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Comment by avereveard | Hacker News Reader

> None of this information can be removed from Pluton even if an attacker has installed malware or has complete physical possession of the PC.

Uh and how am I supposed to sell my used pc?

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Sad news, but I don't believe they are worried about that. It's good for their profit that hardware gets more and more commoditized and irreplaceable, just like phones. if it breaks, you buy a new all-in-one device which you can as each year passes customize LESS, and that's it.

I'm actually starting to worry about opensource approaches since the Year of the Linux Desktop (TM) is getting farther and farther.

Today I gave a go at XUbuntu 21.04 without a VM (which is how i have been consuming my linux fix recently) and it was okay, but even basic things like suspend didn't work and simply crashed the X window manager or other non-poweruser-ready shit.

It's getting more and more complicated.. sometimes i wonder if it's NOT and it's just me getting grumpier. But it really seems that consumer devices are getting more bundled and less customizable and tinkerable by the year.

Yeah, they are. The system boards with everything soldered on sometimes make me rage tbh. Is 3mm of thickness worth everything else?

I think this is saying that the information can not be extracted and used outside of the processor, not that that the information can't be cleared and the device factory reset.

The biggest concern this presents is if your CPU dies and you want to recover your encrypted disk. All of this is the same situation with T2/M1 Macs or iOS devices today.

MS seems offers a few ways of back the decrypt key. One of them is uploading the bitlocker key to your account if you logged into ms account in that system. Or you could write it down (Which isn't very useful IRL, I haven't see anybody actually write down recover code or whatever to paper yet.)

I suppose that it could still be done by "unlocking" the device by logging into MS servers, similar to the Activation lock on Apple devices: Malware can't "remove" the information… but Apple.com can.

By "removed" they mean "stolen" or "copied"

Used PCs reduce new PC sales and are therefore an impediment on market growth. Please take them to the landfill and buy something new, thank you.

I assume it would be similar to how you sell an old computer with an encrypted hard drive. You unlock it, format it, and then sell it. If you have the credentials to unlock the PC you should have the ability to remove your encrypted state.

You're supposed to take it to a recycler. Don't worry, they'll responsibly dump it in Africa or Asia for you.

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