I have Qubes OS on Dell XPS 9370. It seemed to have been compromised, so I reinstalled it yesterday, after updating the BIOS (though not updated IME). Everything went smoothly and I had setup it up and even copied back the data. A new password was set. I changed the BIOS admin and system passwords too.
I wrote down the passwords and since it was only yesterday, I remember them alright. One extra thing I did was to setup Mullvad VPN (following the Micah Lee instructions) and made it the network provider for sys-whonix. Today morning when I started the laptop, the disk password was not working. I tried several times, carefully. It didn't work. I tried to use a USB keyboard, but of course that won't work in Qubes. Then I booted from a live pen drive. The keyboard was behaving oddly. Wrong letter were appearing apparently arbitrarily, though not always. Then I used the USB keyboard with the live linux and tried to mount the LVM volume. This keyboard is perfectly new and works perfectly. Still the password was not working, even after typing carefully, letter by letter, several times. I have repeated the installation process today and setup the laptop again, including the VPN. I am writing the mail from it. The last time I had setup a VPN (NordVPN), there was a hell of a trouble on all devices. Some people consider using VPN very suspicious here. I know this is not directly a Qubes OS related question, but could it be due to an IME exploit or something like that? There is no question of forgetting the password. It was a memorable story telling password, and in any case I had it written down, as I do sometimes forget passwords. The thing is, every night these days, I keep the laptop in the best Faraday bag available and the bag I keep inside a locked cupboard, with key in my pocket (and I live alone), so it seems unlikely to have happened during the night. Perhaps after I brought it out from the bag today morning? This kind of thing has happened before. Once the boot password was not working, even though that too was written down. I had to call Dell customer care and they gave me a code which cleared the boot password. The last time there was major problem, which I had mentioned on this list, I had again called Dell and they have asked for remote access from Windows, which I had given. But there is no Windows or any other OS on the system now. Regards, अनिल एकलव्य (Anil Eklavya) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "qubes-users" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/qubes-users/CAAPfsu-cB%3Df%3Dg8bNkaN1b8zx-U%3DupS98uaSg7z-%3DczVsSVrg1g%40mail.gmail.com.
