Hardware Manufacturer Shitlist

2015-02-19 11:11

Last updated 2020-11-16

This is a list of hardware manufacturers that I personally wish to avoid purchasing equipment from and why. It is meant to be a personal reminder to myself.

I pay a lot of attention to the principles behind and the attitude from the companies. If a company thinks it's ok to put in a backdoor they cleary shows a deep disrespect and contempt for their customers and that is something that is not fixed by just saying sorry. Something like that runs deep in an organization and takes years to amend (if possible).

Apple

2020 - The final nail in the coffin

Apple has been in decline for privacy for a long time now but they finally gone so far as to disable the possibility for an owner of their hardware to stop them snooping and leaking meta data. Read more Your Computer Isn't Yours

Dell

November 2015 (rouge root CA)

Dell obviously didn't learn anything from Lenovos craptastic move with SuperFish. The decided that it is a perfectly good idea to ship a rouge root level CA, including the private key. There's a page to check if you are affected.

Intel

May 2017 (remote exploit)

A very serious issue in their integrated management allows for remote exploitation even on powered down systems.

Remote security exploit in all 2008+ Intel platforms

Lenovo

August 2015 (crapware/malware)

The craptastic Lenovo does it again by abusing a badly thought out feature of windows (the WPBT).

February 2015 (SuperFish)

Found to be pre-installing adware using MITM techniques to circumvent SSL/TLS security to inject ads and collect data.

July 2013 (hw backdoor)

Blacklisted by several actors due to concerns about backdoors.

Philips

December 2015 (lightbulb DRM)

Locking customers out of third party light bulbs with firmware update and not adhering to the open zigbee standard.

Samsung

June 2015

Their OEM software is deliberately disabling Windows Update.

Sony

2005 - 2007 (rootkit)

Rootkit installed from CDs.