In 2019 I bought a used MS Surface to use as a drawing tablet both personally and in my role as an art teacher. Every Surface is loaded up with some nasty software from Absolute Software that acts sort of like Ransomware, and the fun part is YOU CAN”T GET RID OF IT.
Thankfully Linux is around to bail me out and prevent this really nice tablet PC from becoming e-waste.
[ad_2]
source
The harsh corpo reality hit you =)
Companies like Mastercard buy a bunch of devices wiith the security software added to give to their employees, these devices must be returned to the company when a person leaves their job since they are company property, however not all employees do this and either keep or sell the devices which is technically theft.
The company that owns the device has no obligation to help you since the device is their property, the security firm has no obligation to help you either. There are ways around the lockout such as installing Linux and if the device was android you can always root it.
They probably forgot to remove it from mdm before selling
Buys a (likely) stolen unit
Blames the MDM for preventing usage of said stolen device
Does not question seller
Comments section filled with "linux W" comments
This is why people buy iPads directly from Apple. You get a better experience, and no hassle. You are asking for trouble buying corporate bulk resale items not properly decommissioned via a dodgy ebay seller. For your 300 bucks you could have gotten a perfect iPad directly from Apple refurb store.
Microsoft, you suck. Goodnight. (Been using Linux for 25 years now – never looked back.)
Why would you not wipe and clean install a second hand device after buying it?
You will own nothing and be happy
I put Linux Mint 22 on an old Surface Pro 3 I've had since new. Brilliant.
This one Linux distro has 'signed' keys probably already in UEFI in … therefore it went with install. Master Card will not be my provider … for sure, mtfk3rs.
Any time Linux wins a new user from the Windows Crime Lords… a new angel has earned his wings. πππΌπΊ
Gnome interface is suited for touchpads. You can just touch the top left and a big app selector pops up. This vid reinforces me pawning my Surface Go after Win11 came out, and their TPM chip debacle. I fully switched to Linux and never looked back. I'll probably buy a Mac at some point, Chromebooks, anything but Windows.
They determined that because they did own it. It was probably an employee laptop that someone decided to sell and not return
Ubuntu ant Linux and MasterCard have every right to lock there devices down has nothing to do with Microsoft or windows
You got screwed not by Mastercard but the ebay seller who obtained it from an ewaste seller.
I wanted to say, good on ya for trying as hard as you did to save that thing, you wouldn't belive how many people just chuck those things once they quit working. I've been using linux for years now so i'd be biased trying to say anything about the epirence but i can say change is never easy, i'm just sorry this one was requred because of mastercard. Good luck on your endeavour(OS).
If I'm gonna be honest, this simply feels like another way big corporations are screwing over the little guy. Corporate is souless and doesn't care about us.
rog surface 16x amd5 it has a active screen for drawing if you get an 2022 model you can do z-brush an all 2d draw apps an even run unreal 5.4 editor, it can sell for an easy 1000 online so the pc out do those surface books by an easy 200%. on the flip side its neat you got your surface to run Linux on it…. either way you should check out the rog pc if you want something more modern. ps you need an win 11 blue-tooth pen to get more pen functions the only con i had with mine.
It was probably stolen. It probably was Mastercard's. They should make it easy to contact them though, the entire point of locking it was to get it back, how are you supposed to get it back to them if you can't contact them? I don't buy anything microsoft for the weird stuff they have going on constantly. I have a mac and use Linux on my PCs. I want to dump Apple but their M1 mac mini is so nice it's my daily driver now.
Well done. I would probably have attempted to get OpenBSD, FreeBSD, GhostBSD, or OpenIndiana to install on that tablet; that's the only thing I would have done differently.
Computrace Absolute works with a firmware and chip built into the UEFI on Surface tablets. It only becomes active when the original corporate customer installs Absolute on the computer… In this case, MasterCard. Once made active, it is there forever. MasterCard, like many corporate customers, sends old units out for recycling. Someone does a little dumpster diving, and scrounges up some hardware, and puts it out on Ebay. Legally, your Surface is more than likely considered stolen property if anyone wanted to press the issue.
At any rate, the Absolute persistence module is built to detect when the Computrace and/or Absolute Manage software agents have been removed, ensuring they are automatically reinstalled, even if the firmware is flashed, the device is re-imaged, the hard drive is replaced, or if a tablet or smartphone is wiped clean to factory settings. That leaves Linux as the only practical option.
"thank you for your service to mastercard"
Whats that even supposed to be??? Your service????
more than likely mastercard recycled it but it still had active computrace on it. I run a linux/ubuntu on a few laptops i have like that. My company is big but not close to mastercard – we get rid of any machine thats over 3 years old so i doubt they care about that machine.
This was previously owned by MasterCard, and was not properly reset before MasterCard got rid of it. They probably just got around to cleaning up the mess from their previous admin.
The only thing I can think of is that Mastercard owned the laptop, and the seller got a hold of it. It's got nothing to do with Microsoft or Linux. Blame the seller for selling a company laptop.
Did you try Ventoy for writing to your install media? That's what I used to jump ship on Windows. You can literally put on as many live disk images as the stick will fit.
Welcome to the Penguinverse; if you have any issues, I've found ChatGPT usually has a good idea on how to identify causes and solutions. I use the free version for Android. I haven't even signed up and it's helped with several technical issues so far.
does this also apply to pc parts
Rufus W
Idk why people are suggesting so many other alternatives
I've always used rufus. It's the first program I download when I get a new Windows machine
Welcome to the community!
@rossmanmgroup Heres another company behaving atrocious
Fyi avoiding buying a surface wouldnt avoid this issue. This sort of security is present on majority of popular corporate machines or anything higher spec than low end consumer stuff. If you buy used, always always check the bios. If you did the first time around you would have seen it active on machine and request a refund. It happens..
It was a mastercard corporate device that somehow got in ebay, so mastercard order a lock in stolen / lost devices and that's it
Prolly not wise to advertise purchasing stolen goods?
Just a thought.π€
Linux simply Rocks, I use RichARCH btw. It made it quick and simple for me to get Arch Linux installed with kickstart like automation features.