Bad, Intel, Bad...

FractalAudio

FractalAudio

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Fractal Audio Systems
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I installed the Intel Driver Update Utility on my new PC a few days ago. Always trusted Intel so didn't think about clicking Next on each page. Today I notice my fans are running an awful lot though I'm doing nothing. I start poking around and find five (!) instances of a telemetry service sending data back to Intel under the name "Intel System Usage Report" and it's using nearly 10% of my CPU resources. One core is maxed out!

So I uninstall the Utility and the service is still there. I reboot the computer and the service is still running. On a whim i check Add/Install Programs and now there's a new entry, something like "Intel Customer Experience" or some nonsense. It wasn't there before I uninstalled the driver utility. I stopped the service and uninstalled the 'Experience' program and all vestiges seem to be gone.

On their forum they recommend anyone having problems uninstall the driver utility. They don't mention that it doesn't install the spyware fully.

Sneaky bastages...
 
painkiller said:
There are a few possibilities to disable it (telemetry, that is):
https://blogs.systweak.com/how-to-disable-telemetry-and-data-collection-in-windows-10/
Click to expand...
I've already done all that. That was the first thing I did.

This was Intel. Their driver update utility installs a "Customer Experience" service. And when you uninstall the utility it doesn't uninstall the service. And they're sneaky about it because the utility installs both but hides the uninstaller for the service until you uninstall the utility.
 
I used to think Intel knows hardware at least. After a dozen or so crippling hardware security issues discovered over the past couple of years (with new ones being unearthed every couple of months), I'm not even sure about that anymore. I'm not buying another Intel CPU until all this shit is addressed in silicon rather than through software hacks.

I never had any illusions about their software prowess or, rather, lack thereof.
 
Bookmarking this and the linked article to go clean up my studio computer. More time sunk on fixing nonsense.
 
plexi59 said:
I used to think Intel knows hardware at least. After a dozen or so crippling hardware security issues discovered over the past couple of years (with new ones being unearthed every couple of months), I'm not even sure about that anymore. I'm not buying another Intel CPU until all this shit is addressed in silicon rather than through software hacks.

I never had any illusions about their software prowess or, rather, lack thereof.
Click to expand...
There was another just a couple days ago: "CacheOut".
 
plexi59 said:
I used to think Intel knows hardware at least. After a dozen or so crippling hardware security issues discovered over the past couple of years (with new ones being unearthed every couple of months), I'm not even sure about that anymore. I'm not buying another Intel CPU until all this shit is addressed in silicon rather than through software hacks.

I never had any illusions about their software prowess or, rather, lack thereof.
Click to expand...

Designing land validating a CPU with billions of transistors is insanely complex. The valdidation suites are unreal.
 
FractalAudio said:
I installed the Intel Driver Update Utility on my new PC a few days ago. Always trusted Intel so didn't think about clicking Next on each page. Today I notice my fans are running an awful lot though I'm doing nothing. I start poking around and find five (!) instances of a telemetry service sending data back to Intel under the name "Intel System Usage Report" and it's using nearly 10% of my CPU resources. One core is maxed out!

So I uninstall the Utility and the service is still there. I reboot the computer and the service is still running. On a whim i check Add/Install Programs and now there's a new entry, something like "Intel Customer Experience" or some nonsense. It wasn't there before I uninstalled the driver utility. I stopped the service and uninstalled the 'Experience' program and all vestiges seem to be gone.

On their forum they recommend anyone having problems uninstall the driver utility. They don't mention that it doesn't install the spyware fully.

Sneaky bastages...
Click to expand...
Thank you very much for the heads-up!
 
hippietim said:
Designing land validating a CPU with billions of transistors is insanely complex. The valdidation suites are unreal.
Click to expand...

And I think it did take something like 20 years for the world to demonstrate that speculative execution could be exploitable and actually make the Spectre and Meltdown exploits. Sadly I think that showed speculative execution is not just a moderately insane idea, but that it's inherently vulnerable the way Intel implemented it.
 
Haha that last comment reminded me of Johnny Dangerously ;-)

thanks
pauly

FractalAudio said:
I installed the Intel Driver Update Utility on my new PC a few days ago. Always trusted Intel so didn't think about clicking Next on each page. Today I notice my fans are running an awful lot though I'm doing nothing. I start poking around and find five (!) instances of a telemetry service sending data back to Intel under the name "Intel System Usage Report" and it's using nearly 10% of my CPU resources. One core is maxed out!

So I uninstall the Utility and the service is still there. I reboot the computer and the service is still running. On a whim i check Add/Install Programs and now there's a new entry, something like "Intel Customer Experience" or some nonsense. It wasn't there before I uninstalled the driver utility. I stopped the service and uninstalled the 'Experience' program and all vestiges seem to be gone.

On their forum they recommend anyone having problems uninstall the driver utility. They don't mention that it doesn't install the spyware fully.

Sneaky bastages...
Click to expand...
 
HerrSquid said:
And I think it did take something like 20 years for the world to demonstrate that speculative execution could be exploitable and actually make the Spectre and Meltdown exploits. Sadly I think that showed speculative execution is not just a moderately insane idea, but that it's inherently vulnerable the way Intel implemented it.
Click to expand...
We wouldn't need SE if programmers would write good code.

I'm aghast at just how bad a lot of programs are now. Previously I was developing using TI's Code Composer Studio version 8.x. It's no longer supported so "upgraded" to 9.3 64-bit. At first launch it uses over 1GB of memory. 1GB!!! And it leaks terribly so after a few hours it's using 2GB! I figured out the cause of the leak and alerted TI but they don't seem to care.

Google Chrome routinely uses over 1GB of memory for all it's various processes and services. It's a freakin' web browser and it gobbles memory and CPU like no tomorrow.

The new version of Matlab uses over 1GB and is noticeably slower than the version from 2006 I was using.

The new version of OrCad uses copious memory and is noticeably slower than the old version.

I long for the days of C++ and COM or whatever it was called when programs were lean and fast. Now everything is Java and bloated and slow and no one seems to care. It's all about adding features that no one will use at the expense of core functionality and performance.

We need a fundamental paradigm change.
 
FractalAudio said:
We wouldn't need SE if programmers would write good code.

I'm aghast at just how bad a lot of programs are now. Previously I was developing using TI's Code Composer Studio version 8.x. It's no longer supported so "upgraded" to 9.3 64-bit. At first launch it uses over 1GB of memory. 1GB!!! And it leaks terribly so after a few hours it's using 2GB! I figured out the cause of the leak and alerted TI but they don't seem to care.

Google Chrome routinely uses over 1GB of memory for all it's various processes and services. It's a freakin' web browser and it gobbles memory and CPU like no tomorrow.

The new version of Matlab uses over 1GB and is noticeably slower than the version from 2006 I was using.

The new version of OrCad uses copious memory and is noticeably slower than the old version.

I long for the days of C++ and COM or whatever it was called when programs were lean and fast. Now everything is Java and bloated and slow and no one seems to care. It's all about adding features that no one will use at the expense of core functionality and performance.

We need a fundamental paradigm change.
Click to expand...


This reminds me about your post way back when, something to the effect of "The Quality of Everything is Getting Worse". You weren't wrong.
 
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