I am considering purchasing a System76 laptop since it has supposedly found a way to undo Intel ME and stuff like that. I figured everyone here is more educated than myself in the fields of privacy, so might anyone else have a suggestion or something to note?

No replies..

>>12262
>automod
Hahahaha that one made me laugh
>no replies
Well I've never used a System76 Laptop ,from what I heard it's some more open laptop that promotes use of free software and open bios ( If I worded that correctly ) , think of using a more modern core booted thinkpad. Its honestly worth it if that's what you're into but please add what specific laptop you're considering like the actual specs of the laptops? , Maybe consider noting what you found interesting about their laptops for you to be interested in them?
My opinion, They're decent if you want to spend money on them but I have no idea if you're able to easily upgrade parts on it like a old thinkpad

They're pretty good laptops from what I've heard as well. Look into how hot they get and if they turn into molten lava when the lid is closed. I've heard of a lot of people (including myself) having issues with Linux not having good thermal management on certain machines. As for the Intel ME, I'm pretty sure they just "disabled" the flag for it. To my knowledge, the only way to completely get rid of the Intel ME or AMD PSP is to fully Libreboot or Coreboot it on machines that allow it (Intel Core 2 Duo and prior or 2008 for AMD bros I'm pretty sure). If you have normal OPSEC though, worrying about the Intel ME/AMD PSP is overkill in my opinion. From what I understand, deployment of this spyware is hyper targeted and takes up a lot of government resources to use on someone (i.e. the FBI using the Intel ME to spy on Trump during his 2016 campaign). Probably can't hurt to patch it out though, but check for yourself because I'm just going off of memory with most of this.

>>12267
installing coreboot is pretty difficult and its not hard to brick your computer. dont try corebooting your computer unless you know what you are doing.

>>12269
>the FBI using the Intel ME to spy on Trump during his 2016 campaign
is there an article about this?

>>12269
>Linux not having good thermal management
This is the first time I have ever heard about this , Not sure if this is completely accurate

>>12281
Depends on what kind of machine you have. I use intel-only and my sys temp is 37c.
However if I decide I want to play Urban Terror for 30 minutes it's going to go up to 58c
Compiling made it go up to 97c sometimes
Idle temps are fine, probably

>>12275
Yeah, I forgot the Intel ME thing was just a rumor after looking at my bookmarks again. My bad. Here's an article that links to the declassified primary source from the FBI that talks about the spying in general though: https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/07/when-the-fbi-spied-on-trump.php

>>12281
I've experienced these issues on a gaming laptop (lol) in the past. I would imagine a laptop designed around Linux is going to have better thermal management by default, but I would look it up just to be sure.

So is system76 disabling intel ME not a permanent solution/paper-thin solution if it's just a flag? I've heard there are a few other brands that have accomplished the same thing when it comes to hardware infused spyware, maybe someone knows of such a brand that is better for complete security kernel wise?

>>12286
>US-GA
What's the good word?

>12313
If you want laptops then the old Libreboot supported ones (like thinkpad) are your only bet unless you are willing to go for a different architecture like RISCV or ARM. For powerful fully open desktop machines you should look into what Raptor Computing Systems is offering.

>>12335
Are you suggesting an older thinkpad model? As far as I know they are susceptible to intel ME and spy firmware

>>12543
>As far as I know they are susceptible to intel ME and spy firmware
..Every single Intel CPU made after 2005 has that.

>>12545
Some people have been able to work around it somehow, such as system76. Although I really don't know how they have.

>>18071
If we don't know, then we have no reason to trust that what they did actually works against it.