← Back | written February 3rd, 2026
fingers crossed:
My privacy modded x220 was delivered into the hands of its buyer today, and fingers crossed that everything goes well and he likes the machine. I made the mistake (?) of spending $30 on a "new" rear display LCD on eBay, which arrived from China. It was definitely clean, but it was not new, and both the lenovo and the ThinkPad logo emblems FELL OUT! I had to use double sided 2mm tape to stick them back in. I'm really, really hoping that isn't going to be an issue for the buyer.
Before it even arrived, I began working on an X230, as I have another customer interested in purchasing a privacy modded ThinkPad. I'm still waiting on the Atheros network card, new caddy and a "new" (old stock) 9 cell battery to come in. However, I've gotten quite a bit done on this machine:
I have.. bypassed supervisor password and removed bios lock, flashed firmware to Libreboot 25.06, removed motherboard, applied fresh thermal paste, rubbed down the interior of the bottom case, removed the webcam, desoldered/destroyed the internal microphones, cleaned the monitor. This already makes it for a great privacy hardened platform for a paranoid/high threat model individual as the laptop has: physical killswitch that cuts power to the network card, absolute guarantee that the device cannot record your voice/face, and Intel M.E. (the backdoor everyone is concerned about that is always powered on, even when your computer is sleeping) has been neuteralized.
My fingers are crossed, if we can get this laptop sold soon and the other buyer is pleased with his device, I'm finally in a place to buy a proper amount of inventory and really get this ball rolling. I think I could manage to make 1 of these per day, and if I can manage a minimum of $150 profit per sale, I might be able to build a small business doing this! Who would want it? Well, there are two very real niche crowds: 1.) those who love old modded thinkpads as collectors items, 2.) those who are really concerned about privacy. There appears to be an overlap of those two niches, and there appears to be a demand for this kind of product. Heck, Purism built a business on it, but those cost 4x what I'm offering.
-Onio