In this case though, it’s not a hallucination, there’s nothing false in that response, it just completely misinterpreted what the user was asking.

Yeah one of these is literally my primary USB 3.0 to SATA adapter

I’m still learning Cybersec in general, if I’m reading this right, were these credentials hardcoded in by D-Link, these devices reached EOL, and so they refuse to remove that backdoor on the basis that the devices are EOL?

Is there a likely reason that these were left in, like could it have been a development oversight, or does it look more likely that this was malicious?

Regardless, I definitely hold the opinion that D-Link should do the right thing for their customers and patch that vulnerability, regardless of the device being EOL, similar to how Microsoft pushed a security update to Windows XP re WannaCry when it was EOL, on the basis that “Yes, XP is unsupported and you shouldn’t use it, but we are patching this particular vulnerability anyway.”

It’s actually astonishing to me how much better Linux deals with updates compared to macOS and Windows. “Oh, updates are installed, and you just need to restart whatever I updated if it’s currently running.”

Sometimes it does have its moments though, like when it updates some core package and changes its config in such a way that the next boot doesn’t go into a GUI, but I think it’s also fair to point out Windows has had those too. And macOS High Sierra with the performance and security issues it initially had on release won’t go unmentioned by me either.

I’m relieved to see some sane responses in that thread (although not from OP…)