The whitelist exists because Thinkpads have various certifications for companies and organizations that require them...e.g. a military use where the entire system needs to be certified for obvious (in the sense that security may dictate that a machine cannot have arbitrary hardware installed) reasons. It's the tradeoff one makes for a laptop that is of sufficient quality that it can be certified.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad#Use_in_space

Over time, alternative bios's with different whitelists often become available for Thinkpads. Not sure if this will live through UEFI.

Good luck.

And the stock hardware is certified, why must it prevent me from working on my own machine.

Because some certifications require limiting the range of possible changes. An obvious example would be a user swappable encryption chip. Allowing that would defeat the purpose if certifying the system for encryption in environments requiring certification for encryption. So the encryption gets baked in to the hardware. The hardware whitelist is just an extension of that feature set. Sure, not everyone needs that feature set. For most of them, though, the feature set is neutral at worst. People for whom the feature set creates a problem are a corner case. Those for whom it is a serious problem have purchased the wrong product or may need to tether an external device.

It should be the device owner, not the device manufacture who decides what can and cannot be put into the system. If the owner, my employee in your example, decides to lock down the device, that is their right. For the manufacture to tell me as the owner that I cannot use an otherwise compatible part is plainly and simply wrong.

If a person who doesn't like liver and onions orders liver and onions off the menu, their complaints to the waiter that "I don't like the taste of this liver and onions" is not justified and sending it back to the kitchen for a different plate of liver and onions isn't going to please the diner's pallet. "Should" has nothing to do with it. Don't buy a ThinkPad if it doesn't meet your needs. Instead, buy something that does.

> Don't buy a ThinkPad if it doesn't meet your needs. Instead, buy something that does.

I won't! However, this is not an advertised issue. Why would I assume I can't upgrade my own hardware?

It's not an issue with ThinkPads. It is a feature.

An unadvertised feature. Extending the metaphor, they ordered a burger that made no mention of liver and onions and got a burger that had liver and onions. We as consumers have every right to complain, such certified hardware should be optional and we can buy models without. Its software, this shouldn't be an issue we have to face.

Well you're in for a world of pain my brother. Here's a list of other brands that do this: HP, Toshiba, Dell, et al. The excuse they give, albeit stupid and useless IMO, is a valid one. This used to be easy to maneuver around by just flashing your BIOS, but with UEFI and encrypted BIOS' this has become an uphill battle.

That being said, Lenovo still makes great machines (their keyboards destroy everything from the Dell XPS to Macbook Pro and everything in between) on which you can service their internals by yourself - just not the WiFi cards which require whitelist authentication.

It's not like you can't change the card though... just google what cards you CAN swap to and buy one on eBay.

What is the danger and how is it irresponsible?

Oh I guess I misread. It's still not dangerous at all. You aren't going to die or suffer injury from the wifi card or lack thereof, even if Lenovo goes out of business. You're choosing words that falsely amplify your point.

You have not lost your ability to replace your wifi card. The difference here is only monetary and the entire cost to you would be negated if the initial price was $100 cheaper. A year or two after your purchase, the price of laptops will have fallen enough that the cost of a laptop + an extra official wifi card is less than the cost of a laptop today. So I find your theory of harm quite dubious.

You didn't lose it, you never had it. Lenovo exercised their freedom to make a laptop where you can't change the card.

So even if I'm born a slave, I haven't lost my freedom. Stop being ridiculous.

> I wish I knew how low the Thinkpad brand has sunk under Lenovo before buying this machine.

The BIOS whitelist goes back at least to the T61, if not further.

Heh, I had a dell from years ago with the same thing, and I had a CD with the hack on it. Every once in a while, if I let the battery get too dead(Like the os shut itself off then I left it like that for 2 days), I'd have to dig that cd out and "fix" the bios. Really frustrating, but this has been going on since laptops first had those wifi card thingys.

Funny that you mention Lenovo, because they also come with built-in adware: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/researcher-discover...

Many manufactures, including Dell, have been doing this for a while.

IBM also did this. My X31 can attest to that.