It's not even arguably a straw man. Above, you said, "worrying about firmware security issues is silly, because if you can't physically prevent access to the c

It's not even arguably a straw man. Above, you said, "worrying about firmware security issues is silly, because if you can't physically prevent access to the computer". That's not someone else's claim, it's yours. If you didn't intend it to be your claim, you erred in expressing it, since that's what it conveys. That's the claim the other poster refuted. I simply don't understand you when you say they "disagreed with someone else's argument"? I control F'd the parent posts and found no such claim made by anyone, except you. Your (apparent) claim is obviously wrong for the reasons already pointed out by the other poster, including that there are firmware-level attacks that do not require physical access. Some of these vulnerabilities can be fixed by firmware updates. So, if possible, it makes sense to promptly apply each patch that will fix such a vulnerability.