Qubes OS 4.0 has been released

Please keep in mind when using Qube OS is that it does NOT protect you if your hardware is compromised. The NSA and other clandestine agencies have an easy backdoor to your computer even when running this.

No they don’t.

Sure they do, just not really Qubes OS specific ones though.

I never understood objections like this.

With a standard Linux system you have vulnerabilities X,Y,Z. With Qubes you have vulnerability X, so let's comment on Qubes and try to discourage people from using it because vulnerability X still exists? It's still better than the alternative!

I didn’t read that as discouraging people from using Qubes, but rather as a reminder than Qubes, like every OS, can’t protect you if your hardware is compromised.

Do you have an example?

That's a trivial conclusion and not related to Qubes OS. Every operating system somehow relies on hardware protection features.

If the ring architecture of processor can be circumvented, the protection of privileged code (kernel) is harmed. If you can circumvent the MMU's memory protection, the protection of privileged code is harmed. And if side channel attacks like Spectre and Meltdown are circumventing protecting features, the protection of sensitive data is harmed.

Every systems which has claims on security relies on explicit (that would be better) or implicit assumptions. And every operating systems I know of, at least implicitly assumes that the hardware isn't compromised.