Hi Andrew, On Wed, Jan 6, 2016 at 9:47 PM, Andrew McGlashan via luv-main < luv-main@luv.asn.au> wrote:

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Hi Peter

Wat this not a good solution?

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This link claims you can disable booting from the hard drive which allows a fallback to usb booting.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2285585

The model there is coming with Windows 7. The one I bought had Windows 10 on it and did not have this option anymore. I followed a handful of advice related to the model but none of them were successful. Over Windows 8 (requiring SecureBoot enabled but with an option to disable it) to Windows 10 (making the "Disable SecureBoot" optional) Microsoft helped to castrate computers like this. And Lenovo seems to be more than happy to make it as tight as possible. For a Chinese company from the mainland it is not very surprising. They have "control" in their DNA, and less qualms to be open about it. The model was returned, and I will not buy any Lenovo product in the future. The whole development is very worrying. By stealth, all what was wrong with Palladium ages ago (and was rightly rebuffed) gets implemented today. A bit more background here: http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/german-federal-government-warns-on... But Zeit suggests that the potential problems go even further. Quoting professor Rüdiger Weis from the Beuth University of Applied Sciences <http://www.beuth-hochschule.de/en/1/> in Berlin, it suggests that the TPM keys could be intercepted in the country of chip manufacture – China. Theoretically, then, any user of Windows 8 with TPM 2.0 could be handing the computer’s entire contents to either or both the NSA and the Chinese authorities, without ever being aware of it. Zeit also notes that the German authorities had tried to influence the development of TPM 2.0 as an interested stakeholder. The Germans, however, were “simply rebuffed. Others have got what they wanted. The NSA, for example. At one of the last meetings between the TCG and various stakeholders, someone dropped the line, ‘The NSA agrees.’” The BSI <https://www.bsi.bund.de/> (the German Federal Office for Information Security) yesterday published an ‘opinion <https://www.bsi.bund.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/Presse2013/Windows_TPM_Pl_21082013.html>’ on the issue. It notes that for some users who either cannot or do not wish to operate their own security, and who trust the manufacturer, TPM 2.0 “provides and maintains a safe solution.” But, it adds, “the use of Windows 8 in combination with a TPM 2.0 is accompanied by a loss of control over the operating system and the hardware used. This results, especially for the federal government and critical infrastructure, in new risks.”

From Ruediger Weis at the Chaos Computer Club(CCC) congress recently about Windows 10: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/31C3-Warnung-vor-Secure-Boot-und-Trus...

As an example about the ramifications for our democracy: Imagine you are a journalist (e.g.) and need some kind of safe communication and to protect your sources. What are the options you are having? Regards Peter