6 ms·

Okay, so we get a pile of FUD (Secure Boot and Intel ME are DRM features now? 'kay), no acknowledgement of the actual security threats that compel Intel, AMD, M

by cwyers 11y ago

Okay, so we get a pile of FUD (Secure Boot and Intel ME are DRM features now? 'kay), no acknowledgement of the actual security threats that compel Intel, AMD, Microsoft and the OEMs to adopt these measures, and an appeal to dump x86 for ARM (um), MIPS (uhhhhhhh), POWER8 (wat), and RISC-V (how?). What is the point of this, exactly?

kwikiel 11y ago
Because if there is closed source binary blob in each x86 with privileges level higher than kernel we cannot make secure software (because trust chain will be broken just at processor level)
5ilv3r 11y ago
If a secure boot chain makes you feel nice and fuzzy inside, then perhaps you might be interested in setting up your own. Without the ability to do so, you are boned if the trusted entity becomes untrustworthy (such as if the mfg was to be acquired). If you alone are the trustworthy entity, things work better.
- cwyers 11y ago
  > If you alone are the trustworthy entity, things work better. That really, really depends on how trustworthy you are, doesn't it? I would argue that most computer users don't and shouldn't trust themselves to secure against low-level threats, and some of the people who do trust themselves really shouldn't.
  - geofft 11y ago
    Yup. I run Debian instead of Gentoo because, for various reasons, I trust the Debian project to be better at things (like triaging, backporting, compiling, and testing security updates promptly and correctly) than I trust myself. I think this is a common decision. I later extended this logic and bought a Chromebook—a decision I don't take lightly, as a free-software advocate, but I was not convinced that there was an alternative that effectively let me retain more control over my computing. One of the things the Chromebook does that basically nobody else does (systemd vaguely wants to do this, my previous employer wanted to do this for our customers, etc., but I don't think anyone actually does) is it enforces a secure-boot-style thing for the entire OS, and makes it hard for anyone who doesn't have the signing key to take control of my computing away with me. In an ideal world, someone other than Google would have the signing key. But per the logic above, I definitely don't want it to be me.

by cwyers 11y ago

kwikiel 11y ago

Because if there is closed source binary blob in each x86 with privileges level higher than kernel we cannot make secure software (because trust chain will be broken just at processor level)

5ilv3r 11y ago

If a secure boot chain makes you feel nice and fuzzy inside, then perhaps you might be interested in setting up your own. Without the ability to do so, you are boned if the trusted entity becomes untrustworthy (such as if the mfg was to be acquired). If you alone are the trustworthy entity, things work better.

cwyers 11y ago
> If you alone are the trustworthy entity, things work better. That really, really depends on how trustworthy you are, doesn't it? I would argue that most computer users don't and shouldn't trust themselves to secure against low-level threats, and some of the people who do trust themselves really shouldn't.
- geofft 11y ago
  Yup. I run Debian instead of Gentoo because, for various reasons, I trust the Debian project to be better at things (like triaging, backporting, compiling, and testing security updates promptly and correctly) than I trust myself. I think this is a common decision. I later extended this logic and bought a Chromebook—a decision I don't take lightly, as a free-software advocate, but I was not convinced that there was an alternative that effectively let me retain more control over my computing. One of the things the Chromebook does that basically nobody else does (systemd vaguely wants to do this, my previous employer wanted to do this for our customers, etc., but I don't think anyone actually does) is it enforces a secure-boot-style thing for the entire OS, and makes it hard for anyone who doesn't have the signing key to take control of my computing away with me. In an ideal world, someone other than Google would have the signing key. But per the logic above, I definitely don't want it to be me.