Does reinstalling the OS on your PC negate all the non-free code that has been run?
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Like maybe you have run non-free code that plants stuff on your PC. Does reinstalling the OS negate that or do you need to build a new PC (not buy, cause... who know the manufacturer might plant stuff there)?
1) Reinstalling should be fine in most of the cases, however...
2.a) If your disc is corrupt or if a malicious software is blocking to format it, you can perhaps replace your disc(SSD or HDD), or use more advanced tools to overwrite multiple times. If your disc is encrypted, you can overwrite the header, so that should be sufficient too.
2.b) If your Ram is corrupt, but this is cleaned after you cut off the power(electricity) to it. If somehow a software is also be able to create some 'non-erasable' stuff on your ram, you can also replace those. I never heard of that, if there is, please let us know :)
3) Bios(firmware), this is a tricky one. But with Libreboot, you can just unplug the battery of the bios chip, and reflash a new rom using BBB or RPI, an that should be ok.
Hardware corruption (as in malfunction) has nothing to do with the software running on it being free or not.
TLDR: no.
"Reinstalling the OS" does not necessarily mean:
- shredding all the previous data
- reformatting the storage
- the new OS is 100% free software
"Plants stuff" means nothing. What stuff? How is it planted?
"build a new PC (not buy, cause... who know the manufacturer might plant stuff there)?"
Assuming that you are avoiding non-free software by assembling a computer yourself while all its parts are still made by various manufacturers who in most cases *do* use non-free firmware which you can't remove is illogical.
Yeah I meant building it *entirely* by yourself, not ordering parts.
Stuff = software, programs, viruses, malware, applications, things that make your PC do things.
>"Reinstalling the OS" does not necessarily mean:
- shredding all the previous data
- reformatting the storage
- the new OS is 100% free software
I see I made myself confusing here. Yeah I meant when you boot a USB (or DVD) with Trisquel, the graphical installation helper has the option to "erase disk"-something something. That was what I meant.
> Yeah I meant building it *entirely* by yourself, not ordering parts.
How exactly do you build a CPU, MB, HDD etc entirely by yourself?
> Yeah I meant when you boot a USB (or DVD) with Trisquel, the graphical installation helper has the option to "erase disk"-something something.
All USB memory sticks and other USB devices have built-in firmware which is proprietary and starts running automatically when you plug the device. If you boot using a USB stick with infected firmware it can brick your whole machine forever, regardless of what you have stored in the user accessible memory of the stick (e.g. free software). Search the web for BadUSB.
>All USB memory sticks and other USB devices have built-in firmware which is proprietary and starts running automatically when you plug the device. If you boot using a USB stick with infected firmware it can brick your whole machine forever, regardless of what you have stored in the user accessible memory of the stick (e.g. free software). Search the web for BadUSB.
Is that the same thing with "internal" SSD disks?
This does not apply to DVDs?
Storage (HDD, SSD, memory cards, DVD drives [not the media]) has firmware too and it is proprietary but unlike USB it is not possible the storage device to present itself as a keyboard, mouse or Ethernet adapter which starts to type commands or to capture/manipulate network packets. Also you usually need special software from the manufacturer to update HDD firmware, so it is more difficult to infect them with anything different from what the manufacturer installed. Although you don't have "freedom" with them they are less dangerous as a whole. Of course if you connect any storage using USB it inherits all USB's problems.
Learn to use search engines before asking questions which have been answered. If you can find something like "ssd firmware update" then it has firmware. :)
Interesting.
>DVD drives [not the media]
What do you mean "not the media"?
>has firmware too and it is proprietary but unlike USB it is not possible the storage device to present itself as a keyboard, mouse or Ethernet adapter which starts to type commands or to capture/manipulate network packets.
Well it doesn't really matter what it presents itself as, does it?
>Also you usually need special software from the manufacturer to update HDD firmware, so it is more difficult to infect them with anything different from what the manufacturer installed.
Well what if it's the manufacturer who "infects" them?
>Although you don't have "freedom" with them they are less dangerous as a whole.
That's impossible to know, considering it is proprietary.
It seems that measures with software against the terrible situations are quite useless unless we solve hardware issues and infrastructural issues first. Inefficient.
Em 9 de julho de 2019 19:39:37 BRT, name at domain escreveu:
>Like maybe you have run non-free code that plants stuff on your PC.
If it was installed in the storage where the storage operating system is, then reinstalling is enough. However, if it modified some peripheral/device (camera, mouse, keyboard, WiFi) so as to include a software to be run inside the device, that is a firmware, then it might not suffice to reinstall, since the device may have different expiration dates or conditions for the things inside it.
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