Category: Press Releases

Intended for PR – used to filter out posts intended for the press

May 17, 2018

Purism and Nitrokey Partner to Build Purekey for Purism’s Librem Laptops

San Francisco (May 17, 2018) – Purism, the social purpose corporation which designs and produces security focused hardware and software, has announced today that they are partnering with Nitrokey, maker of Free Software and Open Hardware USB OpenPGP security tokens and Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) to create Purekey, Purism’s own OpenPGP security token designed to integrate with its hardware and software. Purekey embodies Purism’s mission to make security and cryptography accessible where its customers hold the keys to their own security and follows on the heels of their announcement of a partnership with cryptography pioneer and GnuPG maintainer Werner Koch.

Purism customers will be able to purchase a Purekey by itself or as an add-on with a laptop order. For add-on orders, Purism can pre-configure the Purekey at the factory to act as an easy-to-use disk decryption key and ship laptops that are pre-encrypted. Customers will be able to insert their Purekey at boot and decrypt their drive automatically without having to type in a long passphrase. Customers will also be able to replace the factory-generated keys with their own at any time.

Purekey will also be a critical component in Purism’s tamper-evident boot protection. Purism will tightly integrate Purekey into their tamper-evident boot software so that customers will be able to detect tampering on their hardware from the moment it leaves the factory.

Enterprise customers have long used security tokens for easy and secure key management from everything from email encryption to code signing and multi-factor authentication. With Purekey, IT departments will have an integrated solution out of the box for disk and email encryption, authentication, and tamper-evident boot security that’s easy to use.

“Often security comes at the expense of convenience but Purekey provides a rare exception. By keeping your encryption keys on a Purekey instead of on a hard drive, your keys never leave the tamper-proof hardware. This not only makes your keys more secure from attackers, it makes using your keys on multiple devices more convenient. When your system needs to encrypt, decrypt, or sign something, just insert your Purekey; when you are done, remove it and put it back in your pocket.” — Purism CSO Kyle Rankin

“We’re pleased to be working with the Purism team, who are very aligned with our commitment to open hardware and free software. The possibilities of this partnership are exciting, especially given the growing importance of secure key storage on hardware smart cards and Purism’s important work on tamper-evident protection.” — Nitrokey CEO Jan Suhr

“We are long-time fans of Nitrokey as they are the only smart card vendor that shares our commitment to open hardware and free software. Their company and security products are a perfect complement to Purism’s belief that ethical computing means privacy and security without sacrificing personal control over your devices.” — Purism CEO Todd Weaver

About Nitrokey UG

Founded as an open source project in 2008 and turned into a full corporate entity in 2015, Nitrokey develops and produces highly secure open-source hardware and software USB keys that provide cryptographic functions for protecting; emails, files, hard drives, server certificates, online accounts and data at rest, preventing against identity theft and data loss.

About Purism

Purism is a Social Purpose Corporation devoted to bringing security, privacy, software freedom, and digital independence to everyone’s personal computing experience. With operations based in San Francisco (California) and around the world, Purism manufactures premium-quality laptops, tablets and phones, creating beautiful and powerful devices meant to protect users’ digital lives without requiring a compromise on ease of use. Purism designs and assembles its hardware in the United States, carefully selecting internationally sourced components to be privacy-respecting and fully Free-Software-compliant. Security and privacy-centric features come built-in with every product Purism makes, making security and privacy the simpler, logical choice for individuals and businesses.

March 28, 2018

Librem laptop orders now shipping within a week

As many team members have been travelling to negotiate hardware supplies or participate in community events lately, we are taking this opportunity to give you an update on Librem laptop operations this month, while regular posts about the Librem phone are expected to resume in a week or two.

Amidst the plethora of progress we blogged about recently on the mobile and security areas of our products, we also quietly achieved a very significant milestone in the life of our organisation, from the Inventory management and logistics standpoint: the ability to fulfill orders within 5 business days (on average), thanks to the inventory of Librem 13 and Librem 15 laptops we have built up.

Indeed, as our early supporters throughout the years have demonstrated incredible patience to wait for their preorders to arrive on their doorstep, we are deeply grateful for their investment that now allows us to fulfill new orders in merely a few days instead of months. Just look at the progress we’ve made through our efforts since the beginning of Purism, where we have now caught up with the demand:

Note that the situation is even better than what the chart above indicates, as the remaining gap between orders and shipments of the Librem 15 actually represents orders from customers who have not decided what they want to do with their previous 4K order (we tried contacting those multiple times through email over the past few months and got no reply—if you are in this situation and have somehow not received emails from our ops department, please contact us with your existing order information).

The Librem 13 was introduced five months after the Librem 15, which explains the chart data starting in May 2015. We have kept the X axis the same as for the Librem 15 for comparison purposes.

The increased interest in our products is also the reason why we are now able to deliver worldwide with free shipping, and invest heavily in security by eating the cost of making TPM a standard feature on our laptop motherboards and advancing software that integrates with it, such as coreboot and Heads, where we are making significant contributions to those upstream projects, such as a menu interface for Heads or fixing various bugs in coreboot. Stay tuned for reverse engineering news in April!

We would like to thank all our users of Librem laptops and FSF endorsed PureOS, as well as all those that have backed the Librem 5 phone, and of course all those people who support us by feedback, kind words (we were psyched to see many of you showing support and interest at our booth at LibrePlanet last week-end!), and spreading the word. It is with this unified education approach that we can change the future of computing and digital rights for the better.

December 21, 2017

FSF adds PureOS to list of endorsed GNU/Linux distributions

BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA — Thursday, December 21, 2017 — The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today announced the addition of PureOS to its list of recommended GNU/Linux distributions.

The FSF’s list showcases GNU/Linux operating system distributions whose developers have made a commitment to follow its Guidelines for Free System Distributions. Each one includes and endorses exclusively free “as in freedom” software.

After extensive evaluation and many iterations, the FSF concluded that PureOS, a modern and user-friendly Debian-derived distribution, meets these criteria.

“The FSF’s high standards for distributions help users know which ones will honor their desire to be fully in control of their computers and devices. These standards also help drive the development work needed to make the free world’s tools more practical and powerful than the proprietary dystopia exemplified by Windows, iOS, and Chrome. PureOS is living—and growing—proof that you can meet ethical standards while also achieving excellence in user experience,” said John Sullivan, FSF’s executive director.

“PureOS is a GNU operating system that embodies privacy, security, and convenience strictly with free software throughout. Working with the Free Software Foundation in this multi-year endorsement effort solidifies our longstanding belief that free software is the nucleus for all things ethical for users. Using PureOS ensures you are using an ethical operating system, committed to providing the best in privacy, security, and freedom,” said Todd Weaver, Founder & CEO of Purism.

FSF’s licensing and compliance manager, Donald Robertson, added,

“An operating system like PureOS is a giant collection of software, much of which in the course of use encourages installation of even more software like plugins and extensions. Issues are inevitable, but the team behind PureOS worked incredibly hard to fix everything we identified. They didn’t just fix the issues for their own distribution—they sent fixes upstream, and are developing new extension ‘store’ mechanisms that won’t recommend nonfree software to users. Our endorsement means we are confident not just in the current state of affairs, but also in the team’s commitment to quickly address any problems that do arise.”

PureOS is developed through a combination of volunteer contributions and work funded by the company Purism. The FSF’s announcement today is about the PureOS distribution, which can be installed by users on many kinds of computers and devices. It is not a certification of any particular hardware shipping with PureOS. Any such endorsements will be announced separately as part of the FSF’s Respects Your Freedom device certification program.

About the FSF

The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users’ right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software—particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants—and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF’s work can be made at donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA. More information about the FSF, as well as important information for journalists and publishers, is at fsf.org/press.

About the GNU Operating System and Linux

Richard Stallman announced in September 1983 the plan to develop a free software Unix-like operating system called GNU. GNU is the only operating system developed specifically for the sake of users’ freedom. See gnu.org/gnu/the-gnu-project.html.

In 1992, the essential components of GNU were complete, except for one, the kernel. When in 1992 the kernel Linux was re-released under the GNU GPL, making it free software, the combination of GNU and Linux formed a complete free operating system, which made it possible for the first time to run a PC without nonfree software. This combination is the GNU/Linux system. For more explanation, see the GNU FAQ entry about Linux.

About Purism

Media Contact

Marie Williams, Coderella / Purism
+1 415-689-4029
pr@puri.sm
See also the Purism press room for additional tools and announcements.

Donald Robertson, III
Licensing & Compliance Manager, Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942
licensing@fsf.org

October 19, 2017

Purism Librem Laptops Completely Disable Intel’s Management Engine

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., October 19, 2017 — Purism’s Librem Laptops, running coreboot, are now available with the Intel Management Engine completely and verifiably disabled.

“Disabling the Management Engine, long believed to be impossible, is now possible and available in all current Librem laptops, it is also available as a software update for previously shipped recent Librem laptops.” says Todd Weaver, Founder & CEO of Purism.

The Management Engine (ME), part of Intel AMT, is a separate CPU that can run and control a computer even when powered off. The ME has been the bane of the security market since 2008 on all Intel based CPUs, with publicly released exploits against it, is now disabled by default on all Purism Librem laptops.

Disabling the Management Engine is no easy task, and it has taken security researchers years to find a way to properly and verifiably disable it. Purism, because it runs coreboot and maintains its own BIOS firmware update process has been able to release and ship coreboot that disables the Management Engine from running, directly halting the ME CPU without the ability of recovery.

“Purism Librem laptops were already the most secure current Intel based computers available on the market today, but disabling the management engine solidifies that statement clearly.” says Zlatan Todoric, CTO of Purism.

The Librem 13 and Librem 15 products can be purchased today and will arrive with the Management Engine disabled by default, and it can be verified to be disabled with the source code released to confirm the disablement is accurate. Showing “ME: FW Partition Table : BAD; ME: Bringup Loader Failure : YES”

“Purism, in the long-term pursuit of liberating hardware at the lowest levels, still has more work to do. Removing the management engine entirely is the next step beyond just disabling it. Coreboot also includes another binary, the Intel FSP, a less worrisome but still important binary to liberate, incorporating a free vBIOS is another step Purism plans to take. The road to a completely free system on current Intel CPUs is not over, but the largest step of disabling the Management Engine is arguably the largest milestone to cross.” says Youness Alaoui, Hardware Enablement Developer at Purism.

See also: our technical write-up on disabling the Management Engine on Purism laptops.

About Purism

Media Contact

Marie Williams, Coderella / Purism
+1 415-689-4029
pr@puri.sm
See also the Purism press room for additional tools and announcements.

October 18, 2017

Purism Partners with Nextcloud to Build and Include End-to-End Encrypted Storage Products and Services

Purism Partners with Nextcloud to Build and Include End-to-End Encrypted Storage Products and Services

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., October 18, 2017 – Purism, maker of security-focused computing devices, is partnering with Nextcloud for a series of products and services. Nextcloud, author of a popular open-source self hosted, privacy-focused file sync and share solution, is looking to expand and become a default on Purism’s mobile and desktop computing products.

Purism, fresh off of successfully meeting their crowdfunding goal of $1.5 million to build and deliver the Librem 5, adds another partner in Nextcloud, fresh off the announcement of new end-to-end encryption upgrades in Nextcloud 13. This partnership adds to Purism’s roster of open-source partners that will aim to make the Librem 5 the most comprehensive free open-source smartphone to ever hit the market.

“Having Nextcloud applications built into the Librem 5, as well as default within PureOS, will help people have a convenient, ethical encrypted file storage service alongside other easy-to-use defaults” says Todd Weaver, Founder and CEO of Purism.

“Partnering with Purism gets our software directly into the hands of customers, making their lives easier with security and privacy protection built-in” says Jos Poortvliet, Co-founder and Head of Marketing at Nextcloud.

Purism plans to include Nextcloud in the Librem 5 phone, as well as within PureOS for its Librem 13 and Librem 15 laptops. Additionally, Purism will be discussing with Nextcloud about a future Purism NAS that runs completely free software including Nextcloud and services.

“Nextcloud follows our strict beliefs in digital rights for people, and this partnership is a clear win for users by merging convenience and ethics together into simple products” adds Weaver.

About Nextcloud

Nextcloud offers the industry-leading fully open source solution for on-premise data handling and communication with an uncompromising focus on security and privacy and unprecedented scalability. Nextcloud brings together universal access to data with next-generation secure communication and collaboration capabilities under direct control of IT and integrated with existing compliant infrastructure. Nextcloud’s open, modular architecture, emphasis on security and advanced federation capabilities enable modern enterprises to leverage their existing assets within and across the borders of their organization.

About Purism

Media Contact

Marie Williams, Coderella / Purism
+1 415-689-4029
pr@puri.sm
See also the Purism press room for additional tools and announcements.

October 13, 2017

Purism Collaborates with Cryptocurrency Monero to Enable Mobile Payments

Purism plans to utilize Monero’s privacy respecting platform to build a cash-like, digital payment system for Librem 5 smartphone users

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., October 13, 2017 — Purism, maker of security focused hardware and software, today announced a collaboration with Monero, the only secure decentralized currency that is private by default. Purism recently started accepting Monero for payments in its online store, and this is a continuation of the company’s support for the cryptocurrency.

As more central services like Equifax are hacked, exposing vulnerable user data in unprecedented ways that cause permanent damage to people’s privacy, it has become clear that centralized, individually identifiable, historic, and permanent digital footprints create a serious threat to digital privacy and human rights. Purism, on the heels of its successful smartphone crowdfunding campaign which has raised more than $1.5 million, is looking to address this threat by incorporating cryptocurrencies by default into its mobile phone design, beginning with Monero.

“We must proactively plan for and address digital rights issues in the here and now, because by the time we face them in the future the damage will be irreversible,” said Todd Weaver, Founder & CEO of Purism. “Collaboration with Monero allows us to offer users a much lower barrier to entry for leveraging the benefits of a cryptocurrency, and our aim is to make it incredibly simple to use your Librem 5 smartphone to make secure, cash-like payments that safeguard your private information.”

Monero’s cryptocurrency offers a fungible, decentralized, private currency that is created to be identical to centuries of physical world transaction processes, primarily that cash given for goods or services is a one-time, non-recorded, mutual transaction.

“Collaborating with Purism addresses a major pain point for Monero. The Librem 5 makes it easy for the average user to use Monero for real world transactions on a mobile platform. In addition, the Librem 5, by using Free Libre Open Source Software provides the user with the opportunity to verify to a very high level its end point security, privacy and decentralization. This is in sharp contrast to many mobile platforms where the user has to trust a proprietary implementation. I am very excited to see the Librem 5 planning to have Monero support by default,” Francisco Cabañas, Core Team Member, The Monero Project.

“Creating a future where a person can buy or sell digital goods or services and still respect their privacy, similarly to cash but on the Internet, is a long-time dream that we plan to make a reality,” says Weaver.

Integrating Monero into Purism’s Librem 5 smartphone as part of its default mobile payment system can solve the problems plaguing the online transaction space, removing banks from the transaction, removing all central storage of private user data, keeping transactions private between two parties, all backed by the strength of an immutable cryptographic blockchain ledger.

About Monero

The Monero Project is a grassroots, community-driven initiative that advocates for privacy on a global scale by producing several free libre open source software projects, with the flagship offering being Monero, a fungible and decentralized cryptocurrency. The important guiding philosophies of Monero are security (ensuring that users are able to trust Monero with their transactions, without risk of error or attack), privacy (ensuring that users can transact Monero without fear of coercion, censorship, or surveillance), and decentralization (ensuring that no single person or group can control the network or reverse transactions). The goal is to provide a level of fungibility and privacy that is analogous to that of cash for the digital world.

About Purism

Media Contact

Marie Williams, Coderella / Purism
+1 415-689-4029
pr@puri.sm
See also the Purism press room for additional tools and announcements.