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Thread: Dell Computer spying??

  1. #1
    Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2002
    Posts
    30

    Talking Dell Computer spying??

    Hi,
    Found this interesting. While looking throught my photoshop newsgroup, came across this post:

    >>>>>>

    I want to thank all who were interested and contributed suggestions
    for the "Photoshop-calling-home" problem I had, and to let you know
    what I found today. Altough my firewall still shows Photoshop trying
    to call out, I no longer believe that Photoshop is the culprit. Based
    on some comments that Chris made, I decided to put a packet sniffer on
    my network and found the IP address and HOST names and data that
    "Photoshop" is identified as calling and sending out. Here are the IPs
    and Host Names:

    216.251.251.65 Host: www.dellauction.com
    207.68.173.254 Host: www.dellnet.com
    also
    207.68.173.254 Host: dellnet.msn.com
    143.166.83.63 Host: www.dell.com
    143.166.82.10 Host: www.gigabuys.com
    NOTE: 143.166.82.10 has valid reverse DNS of euro.us.dell.com
    and DELL owns the Netblock: 143.166.0.0 - 143.166.255.255

    My computer is a 3 month old DELL Dimension 8200.

    Is it possible that DELL would be including some type of Spyware in
    their computers? And it's done so as NOT to be picked up by the normal
    spyware/trojan programs, like PestPatrol, The Cleaner, AdAware, etc.
    Nor do the AV programs find anything?

    For some reason, Photoshop must have seemed like a good host for the
    culprit, probably because of the amount of use it gets on my machine.
    >>>>>>>
    my stove is hooked to the internet?

  2. #2
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2002
    Posts
    250
    Could be man. That's weird.
    <joke> Note to self: Stay away from DELL. </joke>
    [gloworange]Die, or surrender, either way won\'t work.[/gloworange]
    [shadow]HuntX7[/shadow]

  3. #3
    Banned
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Posts
    594
    I do stay away from Dell, one of my friends had a Dell and she had nothing but problems from the day she bought it. The system would crash for no reason and the CD-ROM wouldn't even read CDs, she tried returning it but they blamed her for all the problems. In the end she just bought another computer- HP.

  4. #4
    The Iceman Cometh
    Join Date
    Aug 2001
    Posts
    1,209
    I have a series of Dells and I've rarely had any problems. I had a Dell laptop which had a bad motherboard, but that was from a bad batch, and Dell immediately sent over a tech to replace it. As for the Dell spying on you, what sort of Dell-installed software are you running? There are various diagnostics programs which are provided and pre-installed on many Dells which may "call home".

    Also, Photoshop does occassionally check for updates. This can be changed from the Preferences option under (I think) Edit | Preferences | Online Settings (or something along those lines). I don't have Photoshop installed on this machine, so I can't check it at the moment. Hope some of that helps...

    AJ

    PS: In response to Jaguar291, I've used a few HPs as well as worked for some businesses who owned HPs, and I've heard about and experienced nothing but problems on them. Just my experience, though.

  5. #5
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Nov 2001
    Posts
    4,785
    Bukhari:V3B48N826 “The Prophet said, ‘Isn’t the witness of a woman equal to half of that of a man?’ The women said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘This is because of the deficiency of a woman’s mind.’”

  6. #6
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Posts
    590
    I'd just like to say that I have a DELL laptop (Inspiron 4000) and it has not had any problems whatsoever yet. I've had it for a few years now and it's running as good as the day I got it. DELL's support service (phone and Internet) is also good.

    I format about once every 4-6 months and it's handy to know that you can get all the latest drivers and software needed to optimize DELL's mousepad and special keyboard keys. They have it all searchable by any medium - I installed WinXP on it, so I search by OS and it's as easy as can be.

    NOTE: I have no connection to DELL. Just if you think that I work for them or someone I know works for them...I just have had no problems with their PC's.



    Cheers,
    Greg
    \"Do you know what people are most afraid of?
    What they don\'t understand.
    When we don\'t understand, we turn to our assumptions.\"
    -- William Forrester

  7. #7
    my firewall detect outbound connections similar to that and i don't have a dell.
    i'm not sure but photoshop rarely tries to get updates so it's normal that user think it's strange when it does.
    -Mamma... Mamma... I want to let school !!! - kid
    -Why my dear? - Mom
    -Because i heard in television that some guy was killed because he knew to much!!!-Kid

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