[German]Microsofts Surface models come with soldered RAM and with USB Type-C, but doesn't support Thunderbolt. Now there is probably a possible explanation: It's for security reasons.
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The current Surface models like the Surface Pro 7 or the Surface Laptop 3 and also the upcoming Surface Book 3 do not support the Thunderbolt connector. While Thunderbolt 3.0, which can transfer up to 40 Gbits/s, has long been standard for Mac owners, Microsoft only equips its devices with a USB 3 Type-C connection. In addition, the chips of the RAM are soldered, so they are not exchangeable (ok, many other devices don't have that either).
Thunderbold is an interface protocol jointly developed by Intel and Apple, which is based on the USB 3.1 Type-C interface. This approach is to be incorporated into USB 4.0 in the future. If a device is plugged in, direct memory access is possible – reading and writing. The Wikipedia writes: This gateway is to be limited by IOMMU on the host side, but under Windows only Windows 10 Enterprise supports IOMMU. It is normally not active anyway. On Linux, IOMMU is supported in the kernel, but inactive in all major distributions.
No Thunderbolt for security reasons
When you look at the issues Surface users are facing with their devices, you might spontaneously think 'Microsoft can't handle Thunderbolt'. But especially new Ice Lake CPUs offer Thunderbolt support on the chip. WalkingCat has now probably revealed the reason in a video: It's security.
Surfaces don't have Thunderbolt because its insecure pic.twitter.com/lb7YYOOQ4Y
— WalkingCat (@h0x0d) April 25, 2020
I don't know the source of the video – but it is supposed to be a Microsoft spokesperson who makes the statements. Therefore, the following statements should be treated with caution – it is not known if this is Microsoft's official position.
Thunderbolt allows direct access to memory. Therefore Microsoft doesn't support Thunderbolt, because they fear that the keys for hard disk encryption can be read this way.
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Also the hard-soldered RAM is justified with security concerns. Exchangeable memory modules could be cooled with liquid nitrogen and thus frozen. This makes it possible to read out the memory contents later, which again represents a security risk. However, the statements of the video should be treated with caution, as already mentioned above. As long as the source is unknown and it is not certain that this is a Microsoft position, this remains all speculation.
