Kyle Rankin – Purism

Bootstrapping Trust with Anti-Interdiction

Kyle Rankin — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:30:57 +0000

How do you bootstrap trust when you have to order a trusted computer from an untrusted one? One way is with our anti-interdiction services and in this article I will talk through how that works. There are many different reasons why customers add our anti-interdiction services to their phone or laptop orders. When you sign […]

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Where is My Librem 5? Part 3

Kyle Rankin — Wed, 08 Mar 2023 20:13:08 +0000

This is the third in a series of posts updating our progress in shipping through the backlog of mass-produced Librem 5 orders. If you have not yet read Part 1 and Part 2, I recommend you do so, as in those parts I discuss our current strategy of splitting the remaining Librem 5 orders into […]

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My Top 10 Lapdock Kit Tips

Kyle Rankin — Mon, 27 Feb 2023 18:33:23 +0000

Two years ago I started an experiment to see if I could replace my personal laptop with my Librem 5 with a lapdock (spoiler: I could). A year later I wrote a follow-up post that talks about my impressions of the Librem 5 and lapdock kit as a personal computer. Based on my two years’ […]

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Announcing the Lapdock Kit

Kyle Rankin — Thu, 16 Feb 2023 20:05:53 +0000

One of the most unique, and most powerful features of the Librem 5 and Librem 5 USA is that they are running the same convergent PureOS as our Librem 14 and Librem Mini. This means that they are not running applications that have been ported to a mobile platform, instead the same desktop applications as […]

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The Danger of Focusing on Specs

Kyle Rankin — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 20:39:11 +0000

Many years ago I was a sysadmin for a medium-sized tech company, and a fringe benefit of that role was getting first choice at stacks of “obsolete” computers that were about to be thrown away. They say that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and that is even truer when the first man ran […]

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Where is My Librem 5? Part 2

Kyle Rankin — Thu, 22 Dec 2022 17:10:01 +0000

Earlier this year I wrote a post titled Where is My Librem 5? where I went into detail about some of the challenges (in particular in the supply chain) that we faced in making the mass-produced Librem 5. If you haven’t yet read that article, I highly recommend it so you have more background on […]

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What We Are Thankful For

Kyle Rankin — Tue, 22 Nov 2022 19:05:43 +0000

It’s that time of year when many people find themselves in a reflective mood. For those of us in the US, it’s the week of the Thanksgiving holiday and this week people commonly reflect on the past year and what they are thankful for. Normally our posts are status updates, tech tips, or thought pieces, […]

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Swinging Back to Open Standards

Kyle Rankin — Thu, 17 Nov 2022 17:01:18 +0000

History is a series of pendulum swings between opposite extremes. A generation moves in a certain direction, and the next generation reacts based on the consequences (often rejecting it). Eventually a new generation appears that never directly experienced the consequences and lessons from the previous generations, who then moves back toward that direction and the […]

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Introducing PureBoot Restricted Boot

Kyle Rankin — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 22:54:10 +0000

We have been busy on the PureBoot front! Recently we announced “PureBoot Basic Mode” which is a low-security option for PureBoot that disables tamper detection, but leaves you with the robust PureBoot recovery console for debugging boot issues. To balance our last “low security” feature, our most recent PureBoot release, version 23, offers a new […]

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Thank You For Joining Us

Kyle Rankin — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 16:34:50 +0000

It has been a long and difficult journey to build a freedom- and privacy-respecting phone like the Librem 5. While the end of this journey is in sight, we aren’t quite there yet, and I wanted to take some time to do something we should do more often: acknowledge and thank all of you who […]

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Introducing PureBoot Basic

Kyle Rankin — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 18:02:12 +0000

PureBoot is our high-security, tamper-detecting boot firmware that we offer as an alternative to our default coreboot firmware on hardware like our Librem 14 and Librem Mini. The combination of PureBoot, our anti-interdiction services, and the option of Qubes as the pre-installed OS makes hardware like the Librem 14 among the most secure computers you […]

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Where Is My Librem 5?

Kyle Rankin — Mon, 22 Aug 2022 18:04:38 +0000

While our recent news has been all about Librem 5 USA, we also have been steadily shipping through Librem 5s from previous production runs and it has been gratifying to share in the excitement of customers who have gotten the Librem 5 they have been waiting so patiently for. While the remainder of you have […]

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Anti-Interdiction on The Librem 5 USA

Kyle Rankin — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 19:34:32 +0000

One of the most unique security features we offer at Purism is our anti-interdiction service. This is a premium add-on service that aims to help you detect attempts to tamper with your hardware in shipment, so you can have peace of mind that the hardware you receive is the same as when it left our […]

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Privacy in Depth

Kyle Rankin — Thu, 14 Jul 2022 15:52:51 +0000

In the security world there is a concept called “Defense in Depth” that refers to setting up layers of defense so that if an attacker bypasses one layer there are other layers they must contend with. In physical security this might take the form of a lock on the outside door of an office building, […]

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PureBoot’s Powerful Recovery Console

Kyle Rankin — Thu, 09 Jun 2022 18:39:05 +0000

Normally when we talk about our high-security boot firmware PureBoot, it’s in the context of the advanced tamper detection it adds to a system. For instance, recently we added the ability to detect tampering even in the root file system. While that’s a critical benefit PureBoot provides over our default coreboot firmware, it also provides […]

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Is Ethical Advertising Possible?

Kyle Rankin — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 16:39:52 +0000

Is ethical advertising possible? We all certainly know unethical advertising is possible, we live with it every day. The ad-driven Internet has created an insatiable hunger for personal data and as a result most of what the average person does in their web browser, or on their phone, and in real life is being measured, […]

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Qubes 4.1 Now Available for Pre-Install

Kyle Rankin — Thu, 26 May 2022 15:39:02 +0000

I’m convinced that the Librem 14 is the best laptop for Qubes and our customers seem to agree. Originally, customers who selected Qubes with their order would have to install it themselves with a USB thumb drive we added to the order. More recently we started offering Qubes as a pre-installed option, all set up […]

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Free Software Support Is Critical to Its Success

Kyle Rankin — Tue, 17 May 2022 18:37:49 +0000

I’ve been in many “Linux on the Desktop” debates over the years and my stance today is largely the same as two decades ago: if you want free software to succeed, it must be pre-installed on hardware where all hardware features work, with a hardware vendor that supports it. It doesn’t matter nearly as much […]

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The Second Best Time to Protect Your Privacy

Kyle Rankin — Fri, 13 May 2022 15:26:16 +0000

There is a well-known Chinese proverb that says “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now.” This saying applies to many areas of life, and it also applies to privacy. The last few decades have seen a dramatic increase in the depth and breadth of privacy […]

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Privacy Washing: Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Kyle Rankin — Fri, 29 Apr 2022 15:16:18 +0000

People care about their privacy. Some have doubted this in the past, pointing to the amount of personal information people willingly shared, often in exchange for free software or services. Yet I’ve long thought that many people simply were not aware of the privacy implications of sharing their data and how it could be misused […]

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A Vision in Focus

Kyle Rankin — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 21:03:43 +0000

It’s the start of a new era at Purism. With the announcement of my new role as President, I thought I should share a bit about my background at Purism, my thoughts on the vision Purism captured in its Social Purpose charter, how we’ve approached that vision so far, and how I see us working […]

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Freedom From Coercion

Kyle Rankin — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 14:58:54 +0000

This past week, as part of escalating sanctions between the West and Russia because of the war in Ukraine, the FCC added the security company Kaspersky (creator of the popular Kaspersky Anti-Virus software) to its “security threat list” which means products from that company aren’t eligible for FCC funds. It’s important to note that this […]

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Security Self-Sufficiency

Kyle Rankin — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 17:29:09 +0000

“Put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.” — Andrew Carnegie Many people take Carnegie’s advice to heart when it comes to security. They anchor almost all of their security with a single vendor, and the vendor is more than happy to oblige. Most infosec vendors seem incapable of designing security […]

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My First Year of Librem 5 Convergence

Kyle Rankin — Mon, 07 Mar 2022 22:27:55 +0000

It’s hard to believe it’s already been a year since I wrote about My First Week of Librem 5 Convergence: I talked at length in my article Investing in Real Convergence about my decades-long wish to have a single computer I could carry with me that had all of my files, ran all of my […]

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Shields Up: Flexible Security for Changing Threats

Kyle Rankin — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 22:35:29 +0000

People often ask me for security advice, but before I can offer any recommendations usually I need to ask people specific questions about themselves to understand the threats they face. That’s because the security measures you take depend on your threats, and because everyone faces different threats, there are few one-size-fits all recommendations. When I […]

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I (Finally) Fired Google

Kyle Rankin — Fri, 11 Feb 2022 17:44:52 +0000

While I have been working for many years to remove all aspects of Google from my personal life, it was only this past week that I replaced the final piece. As of this week I have finally fired Google. It wasn’t easy, and in this post I’ll tell my story of how tightly Google was […]

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About Face: IRS Backtracks on Biometrics After Backlash

Kyle Rankin — Tue, 08 Feb 2022 00:30:46 +0000

Recently the IRS announced a new facial recognition system that would require customers upload videos of themselves to access certain IRS services. Over the past couple weeks the system has faced backlash online, bi-partisan backlash in Congress, and a lot of media attention, and this week the IRS announced they were transitioning away from the […]

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You Should Be In Control of Your Tech

Kyle Rankin — Sat, 29 Jan 2022 00:57:35 +0000

How much of the technology that you own is actually under your control? So much of the technology available for consumers today intentionally puts all control into the hands of the vendors, not the customer. What happens when vendors have control? They make technology decisions that run counter to the customer’s wishes, because the customer […]

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The Beat of a Different DRM

Kyle Rankin — Sat, 15 Jan 2022 02:40:10 +0000

Canon made big news this past week when it started telling customers how to defeat the Digital Rights Management (DRM) in its toner cartridges because of supply chain issues with the chips they normally use to enforce it. That Canon explained how to bypass the DRM when it suited them, and that it didn’t negatively […]

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High Security Shipping: Anti-interdiction in 2021

Kyle Rankin — Mon, 03 Jan 2022 21:31:47 +0000

We offer a lot of unique, high-security features at Purism (I discuss the most secure options for the Librem 14 in this post). One of the most interesting things we offer is our anti-interdiction service, an add-on service that we custom-tailor for each customer to add multiple levels of tamper detection to an order. With […]

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