Brick and mortar availability?

General security & privacy chat
#1

what’s the point of a high security laptop that you have to order online? They’ll just swap it for a bugged one when its in the mail. The only brick and mortar computer store in my area is Microcenter. Disappointed to see they don’t carry your products. Hopefully you can strike a deal with them.

I suggest putting in the contract that the laptops be stored in the showroom and the customer get to pick which box in the stack they want. I’ve bought a PC there and they took wayy too long in the back room. Probably flashed the bios or swapped the fan controller board with a bug…

#2

or between the front panel io and the motherboard

#3

Purism does offer anti-interdiction option when purchasing a device. You can also contact them to find a solution that fits your threat model.

1 Like
#4

good to know, but what does that entail? Sounds expensive.

Cash is king though. The transition from brick and mortar to online retail is such an enormous loss for privacy.

Thanks for your reply.

#5

True, but for lack of other options, Purism does accept payment (for one-time purchases, not subscriptions) in cryptocurrencies that offer you more privacy than a credit card:

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#6

Unless you’re a Russian oligarch, I REALLY have a hard time believing that this would EVER happen. This is some real paranoid shit here. I get that everyone here is security enthusiasts, but jfc lets at least live in the realm of reality.

Secondly, lets say for a minute a group was trying to backdoor shipped devices. Wouldn’t it be FAR SAFER to have it shipped to your house rather than a 3rd party who could potentially mess with it first?

The mental gymnastics on this post is unreal.

2 Likes
#7

Purism doesnt sell enough devices to justify a bricks and mortar operation. Circuit City and Fry’s Electronics went out of business and Best Buy is struggling, so physical retailing of electronics is going the way of the Dodo bird. At any rate it seems to me that you could potentially have the same security concerns with selling Purism devices in a bricks and mortar store as sending a device through the mail, so the anti-interdiction service is your best option.

2 Likes
#9

Lol Yup.

…

#10

How? Can you explain how it is easier to backdoor devices shipped directly from the manufacturer vs getting it locally. This makes no sense to me.

#11

If you buy bricks and mortar, it is harder to do a targeted backdoor.

Your/a government will find it harder to predict precisely which bricks and mortar store you will attend in order to make a purchase and harder to predict precisely which unit you will buy and essentially impossible to backdoor the device between the time of purchase and the time the device is in the owner’s custody. So they may be forced to backdoor all units.

If you buy online with delivery by post or courier then there is a specific unit that has your name on it and there are multiple parties who have custody of your device after it leaves the vendor / store and before it reaches the owner.

We know for a fact that the US government has sought to interdict and backdoor Cisco network equipment in this way.

So if you have reason to think that your/a government may target you, this is definitely a consideration.

In making this response, I am not making any claim about the likelihood that any given customer will be targeted in this way or, conversely, discounting the possibility of backdoors in all devices (of a certain type).

#12

Like I said, unless you’re a Russian oligarch, your phone isn’t getting intercepted and flashed lmfao.