Technology
This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
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Remember kids if you're going to buy a Chinese pre-built, wipe that shit before use.
Always wipe and start fresh. Yes, Chinese brands seem to be worse about security, but there's no reason to keep bloatware and FSM only know what other crapware the OEM installed.
NSA is unhappy about this one little trick!
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
To me that always applies, irregardless of the manufacturer. Supply chain attacks are a thing, they are not even necessarily targeted. "I'm not interesting enough" does not apply: everyone has contact with other people, mostly everyone has (or will have) voting rights, and some will have authority over other people.
Or... don't buy it to begin with.
Yup, I don't trust it to not install a rootkit on the BIOS or something. Buy from reputable companies, and if you get a prebuilt PC, you'll probably want to reinstall Windows to get all of the adware off. If you don't use Windows, you're probably fine with just buying from a reputable vendor.
That's what I'm always most paranoid about - buying storage and having some bad actor insert malicious code through unusual means.
Yup, it's not worth saving $20 or whatever to buy a sketchy brand, just buy a well known brand with an image to uphold and you'll be fine.