It is Christmas time again. It's time for people to discuss their gadgetry, typically in the context of wanting the hot new gadgetry out, instead of the old, busted and played-out gadgetry that they've been using for the last six months. Through all of that useless noise, I came across something I haven't seen or heard in a while. It's an older joke, but it seems to be making the rounds again: Android devices are so cheap, even thieves don't want them. And, of course, Samsung Galaxies are name-checked the most, since they're the largest Android brand.

Whenever I've heard it said, or if it was specifically aimed at me, it was always supposed to be taken as ridicule. "Man, no one wants to steal that cheap cellphone you got." Good. Especially since we live in Chicago, and theft is always a possibility.

I just don't see it as an insult. Granted, if someone tries to insult me by calling me broke, I'm unfazed because... well, that's just the truth. Someone not wanting my stuff because of its lack of monetary value? That’s security; that's a feature, not a bug.

If someone stole one of my laptops today, they’d get nothing. They wouldn't be able to log in, and if they took it to a pawn shop, the shop wouldn't even bother because it’s running Linux instead of Windows.

Now, if this theft were to happen, say... 12 years ago? It would be a different story.

Back in 2009, I stopped using Windows on my laptops. Windows 7 proved it wasn't fit for portable hardware (and even XP had its own shitty hiccups), which started my adoption of Linux. A used $50 netbook running Crunchbang ran a lot better than a brand-new netbook running Windows. Instead of wiping Windows entirely, I'd keep a small partition on disk with a solo user that wasn't password protected. And that partition would be laced with keyloggers and other goodies that could potentially feed me back information.

After all, it was my laptop.
I can do what I want.

While there's no record of me having a laptop stolen and then mysteriously getting back, I can tell you that if you did something similar (NOT SAYING THAT YOU SHOULD, but if...), you'd probably end up with enough intel that'd buy you a new machine.

In short, what I'm actually getting at is, cheap hardware is a flex. An even bigger flex is if the hardware was going to be e-waste. Especially if it outperforms over-marketed, over-priced, locked-down, planned-obsolesence trash. Taking something cheap and making it into something usable is way more impressive than paying too much for weak hardware.

[ https://hisvirusness.com/cheap-does-not-mean-bad ]