, can stick to open drivers and standards for
sending audio, rather than mandating a proprietary implementation.

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bhhaskin
This is still bad, but it is important to note this is for a SDK.

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patrickg_zill
I bought some wireless USB headphones from Corsair. The software takes 300mb
of disk space. Why?

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lmm
Why not? What rational person would care about 300mb of disk space? I swear HN
folks are obsessed with "efficiency" to the exclusion of all common sense.

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patrickg_zill
First thought is "it only needs a driver for USB -> sound for the wireless
dongle it uses"

Second thought is "what crap is it installing that is going to slow down my
machine"

Third thought is "what kind of tracking/surveillance is it going to attempt"

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binarymelon
It looks like this is software for headsets to be used with softphones, not
headphones.

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merricksb
Earlier discussion still on front page:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18550760](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18550760)

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fmajid
WTF?

That said, why does the OS allow installing a CA cert without requiring
explicit confirmation from the user?

