The new rules would effectively stop users in the future from flashing third party firmware altogether. Right now with $100 of equipment you can get around the

The new rules would effectively stop users in the future from flashing third party firmware altogether. Right now with $100 of equipment you can get around the signature checks as its just being done in firmware. In the future you won't be able to because companies will (likely) have to adopt tougher and tougher measures including tech from Intel and others. Intel designed its tech to be licensed out to others not in the X86 world. That effectively locked down Intel hardware already and no recent generation hardware can be completely free'd. LibreBoot is a 100% free BIOS that only works on older laptops because the lead developer can't port it to newer hardware due to locks that can't be overridden. The signature checks are done in hardware and you can't even just wipe out the firmware. No firmware means check fails means system doesn't turn on.