Microsoft Surface: don't expect Thunderbolt and expandable RAM

Microsoft Surface is a well-established brand in the PC world that generates billions of dollars in revenue per year for the giant in Redmond. His luck stems from the intuition of the 2-in-1 form factor and from some bold, polarizing stylistic, conceptual and design choices. Some have been well accepted, others have attracted some criticisms, such as reticence to adopt the USB Type-C standard. A video recently discovered by the usual WalkingCat explains Microsoft's point of view on two unpopular choices, namely the RAM soldered to the motherboard (on most devices) and the failure to implement Thunderbolt technology: basically, it's a security issue.

Microsoft says that if RAM is not soldered it is vulnerable to a fairly well-known data extraction technique in the industry, which exploits the principle that a extremely low temperatures the information remains saved in volatile memories even in the absence of electricity. Therefore, literally, RAM can be frozen, removed and inserted into a special external reader with relative ease: this would allow a hacker to obtain data capable of compromising the integrity of the system, such as the BitLocker reading key. Thunderbolt is described as an indirect memory access port: an infected device could lead to the same scenario above.

It is useless to go into the merit of the declaration itself: this is Microsoft's thought, it can be discussed to the bitter end but, fortunately, there are many alternatives on the market that adopt different philosophies. The key information that we can extract from this movie is that it is unrealistic to expect these two characteristics in future products: never say never, of course, but this is the trend.