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To me it's the opposite: I expect to be able to read the note which is on screen indefinitely, that is: exactly how I leave a notebook open on a page.

Physical security is a non-issue in this class of device IMHO. It's the same security I expect on a physical notebook. If that gets stolen, it's stolen. If we can get something better (like full encryption with pin unlock - so that the other non visible pages are safe) than I would be more happy, but the current status is still perfectly fine.

What's NOT ok is the reliance on the cloud features. There's no encryption. No control on sharing. It's either all or nothing. You can turn this off, but then you cannot send the notes elsewhere (it's fine if I'm intentionally sending one page to somebody I know he can receive it). Screenshare also stops working, despite being a dumb vnc connection wrapped in ssl, just because the central randevouz point becomes inaccessible.

This is also why this makes this device unfit for company use IMHO: your users cannot be compliant with any sort of security policy unless they disable everything and just use it as a dumb notebook. Getting it stolen is a non issue: you can get a notebook stolen, it's your fault. But if I cannot control the cloud features in a fine-grained mode, then it's outside of your control and that's what makes the device really unfit for corporate use.

I hope remarkable is listening. I opened several tickets for this: just allow me to disable sync for a folder or everything (without killing send by email) would already be a start.

It's otherwise an amazing device, but a device you cannot trust with the cloud features, which is a major shame.

With regard to security, it seems to me that the most obvious comparison for the ReMarkable would be a paper notepad which would also be compromised if you had physical access?

Saying this as a former ReMarkable owner (and kickstarter backer) who ended up only using the device as a notepad, after learning that I read in a non-linear fashion which doesn't work well on the relatively slow screen. And for notes, I ended up deciding that paper is simpler that dragging yet another device around.

Still, I highly recommend the ReMarkable and my device happily lives on as a school notebook for my son.

> With regard to security, it seems to me that the most obvious comparison for the ReMarkable would be a paper notepad which would also be compromised if you had physical access?

No that doesn't sound like an obvious comparison at all. It has a feature that it feels like a notepad when writing, but that's where the similarities end. Imagine if you compared a phone security to a flashlight because phones have a torch feature.

It's still a device with digital and connected capabilities, a completely different security context.

I think the security concerns are a lot closer to a notebook than they are to other digital devices. It really doesn't do many things. It writes notes, and has ebooks and pdfs.

A smartphone requires different security concepts than a flashlight because access to a smartphone can open up all sorts of risks- identity theft, bank account access, etc. But that's not true for the reMarkable. It offers roughly the same capabilities as a notebook. If someone got into my reMarkable they would have access to exactly the same stuff as if they got into my old notebooks.

fellow nonlinear-reader here. random access to an otherwise rather linear content format is so key for me, and the responsiveness and user interface are maddening. now i can't stop marveling at paper as a medium -- it got so many things right. it certainly wasn't the first try by humans. we tried clay plates and sheep skin and bamboo chips, until we hit upon paper. but nonetheless it's amazing that paper is still not surpassed after more than a thousand years.

> after more than a thousand years.

A lot more than a thousand years[0].

I have an iPad Mini with a PaperLike screen protector, and Pencil 2. Works wonderfully. I have a number of apps to convert input, and they work quite well. Apple did very well, with Pencil 2 (don’t get me started on Pencil 1).

I still prefer a paper notepad, most times, though.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus

> i can't stop marveling at paper as a medium -- it got so many things right. it certainly wasn't the first try by humans. we tried clay plates and sheep skin and bamboo chips, until we hit upon paper. but nonetheless it's amazing that paper is still not surpassed after more than a thousand years.

Does paper have any advantage over vellum ("sheep skin") other than being cheaper?

Most of the media you mention are superior to paper in various ways, but either logistically difficult (clay) or expensive (vellum). Paper is the "my car's turn signal stopped working, so I bought a new car" of recording media. It is cheap to manufacture, it rots quickly, it is easily destroyed, and it's cheap to replace.

> Does paper have any advantage over vellum ("sheep skin") other than being cheaper?

Ink takes far less time to dry on paper as opposed to vellum from my understanding. It's also thinner and easier to use in printing presses. Paper also can be produced in various thicknesses/with various textures to allow for different kind of work. (Think newspaper paper vs. watercolor paper). Paper is also recyclable - you can break down paper and use it to create new paper.

> Paper is also recyclable - you can break down paper and use it to create new paper.

You say this like it wasn't completely routine to do it with vellum.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palimpsest

> Paper also can be produced in various thicknesses/with various textures to allow for different kind of work. (Think newspaper paper vs. watercolor paper

Again, this sounds like it's purely driven by cost concerns. Newspapers aren't printed on paper that's better suited to being a newspaper than the normal stuff. They're printed on awful, kleenex-like paper that will tear in a light breeze and that smudges ink all over you if you touch it at all. But I assume newspaper paper is even cheaper than other paper.

(And indeed, newspapers with a high opinion of themselves produce separate "archival quality" editions on non-awful paper!)

Clay and vellum can also easily be produced in "various thicknesses" (see: palimpsests!), though admittedly it's tough to get clay to be as thin as you'd like.

Reusable =/= recyclable. Palimpest is more like erasing pencil writing and then re-writing.

> Again, this sounds like it's purely driven by cost concerns.

It's not - I was thinking of fine art applications. You can't make tracing clay or vellum, for example. Or textured paper to work with different types of paints/inks.

Being reusable is strictly superior to being recyclable, so it doesn't matter that they aren't identical.

> You can't make tracing clay or vellum, for example.

That is fair.

Well, you sort of elided the chief benefit of paper's cheapness - the lowered cost of mass distribution of the information stored on it. Hence why any given pulp fiction novel had more readers than the Dead Sea Scrolls, despite the latter having sat around for 2 millennia.

I also only use it for notes but I have the tendency to not be too nice to paper notes making them less readable over time so it's definately a plus. A bit too expensive since there are simpler alternatives but for a premium device and price I like the feel of it. The slowness doesn't bother me too much, I also use it for going through several specification files and it's not too slow that it's unusable.

Funny, I often wish to leave the note on screen while in sleep mode. I kinda wish there were two actions, one for lock and another for sleep... or something.

I had a ticket on this. There's no reason not to write "device is off" on the banner which is already there in sleep mode.

A notebook doesn't make the note disappear.

mine has "remarkable is sleeping" shown when it's sleeping, and I need to unlock it to get it to show anything.

I was referring to the "press button to use your remarkable" that you can see inbetween before it goes to sleep.

fair enough :)

Our (multi billion dollar) company had to tell the exec "no" for these because of the weak security.

They just dont seem to care. Other wise we would have hundreds in the business.

What kind of security are they lacking? I compare it with a notepad, which you lock away in a drawer when you don’t want people to access it.

MDM

We want to be able to restrict what gets synced to where. (eg, not dropbox or box or google etc)

We want to enforce passwords and screen time outs. We'd prefer to use intune to do this but are open to other possibilities etc etc

None of this is possible and remarkable don't seem interested in this.

Ah, yeah. I can see why they’re not interested in touching that market with a 10ft pole.

It’d make them tons of money but it would drain their soul.

That's a shame. I can see a zillion possibilities for this if it played nicely with InTune.

Funny, all I see is an authentication prompt every 17 minutes because Azure AD can't get its shit together.

The point is that you can't do this with notebooks though, seems silly to want to do this here, with maybe the exception of blocking sync services you can't monitor. Which is totally possible with a bit of competence.

Though is, 'you also cannot do this with a real notebook' valid argument? Neither can you upload pdf's to a real notebook or do all the other stuff that makes this device not just a ... regular notebook.

Exactly. A paper notebook might not have those security features, but it’s also a lot harder to end up with reams of confidential info in a paper notebook in the blink of an eye, on a whim; or to transmit that data to arbitrary third parties. There’s a “proportionality” argument between features and security.

Right, but if I wanted a notebook I'd buy a notebook. What I want is a tablet for taking notes, which has a different security profile.

> We want to be able to restrict what gets synced to where. (eg, not dropbox or box or google etc)

Can't that kind of "strong security measure that is absolutely critical to our business" be circumvented with one single bash command that takes data from the "totally OK with our super strong MDM rules service" and copies it to the "absolutely forbidden by our MDM so surely no one is using it service" ?

A notepad doesn't sync to the cloud.

Neither does my Remarkable 2. You actually have to pay them money for that to happen, and switching it off is free. Considering you actually have root access, it's a bit better than a phone

  > The software that is installed on your PC/Mac has very basic functionality.

Is there Linux software? What do you need the software for anyway?

It works with wine. It syncs books and notes to/from the cloud account to your local device.