bernd1-1@web.de:
Hi. I've watched a television broadcast where a hacker or security expert suspected that the BIOS of ThinkPads has a backdoor. Therefore, he said he uses OpenBIOS or coreboot.
I read on Wikipedia that OpenBIOS works in interaction with coreboot on Intel machines.
I read https://www.openfirmware.info/OpenBIOS as well as https://www.coreboot.org/OpenBIOS.
Please tell me whether a user without knowledge in programming or Linux command lines in Terminal is able to install OpenBIOS and/or coreboot.
Would you provide step by step instructions (especially for my case) how to install OpenBIOS and/or coreboot on my system?
It's good to be aware of security, but BIOS is just one of several areas to consider. Be aware there are only certain models of Thinkpads supported for coreboot. Don't need programming experience, but familiarity with Linux goes a long way. Build with https://doc.coreboot.org/tutorial/part1.html. You will likely need an external hardware flasher to write the resulting image to BIOS.
There are a couple places where you can purchase Thinkpads with coreboot already flashed. A couple more where you can find laptops with the HAP bit set, which purportedly disables portions of Intel ME, but may or may not use coreboot. Suggest doing more research of these options before making a decision.