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Microsoft’s Pluton security processor debuts on AMD chips in new Lenovo ThinkPad laptops
Geek Wire ^ | 01 04 2022 | Todd Bishop

Posted on 01/05/2022 10:08:27 PM PST by yesthatjallen

Lenovo unveiled two new laptops made out of materials including recycled aluminum and “recycled black vegan leather,” delivered in packaging made from compostable bamboo and sugarcane. But beneath the environmentally friendly hardware there’s another innovation: Microsoft’s Pluton security processor.

The new Lenovo ThinkPad Z13 and Z16, announced Tuesday at the International CES tech show in Las Vegas, are the first PCs to be unveiled with Pluton since Microsoft announced the security architecture in November 2020. Pluton takes security technologies that otherwise exist in a separate hardware component in Windows PCs and integrates them directly into the central processing unit.

In this case, the CPU is the new AMD Ryzen PRO 6000 Series processor.

SNIP

It’s “designed to store sensitive data, like encryption keys, securely within the Pluton hardware, which is integrated into the die of a device’s CPU and is therefore more difficult for attackers to access, even if they have physical possession of a device,” as explained in a post by David Weston, Microsoft director of enterprise and OS security. “This design helps ensure that emerging attack techniques cannot access key material.”

SNIP

(Excerpt) Read more at geekwire.com ...


TOPICS: Computers/Internet
KEYWORDS: amd; computer; microsoft; pluton; security

1 posted on 01/05/2022 10:08:27 PM PST by yesthatjallen
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To: yesthatjallen

Lenovo is owned by the Chinese government, for those that don’t know. They’ve also been caught multiple times putting back doors in their hardware. They are likely selling their systems at a loss in the US, to get them at a price point to get them in your homes. I wouldn’t trust any chips in one of those systems, no matter where they supposedly came from.


2 posted on 01/05/2022 10:17:13 PM PST by Golden Eagle (What's in YOUR injection?)
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To: Golden Eagle
And it's more than a little disturbing that Microsoft is playing footsie with the Chicoms in this way.

"Sure, put all your most sensitive encryption keys right here, you can trust us to keep them safe from prying eyes. Trust us!"

Ummm, sorry, no.

3 posted on 01/05/2022 10:20:07 PM PST by dayglored ("Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.")
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To: dayglored

Per the title Microsoft’s partner was more AMD, not Lenovo. You probably already know, but IBM is the one who basically gave their PC division to the Chinese for nothing, and the Chinese renamed it Lenovo. When IBM was questioned on it, their response was that they had more employees outside the US, than in it at that point, as if that was any sort of justification.

IBM was the third largest PC manufacturer in the world at the time, and Lenovo is still probably somewhere close. There was a Freeper back then who worked for IBM that got extremely emotional and defensive whenever it came up. Can’t remember the name, but haven’t seen him since.


4 posted on 01/05/2022 10:33:57 PM PST by Golden Eagle (What's in YOUR injection?)
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To: yesthatjallen

vegan leather?


5 posted on 01/05/2022 10:37:48 PM PST by glorgau
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To: yesthatjallen

Windows crashes and your laptop disintegrates....
You now have a $1,000 pile of black vegan leather and compostable bamboo and sugarcane.


6 posted on 01/05/2022 10:40:23 PM PST by minnesota_bound (I need more money. )
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To: yesthatjallen

I had a Lenovo ThinkPad. My wife bought it for me for a birthday present.

It was the crappiest crap that had ever been crapped. Because it had been bought in Hong Kong and I lived on Guam, it was basically impossible to return. After about three weeks of struggling with it, I actually took a hammer to it, and threw it away. I went back to the old Acer Laptop.

It was just an awful machine.


7 posted on 01/05/2022 10:46:18 PM PST by Fai Mao (I don't think we have enough telephone poles.)
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To: Fai Mao

I’ve owned three Thinkpads — two of them Lenovos. Great laptops.


8 posted on 01/05/2022 11:27:05 PM PST by Angelino97
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To: Angelino97

I have only used Lenovos for about 20 years. I process a lot of text and they have the best keypad for typing. It is basically the IBM keypad. I do have a Mac and the hardware is nice but the key travel is not the clicky typewriter like the Lenovo.


9 posted on 01/05/2022 11:34:35 PM PST by angry elephant (Been with Trump since huge 2016 Washington state rally in May.)
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To: glorgau
vegan leather?

No, recycled black vegan leather, as per the article.

Ricardo Montalban is not amused!

Regards,

P.S. Yes, I know that I'm dating myself with a reference to a 1970s t.v. commercial!

10 posted on 01/06/2022 1:29:50 AM PST by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: alexander_busek

Vegan leather is what you get when you skin a vegan and process their hide. TMYK.

Heh


11 posted on 01/06/2022 1:37:25 AM PST by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
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To: glorgau

“vegan leather?”

yeah, it’s used in quantum computing because it’s full of quantums ...


12 posted on 01/06/2022 4:43:50 AM PST by catnipman (Cat Nipman: Vote Republican in 2012 and only be called racist one more time!)
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To: Fai Mao

“It was the crappiest crap that had ever been crapped.”

Lol, hope you don’t mind me stealing that and using it?


13 posted on 01/06/2022 6:10:35 AM PST by Openurmind (The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world it leaves to its children. ~ D. Bonhoeffer)
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To: Golden Eagle

“There was a Freeper back then who worked for IBM that got extremely emotional and defensive whenever it came up. Can’t remember the name, but haven’t seen him since.

I worked for them back then. They sold Lenovo and the Chicoms promised to keep the manufacturing here. Guess what? I have made many disparaging comments about IBM and been attacked by what I think was an IBM manager in Boulder.


14 posted on 01/06/2022 7:45:57 AM PST by dljordan (Slouching towards Woketopia)
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To: yesthatjallen

Anyone wondering if this krap will shut out ANY operating system other than Winblows - Like Linux distros. “Trusted computing”, UEFI, etc. It’s a breeze to install and run M$ Winblows, but next to impossible to install any other operating system, unless you - or the distro - jump through numerous and onerous hoops, which most people other than techies won’t do.

Well, unless you want to install M$ leenux under Winblows, which they control.

I wonder what gun was held to the head of AMD/chip mfgs to add this to their chips. M$ is notorious for the “nice business ya got here, too bad if something happens to it, like us not letting you sell our sterling Winblows products.”


15 posted on 01/06/2022 9:36:19 AM PST by hadit2here ("There are some ideas so preposterous, only an intellectual could believe them." -- George Orwell)
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