A new laptop

[matt3o]

Congrats!

P.S. Now you're spied on by both the CIA and the Chinese

come again?

[webwit]

You haven't followed the latest wikileak

[matt3o]

You haven't followed the latest wikileak

last thing I've heard is that lenovo pushed a BIOS that locked out linux but they soon released an update and now things are back to normal.

regarding wikileaks (vault7) I've read about backdoors in all sort of devices (including Apple's and smart TVs). I'm not sure if it is OS dependent though (very likely)

[thebluefox]

You haven't followed the latest wikileak

last thing I've heard is that lenovo pushed a BIOS that locked out linux but they soon released an update and now things are back to normal.

regarding wikileaks (vault7) I've read about backdoors in all sort of devices (including Apple's and smart TVs). I'm not sure if it is OS dependent though (very likely)

"The CIA has developed automated multi-platform malware attack and control systems covering Windows, Mac OS X, Solaris, Linux and more, such as EDB's "HIVE" and the related "Cutthroat" and "Swindle" tools"
But Python is not platform dependent and is heavily used.

[matt3o]

I thought it was something related specifically to lenovo, but it seems pretty much widespread

[vivalarevolución]

I'm most interested to know how many CIA agents have offed themselves after listening in on peoples' inane conversations and text messages. It drives me nuts just overhearing conversations, I can't imagine how awful it would be as a job.

[andrewjoy]

All the CIA stuff is absolutely terrible .

However

I don't see them actively listening in to everyone who they are collecting data on.

Its more of a , collect everything just in case we need it. The manpower needed to actively monitor everything they collect would be massive, you would need 100,000s of people to do it , and there is no way to keep track and keep quiet that many people.

Still fucking terrible and they should all burn in fire slowly.

But still its not as if agent 591 from the CIA is watching you rub one out to mechanical keyboard rule 34 all the time.

[matt3o]

it's more that you could be the friend of a friend of a distant relative that is actually being investigated. In that case your phone could be actually accessed even though you have absolutely nothing to deal with the actual offender.

[PollandAkuma]

I got a X1 carbon 2017, heh

[andrewjoy]

x61s at home , and in addition to my rMBP 2015 an x220 in work.

I will upgrade when they make real thinkpads again.

[matt3o]

I played with the X1 for a couple of days now and I must say I'm impressed. They used pretty vanilla hardware and it doesn't require manufacturer specific software or drivers.

Everything seems to be working as expected, the trackpoint is smooth, the trackpad is surprisingly responsive. I don't like the rubberized surface honestly, but I can live with it.

[andrewjoy]

That is one thing i love about IBM/Lenovo laptops. For the most part it uses standard hardware , no special drivers. I am not sure what they do with the chipset for the logic board to get it to work out of the box driverless , unless they use a standard intel desktop chipset and not the custom laptop crap that acer and other crappy manufacturers use.

And the big thing , intel network cards , always intel network cards at least the older ones. Why anyone would use broadcom or other scutch crap is beyond me.

[matt3o]

don't even get me started with the "killer" network cards!

[vivalarevolución]

don't even get me started with the "killer" network cards!

I really can't begin to describe how annoying it was when I bought a motherboard with a Broadcom wireless card and tried to get it working on various Linux distros. Intel wireless cards are a must when buying any new computers.

[Ratfink]

Intel wireless works great with Linux, yes, but I wouldn't call it a must. Atheros and Realtek work fine too. Broadcom is the only one I'm aware of to avoid like the plague.

[codemonkeymike]

Like Ratfink said Atheros works just fine with Linux, their chips are generally recommended for their hack-ability on Linux

[vivalarevolución]

Shows how much I know.