7 ms·
Lockdown: The coming war on general-purpose computing (2011)
- basicplus2 7y agoYou'll take my general purpose computer from my cold dead hands!
- nixpulvis 7y agoOr maybe they'll slowly replace it, while you lie dying in bed unaware as to the problem.
- saltcured 7y agoShall we dub this the Chip of Theseus?
- ClassyJacket 7y agoApple is already doing this. They've recently required that ALL software run on Mac is signed by them, even apps from outside of the App Store. https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=04102019a https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=04102019a Not much longer until we can't run software Apple doesn't like at all. Because I shouldn't get a say in what I run on my four thousand dollar computer, of course.
- saagarjha 7y agoAll developer-ID signed software downloaded from the internet with the quarantine bit set.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- bawana 7y agoToo much fud. Can you download code from github and type ‘make’? Then you can run anything
- nine_k 7y agoAs long as your build toolchain is available, that is, signed. Signing software is a good idea. Which signatures to trust should be a user's decision, though, with sane defaults.
- Wowfunhappy 7y agoAll it takes to disable Gatekeeper is a single Terminal command. All it takes to disable System Integrity Protection is a single Terminal command run from recovery mode. By my count, that is ten minutes of work at most to allow not just unsigned software but unsigned drivers that run at a super low level. Add in a few more Terminal commands and you can even disable really arcane things like amfi [1]. I don't know why you'd ever want to do that, and it's probably a bad idea, but you can, so by all means please go nuts. When Apple starts taking away Terminal commands you are free to start screaming, and I'll be there with you. For now, all Apple has ever done on macOS is remove UI options, which keeps inexperienced users from running into them. --- [1] https://github.com/stek29/nvram-liber-macos https://github.com/stek29/nvram-liber-macos P.S. Microsoft, by contrast, does not let you permanently disable driver signing on 64 bit Windows 8/10. This perpetually drives me nuts, but no one else seems to care for some reason...
- insulanus 7y agoSlowly replaced over the course of 10,000 4-hour software updates.
- jagger27 7y agoHopefully RISC-V will be enough.
- flukus 7y agoRISC-V is a BSD license, so expect lot's of proprietary bits bolted on.
- blakesterz 7y agoSomeone might want to add "2012" to this title.
- inimino 7y agoI've been thinking about this article a lot in the last couple years. It felt slightly alarmist at the time but seems prescient now.
- api 7y agoVirtually every alarmist article from the past 50 years about mass surveillance, tech lockdown, etc. seems prescient now. Today's surveillance capitalism exceeds the wildest fever nightmares of 1990s shortwave radio conspiracy nuts.
- jstewartmobile 7y ago"shortwave radio conspiracy prophets" There, corrected it for you.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- narrator 7y agoWhen AI gets smart enough to do bad things there will definitely be a lockdown. What happens when you can program your robot to commit crimes for you? You won't be able to load certain types of programs by law. They are already doing this with geofencing for drones.
- Buttons840 7y agoI disagree. It may be a convenient narrative for those who want to lock down computers, even on the desktop, but remember that our desktop computers have had intelligent agents capable of committing crimes for decades, and it hasn't been a big problem all things considered. Of course, by "intelligent agent" I'm referring to the animal that operates the computer by pushing buttons. If machine learning and other advanced AI produces sophisticated programs capable of assisting in these crimes, or of performing the crimes automatically, how will that change anything? The human pushing buttons committed a crime and got caught, the advanced AI committed a crime and got caught, what's the difference? Either way the person responsible for the computer is punished. Of course, if computers reach super-human intelligence, then all bets are off, and having access to general purpose computers might be the least of our concerns.
- gmueckl 7y agoYou neglect the scale of the damage done in the various crimes. Yes, the person giving the command is tesponsibke, but law enforcement also includes crime prevention. This means keeping the most terrible crime supporting stuff out of the hands of the people (guns, anyone?) and dissuading people from doing bad things. A network commected computer rarely leads to more than deleted files and leaked data elsewhere. In the hands of capable, well funded hackers, devastating damage could be done to infrastructure these days, but few actors are interested in that and they mostly exist in a space where conventional law enforcement is powerless. An autonomous roving robot that could be patched to turn into a murderbot is facilitating crimes of a completely different magnitude. There will be political will to rein that in as soon as the possibility becomes real. This will have an effect on self driving cars as well: these will be locked down completely, mostly by political mandate. And the cause will be reckless hackers building uncertified firmware that is either of low/unproven quality or capable of breaking the law on request in some reckless form or other.
- musicale 7y ago>"fix the Internet so that thepiratebay.org no longer resolves," sounds a lot like .. “take that pizzeria on the corner off the phone network," and not like an attack on the fundamental principles of internetworking. I don't get this - disconnecting the pizzeria from the phone network seems more severe than simply removing it from the yellow pages. If you remove thepiratebay from DNS you can still reach it via its IP address, you can still link to it, and you can probably still find it using search engines.
- ultrarunner 7y agoDNS is a fundemental component of the internet. Currently, computers trust their upstream DNS servers to resolve correctly. Imagine if tpb resolves incorrectly on some networks. People on those networks may choose to use a different DNS server that resolves TPB correctly, but maybe has a grudge against Google and resolves an IP for Yahoo instead. Other DNS servers may have other grudges, or policies, or political pressures. The end result is that DNS cannot be trusted, and so the design entirely breaks. Imagine ordering a package but not knowing if the delivery driver will see your address at your house or someone else’s. This isn’t just removing something from the yellow pages, it’s introducing distrust into the phone system itself.
- mr_toad 7y ago> Imagine if tpb resolves incorrectly on some networks. It already does. DNS can’t be totally trusted now. Arguably it’s already broken.
- ultrarunner 7y agoAgreed. I can't see DNS not being redesigned at some point in the future. I really hope it will end up decentralized, but it could go either way.
- bobbiechen 7y agoAs briefly mentioned in the article, SOPA proposed DNS-level blacklisting against copyright-infringing websites. But the fact that you are able to choose what DNS server you use almost guarantees that at some point someone would set up a DNS server outside of the US that would bypass these blocks anyways. Savvy users could simply bypass a SOPA-enabled recursive DNS server by pointing their DNS settings to an off-shore recursive DNS server... What would happen to users if an infringer decided to setup a “free, non-SOPA” recursive DNS server for users to use – one that additionally hijacked legitimate banking, ecommerce and business websites, too? [1] [1] https://dyn.com/blog/sopa-breaking-dns-parasite-stop-online-piracy/ https://dyn.com/blog/sopa-breaking-dns-parasite-stop-online-...
- Joakal 7y agoThat reminds me of this video on TPM: https://www.lafkon.net/tc/ https://www.lafkon.net/tc/ Bruce Schneier on TPM: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/05/tpm_to_end_pira.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/05/tpm_to_end_pi...
- saagarjha 7y ago> People who took the software without paying for it were untouched. This is a fundamental issue of DRM: people who "break the rules" end up better for it. If you annoy people, they will find ways around your rules, and then you won't be able to touch them.
- stcredzero 7y agoOn the other hand, such rules are more easily applied to corporations and government organizations. I say we should start making big companies use Trusted Execution technologies to use people's data, so we can keep the keys and take away their access when we want to.
- ChuckMcM 7y agoI like the essay but it fails to realize the goal posts are not fixed on the field. General purpose computing is alive and well and cheaper than ever, you can build the equivalent of a PC/AT for about $50 in parts. What Cory misses is that when we were building CP/M machines and IBM PC clones, there already was a big pile of computers that were locked down so that somebody else could make money off of you using them. I went to school at a time when you were allocated a fixed number of kilocoreseconds (kilowords of core you could occupy on the big computer charged on a per second rate) and I had my kit Z80 system and felt very superior. Computers got more powerful and now the one that was sold to you has the more than the capabilities than the one where it was already proven you could extract value for using it, so people continue to extract that value. And when their extraction is sidestepped, they work with computer makers and software makers to regain the upper hand. The goal posts moved. What has also happened is that the backbone of what used to be the "personal computer" market was people who were more fascinated with the computers themselves than with the software they might run on them. The manufacturers worked to appeal to the tool users, the architects, engineers, and others who understood the value of computation for their job and so they were willing to invest for the right tools. There are a lot more of those people then nerds who like computers. The goal posts moved. Today's "computer" market is not really about computers, its about a platform for consuming digital products. Whether it is entertainment, or navigation, or gaming. That you could run a compiler on that thing and make new programs that it could run is nearly incidental (and certainly insignificant) to the market who buys it. The goal posts moved. We have reached the point where general purpose computers are these $35 and $50 things for people interested in computers and for no one else. Even when people try to push them that way. I don't believe there is an assault on general purpose computers, what is happening is that thing you called a computer before is what back in the day we called a TV and a telephone and a radio and a record player, except all in one package that runs all day in your pocket. It has a computer in it but it isn't a computer in the original sense of general purpose computing. There are lots of general purpose computers, and there are now FPGAs that are easily loaded with general purpose computation. You just can't run gcc on your TV.
- craftuser 7y ago> You just can't run gcc on your TV. I'd be interested in speaking with anyone who has tried. =] But moreover, I think your point about the goal posts is apt given "the goal" is to have "cheap GPC" since the definition of cheap changes (in dollars adjusted for time) but the definition of GPC also changes. And so, you might say we're even moving them in (at least) two dimensions.
- dang 7y agoA couple older discussions, from 2017: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14335261 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14335261 and from 2012: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3448754 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3448754
- chaz6 7y agoMy fear for the future is that any computing device must have a government provided co-processor, and it will not be able to connect to a network without it. Any citizen found with an illegal device would be punished.
- fuzzy2 7y agoGovernment-provided? Not likely. The state has long since lost (well, more like willingly let slip) control to corporations. You already have those black-box coprocessors, like the Intel Management Engine.
- orbifold 7y agoPretty sure the NSA can access the IME if they want to. Remote surveillance is build into mobile communication standards as well.
- gameswithgo 7y agoYou fear the government doing something like this but the corporation already has. What difference is there? Please don't claim that the government has a monopoly on violence, that is certainly not the case.
- vageli 7y ago> You fear the government doing something like this but the corporation already has. What difference is there? Please don't claim that the government has a monopoly on violence, that is certainly not the case. Can you please give an example from recent history (past twenty years) of corporations forming a duopoly on violence?
- sneak 7y agoApple PIs accompanying police in their official capacity to investigative sites during their stolen iPhone 4 investigation comes to mind. Also Blackwater, and the breakup of Occupy, which was a public/private partnership between law enforcement and the banks.