McDonald's MP3 players ship with trojan horse

What do tubby teens, MP3 players, and grandma's scalded taint all have in common? That's right, the absolute attention of McDonald's legal. See, McDonald's and Coca-Cola recently teamed up in Japan to give away 10,000 self-branded MP3 players pre-loaded with 10 spankin' new tunes and... some delicious malware. It seems that a "portion" of the players sport a variant of the QQPass family of trojan horses which capture passwords and other personal information when the MP3 player is plugged into the users' PC. The code then proceeds to email the details to the author. McDonald's has setup a 24 hour hotline while they are investigating the matter and will swap out all the offending players. Good times.

[Via Impress]

[LittleJoe @ Oct 16th 2006 8:38AM]

wow... that blows.

[Asaf @ Oct 16th 2006 8:44AM]

wow, mcd's really is the evil hell-spawn of the business world. getting people fat and killing them via heart disease and obesity is not enough, they have to take their passwords too. haha. what a bunch of a-holes.

[Grangoire @ Oct 19th 2006 12:54PM]

@Asaf
To be fair, McDonalds doesn�t force the people who die of heart disease and obesity to sit on their asses and be listless all day which is the main reason so many people today get so f'in fat.
Average fat and/or caloric content in food hasn't changed much in the past 50 years. What HAS changed is that people exercise much less, and expect everyone else to be responsible for their health, instead of getting off their asses themselves and getting fit. (F'in free-lunch mentality)

[Jeff @ Oct 20th 2006 3:10PM]

Interesting lack of thought process to your diatribe. McDonald's doesn't make anyone fat. McDonald's sells food and toy products. The Consumer is the one that makes themselves fat. Failure to eat an appropriate diet, lack of exercise, lack of making an effort to control the amounts of food they consume... I've read 3 reports on blogs about people eating McDonald's for an entire year and actually losing weight and having their LDL cholesterol points drop. It all depends on what you eat, how much of it you eat, and what you do when you are not eating.

Mindless drivel such as your only seeks to perpetuate the lack of responsibility that consumers should be accountable for. Quite frankly, consumers are 100% responsible for their own health. If you die of heart disease/failure/etc, you truly only have yourself to blame. I am slightly overweight and I known it's my own fault. If I ate better and worked out, I would be in terrific shape, even if I only ate McDonald's all day long.

Stop giving excuses to the mindless population that seeks to blame others, sue large corporations for the consumers lack of personal accountability that they fail to take, and then end up passing the buck (increasing costs) to the rest of the consumer base because these corporations are trying to recoup what they have lost from frivalous lawsuits.

[tigeruppercut @ Oct 16th 2006 8:45AM]

Man alive....that picture is McCreepy - even by McDonald's substandards........

[m-p{3} @ Oct 16th 2006 10:23AM]

Now we know where this meat used in their burgers comes from :o

[Kevin @ Oct 16th 2006 8:47AM]

first thing i do in the morning is fire up engadget... only to be TERRIFIED by that freaky picture!!!

[Tyler @ Oct 16th 2006 8:56AM]

i'd hate to see what the parents look like ^_^

[Pal @ Oct 16th 2006 12:01PM]

I'm pretty sure you've seen at least the father :P

[vazel @ Oct 16th 2006 8:59AM]

Vazel

[Chocolate Starfish @ Oct 16th 2006 9:00AM]

I think "Grandma's scalded taint" is one of the funniest things I've ever seen written. It just made my Monday.

[Grizz @ Oct 16th 2006 9:35AM]

I found that to be a gross choice in words, but I wouldent want you to censor it. I just had to read fast to get it out of my head.

[Deluxe @ Oct 16th 2006 9:01AM]

I was at Maccas only a few hours ago, where there were A4 printed notices over posters advertising the MP3 player give-aways. Needless to say my Coke cam in a non-promo cup.

Ironically enough, I'd entered about 3 times (As you do when you're bored and think a hideous Maccas branded $2 MP3 player is adveristed as 'free' is somehow cool)

[DIGItonium @ Oct 16th 2006 9:01AM]

I thought it was the kid from the Grudge. Yes, I was startled by the front page this morning at work! >.

[Christian Martin @ Oct 16th 2006 9:04AM]

Wow, eight comments and not one person saying "OMG HAY I DON'T HAVE THAT PROBLEM ON MY MAC!"

Of course, I have yet to hit Slashdot this morning.

[Moogle @ Oct 16th 2006 10:15AM]

> Wow, eight comments and not one person saying
> "OMG HAY I DON'T HAVE THAT PROBLEM ON MY MAC!"

OMG HAY I DON'T HAVE THAT PROBLEM ON MY BK WHOPPER!

There you go.

[vazel @ Oct 16th 2006 9:11AM]

why isn't this working for god's sake!

[Evan @ Oct 16th 2006 9:12AM]

First the picture, then talking about a Grandma's taint. C'mon, it's early engadget, let me finish my coffee first!

[Awperatro @ Oct 16th 2006 9:13AM]

Christian Martin

LOL!

[Rick @ Oct 16th 2006 9:23AM]

my sinuses burn! grandma's taint isnt the only thing that has been burned by scalding hot coffee... i'd sue engadget for being funny while drinking coffee (and probably win) if it werent for that very sexy picture...

[Jerome Fitzsimmons @ Oct 16th 2006 9:31AM]

I'll never have that problem. Not because I use a Mac, but because I haven't eaten at McD's since 1998. If I went back in time, would this effect my Rio Mp3 player?

[Chris @ Oct 16th 2006 10:00AM]

Child of IT!

[Jon @ Oct 16th 2006 10:03AM]

This has got hamburgular written all over it!!

[Jo Mama @ Oct 16th 2006 10:44AM]

Of course not. It's MACdonalds!!!

[ghotik @ Oct 16th 2006 10:17AM]

And CEO's wonder why it's important to keep the FREE soda machine in the IT department.

[Joe @ Oct 16th 2006 10:22AM]

Proves that they should just stick to making burgers and fries ...

[telepheedian @ Oct 16th 2006 11:11AM]

The mp3 player appears to be just another s1mp3 device. With that in consideration, I don't think that McDonalds is responsible for this (however nasty their burgers are). It was probably the OEM that they bought the players from that loaded this, before the players were rebranded. Since s1mp3s are typically made at cheap chinese factories, where no one there has a sense of personal property, this seems to be the case. For those wondering what an s1mp3 is, the information is at http://www.s1mp3.org/ .

[Oddmanout @ Oct 16th 2006 11:39AM]

Good lord people...if GTA taught us nothing else, it taught us that "Hot Coffee" has nothing to do with 'Grandmas taint'.


Or at least it sure as heck SHOULDN'T...

[Brandon @ Oct 16th 2006 11:42AM]

That picture is highly disturbing. Wow. :|

[Chuck @ Oct 16th 2006 11:43AM]

That picture will give me nightmares. Holy crap that's disturbing.

[teodoro @ Oct 16th 2006 11:47AM]

No 'taint' Grandma's or otherwise are going to be scalded @ McD's unless she is backing up to the coffee machine intent on ingesting it non-orally. Come on guys, if you're going to insist on lewd slang, for the love of all that is grammatical, get the anatomy right!!!

[Pal @ Oct 16th 2006 12:01PM]

That picture is disturbing. Oh, and the trojan, of course...not that I would ever buy an MP3 player from McDonald's.

[Jay @ Oct 16th 2006 12:01PM]

satan

[David @ Oct 16th 2006 12:07PM]

Um, I'm not saying anything -- but Gizmodo found a way to but a victoria's secret model front and center. Not saying; but, you know, just saying.

[Billy Bob @ Oct 16th 2006 4:02PM]

HEY I DONT HAVE THAT PROBLEM WITH MY IPOD ON MY MAC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[bones @ Oct 16th 2006 4:18PM]

@Jon...hahaha the Hamburglar..will he truly stop at nothing?

[crescentdavid @ Oct 16th 2006 4:43PM]

It's just a conspiracy to besmirch the Mac platform. That's why iMac needs to sue MacDonald's. It's too confusing. Arrghhhhh!

[PEZ @ Oct 16th 2006 8:23PM]

I think the burger king did it. He has some weirdo commercials, and always looked suspicious to me.

First Sony with the battery conspiracy, now MCD! This is insane. THe end is near!

PREPAIRE THE FOILIAGE?

[danj3ris @ Oct 17th 2006 7:41PM]

Is it not unanimous in its sheer impact, that this photo is one of the most psychologically disturbing and destructive images that have graced your computer screens?

I don't know about you guys, but I am typing this with my tounge as I am hunched over in the fetal position on my chair.

[c.Lake @ Oct 17th 2006 9:45PM]

That pictures is SO f*king creapy.

[joe @ Oct 18th 2006 11:29AM]

there are lots of stupid comments. of course mcdonald�s gets all your attention when something like that happens. but the question is: how often happens this to the same company, are they doing it on purpose and are they acting to resolve things. well, the answer is clear. but bad news sell so good and let people show their sarcastic side...it�s sad. very sad.

[Jeff @ Oct 20th 2006 3:04PM]

Interesting lack of thought process to your diatribe. McDonald's doesn't make anyone fat. McDonald's sells food and toy products. The Consumer is the one that makes themselves fat. Failure to eat an appropriate diet, lack of exercise, lack of making an effort to control the amounts of food they consume... I've read 3 reports on blogs about people eating McDonald's for an entire year and actually losing weight and having their LDL cholesterol points drop. It all depends on what you eat, how much of it you eat, and what you do when you are not eating.

Mindless drivel such as your only seeks to perpetuate the lack of responsibility that consumers should be accountable for. Quite frankly, consumers are 100% responsible for their own health. If you die of heart disease/failure/etc, you truly only have yourself to blame. I am slightly overweight and I known it's my own fault. If I ate better and worked out, I would be in terrific shape, even if I only ate McDonald's all day long.

Stop giving excuses to the mindless population that seeks to blame others, sue large corporations for the consumers lack of personal accountability that they fail to take, and then end up passing the buck (increasing costs) to the rest of the consumer base because these corporations are trying to recoup what they have lost from frivalous lawsuits.

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[Diane @ Dec 2nd 2006 1:17PM]

If McDonald's would focus on doing just one thing (feeding kids and adults), and getting it right (wholesome and nourishing food), maybe they could avoid some of their legal problems.

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