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This is great, but I can't trust a Lenovo device and I'm always a bit shocked when I see developers buying ThinkPads from a company that's demonstrated it can't be trusted to give you a secure device.
Is there a single technology company that you can't say this about?
Probably 10 years ago, my brother installed some new RAM in his Lenovo laptop on Christmas day, after which point it refused to turn on - with either the new or old RAM. We contacted Lenovo and they sent someone out to our house about 2 days later to replace then entire motherboard. (They installed the new RAM, and the laptop worked great after that.) It left me with the impression that Lenovo had questionable qualit…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Repairable means I can replace most major components in my laptop (wifi, ram, battery, SSD, BT, etc) with nothing more than a torx and screw driver. No soldering, or specialized equipment.
This is obviously somewhat subjective, but to me soldering does not disqualify something being "repairable", unless it requires a proprietary soldering machine or something. What you're describing sounds "modular"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lenovo got fined for $3.5M for installing spyware that hijacks HTTPS connections, so it’s a bit stretch to call it propaganda https://www.zdnet.com/article/lenovo-receives-3-5m-fine-for-... When a company engages to such deceptive business and outright illegal business practices, there is little reason to trust them for a decade or two until we can be sure everyone who worked there by the time is gone.
> until we can be sure everyone who worked there by the time is gone. That seems a little extreme. I always maintain a skeptical eye, but most corporate leaders have an eye for profits and PR, and their personal integrity/moral compass doesn't play a large role in their decision making. As long as it's bad/risky PR for Lenovo to do stuff like that, the incentives are on our side. Always be watching though, and I pers…
I wouldn't completely discard the idea to be honest.
Friendly reminder that Lenovo has repeatedly shipped laptops infested with malware and backdoors ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo#Security_and_privacy_in... ) sometimes doing so in exchange for money. They've also hidden malware in UEFI so that even reformatting your hard drive wouldn't help. In one case, after they were found out they first claimed "we have thoroughly investigated this technology and do not fi…
Would the UEFI malware affect a non-windows OS installed on that machine?
1. The malware was a rootkit for Windows
2. Windows has an interesting "feature" that will blindly auto-install software that is embedded in a certain location in the BIOS. If a rootkit is placed there, Windows will always try and install it.
It's bad for Lenovo, but it's also bad that Windows has this anti-feature.
This is great, but I can't trust a Lenovo device and I'm always a bit shocked when I see developers buying ThinkPads from a company that's demonstrated it can't be trusted to give you a secure device.
Doesn’t every CPU have a state-enforced back door? I assume no device is secure.
I always hear about how modern laptops and smartphones “aren’t repairable” and then I spent a week in Shenzhen.. where there were floors and floors of independent repair people doing specialized fixes to the most intricate parts. I had an old Apple Watch repair for about $20, only to discover that I got ripped off — I could have negotiated it down to much less.
With "repairable" people mean repairs with freely available tools, parts and (ideally) schematics. Apple and others put in a lot of effort to stop independent repair shops from sourcing original parts or making them impossible to successfully replace due to hardware DRM. It is already impossible to upgrade some Macs with more RAM because they will simply refuse to boot if they find more RAM than they got in the facto…
Friendly reminder that Lenovo has repeatedly shipped laptops infested with malware and backdoors ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo#Security_and_privacy_in... ) sometimes doing so in exchange for money. They've also hidden malware in UEFI so that even reformatting your hard drive wouldn't help. In one case, after they were found out they first claimed "we have thoroughly investigated this technology and do not fi…
this is just propaganda that was consumer side Lenovo laptops, IdeaPad and the like 7+ years ago. They learned their lesson and even there don't do it any more. This didn't affect ThinkPads. Every time Lenovo is mentioned someone brings this up and I am thoroughly sick of it.