Asus ships software crack, internal docs

Author: Gareth Halfacree
Published: 19th September 2008
Comments (10) Stumble
Asus laptop owners all over the world are reporting strange files on their recovery discs - including a software cracker.

Asus laptop owners all over the world are reporting strange files on their recovery discs - including a software cracker.

Asus has found itself at the centre of a scandal for shipping rather more with its PCs than was perhaps intended.

According to PC Pro, amongst others, the company has managed to ship some rather embarrassing content on the recovery DVDs for certain models of laptop: a WinRAR keygen, serial codes for other commercial packages most definitely not included with the laptop, confidential documents from Microsoft – including a hush-hush guide on how to deactivate Windows Vista ready for shipping to an end user - designed for system builders use only, and internal documents from Asus itself. The latter collection includes, incredibly, source code to several Asus software packages.

The discs appear to have made their way around the world, with customers from the UK, US, and Australia reporting bizarre contamination of their recovery software. A poster on the APC Magazine forums has even posted a screenshot of some of the files – including the resume of what is presumably an Asus employee close to the source of the gaffe.

Asus has issued an apology for the mess, and has promised to look into the issue “at quite a high level.” The company also wishes to ensure customers that once the investigation is complete, steps will be taken to ensure that such a thing never occurs again.

Quite how the files – which, key generator notwithstanding, appear to be the contents of someone's home directory – ended up on a recovery disc that should, in theory, have been checked and tested several times before being shipped is still unknown. For its part, Asus is refusing to speculate.

Have you ever received any added extras when purchasing a PC, or can you only dream of the day when your laptop comes with a copy of some stranger's CV? Share your experiences over in the forums.
Quote Star*Dagger 19th September 2008, 10:56
What if it wasn't on accident. Both the USA and Russia had a MASSIVE reduction in force of its HUMINT resources. Do you really think they just all went quietly into the night.

Yours in Cloak and Dagger Plasma,
Star*Dagger
Quote proxess 19th September 2008, 11:19
Where can I get an ISO of these? Seems like some fun information available on those.

Beyond that... what a huge mock up! Now they'll probably fire the guy/gal in the CV when its probably not his/her fault.
Quote mikeuk2004 19th September 2008, 13:29
lol someone is going to become unemployed
Quote C-Sniper 19th September 2008, 14:36
Quote:
Originally Posted by proxess
Where can I get an ISO of these? Seems like some fun information available on those.

Beyond that... what a huge mock up! Now they'll probably fire the guy/gal in the CV when its probably not his/her fault.

Same here.
This is definitely one hell of an embarrassment for ASUS.
Quote steveo_mcg 19th September 2008, 14:50
Quote:
Originally Posted by mikeuk2004
lol someone is going to become unemployed

At least his CV is well circulated...
Quote devdevil85 19th September 2008, 16:45
And where is Gigabyte in all of this? I smell conspiracy!
Quote Syphon Filter 19th September 2008, 17:56
Somebody gonna getta a hurt......REAAAAAAL BAAAAAAAAD!
Quote LordPyrinc 20th September 2008, 00:58
10+ years ago when I started college, I had to buy a software package from the engineering department at the school. Interestingly enough, one of the disks had multiple demo games buried in the file structure... if you looked hard enough. While the demos did not get installed by default, you could install them manually after finding them. If my memory serves me correctly, it contained demos of Heretic, Hexen, Descent 2, Triad???, Duke Nukem, and other such games of the time period.
Quote docodine 21st September 2008, 07:23
I lold, Asus is going to get hit fairly bad.
Quote outlawaol 21st September 2008, 07:29
I knew big corps used key gens.. haha...

:D
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