4 ms·

Can you downgrade the firmware? I feel like I am at the whim of anti social behavior and conspiracies at some anonymous office with auto updates enabled. The S

Can you downgrade the firmware? I feel like I am at the whim of anti social behavior and conspiracies at some anonymous office with auto updates enabled. The Scrum Agile morning standups at Toaster Corp. could just as well be in my kitchen pushing user hostile features for "business reasons" or enforcing ideologically pure ways to use their toaster.

xg15 6y ago
Latest-generation devices contain hardware fuses purposely designed to make prevent downgrading. I think that tells you all you need to know about the position the industry has towards downgrades and whether updates are in the interest of the user or not.
- rightbyte 6y ago
  Didn't know that. That is just sick.
  - xg15 6y ago
    Clarification: some latest-generation devices contain hardware fuses. I was specifically thinking about the Switch. However I think there is absolutely a general trend in the industry to see downgrades as a risk that must be protected against.
- Silhouette 6y ago
  Do you have anything you can cite in support of that, please? I've been planning to raise some of these issues with my representatives, so any solid evidence I could include might be helpful.
  - xythobuz 6y ago
    The Xbox 360 for example used these fuses in the CPU to prevent downgrades [1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_eFUSE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_eFUSE
  - discreditable 6y ago
    How the Nintendo Switch prevents downgrades by irreparably blowing its own fuses: https://hackernoon.com/how-the-nintendo-switch-prevents-downgrades-by-irreparably-blowing-its-own-fuses-884bd3b7a8ba https://hackernoon.com/how-the-nintendo-switch-prevents-down...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- Hackbraten 6y ago
  I hate DRM, and I’m a free software advocate. However, if I were in the shoes of a TV content provider who relies on DRM, I would seriously consider lobbying system designers to prevent firmware downgrades. I wouldn’t want consumers to downgrade their systems and exploit already-patched vulnerabilities in order to circumvent DRM. One could argue that DRM is evil and wrong, too. But then again, it enables subscriptions and renting and there’s arguably a market for both.
  - krageon 6y ago
    The DRM module could be on a separate bit of memory from the actual OS, meaning that it would stay upgraded even if the rest was downgraded. It doesn't use fuses (AFAIK anyway), but f.e. the baseband on your phone works like this.
    - Hackbraten 6y ago
      Wouldn’t the decrypted stream still have to go through the actual OS’s main memory?
    - xg15 6y ago
      Isn't this effectively what a TPM is? But I think this only works to an extent as, if you want your DRM not be trivially circumventable, it will be a cross-cutting concern and not easily restricted to a module. E.g., the most secure TPM is useless if the OS simply ignores any responses and shows the movie anyway. What you could do is to close off the whole media path: The OS only sees the encrypted media, which it sends to some combined TPM/decoding hardware, which more or less sends it directly to the screen. I believe to some extent this is what is done in practice. You could technically see the TPM/graphics card/screen assembly as a "module" and can keep the OS separate of it - but this risks your "module" becoming so essentiall that it'll be unclear what is the dog and what is the tail.
  - xg15 6y ago
    The problem I see is that this is a very slippery slope. There is a lot of money to be made and a lot of innovative business models to find on top of hardware that can be arbitrarily restricted. I'm not convinced at all this would stop with copy protection. In fact, we can already see things like unskippable commercials, apps with dark patterns and deliberate anti-features, smart TVs that suddenly gain banner ads, and political conflicts being played out in app stores. All of that stuff is only possible because consumer devices are locked down and answer first to the vendor, then to the user. You can say that all if this is an exciting new market that unlocks enormous amounts of innovation - I just don't think this is the kind of innovation that we should want.
Google234 6y ago
Downgrading might also break apps and streaming services.

xg15 6y ago

Latest-generation devices contain hardware fuses purposely designed to make prevent downgrading. I think that tells you all you need to know about the position the industry has towards downgrades and whether updates are in the interest of the user or not.

rightbyte 6y ago
Didn't know that. That is just sick.
- xg15 6y ago
  Clarification: some latest-generation devices contain hardware fuses. I was specifically thinking about the Switch. However I think there is absolutely a general trend in the industry to see downgrades as a risk that must be protected against.
Silhouette 6y ago
Do you have anything you can cite in support of that, please? I've been planning to raise some of these issues with my representatives, so any solid evidence I could include might be helpful.
- xythobuz 6y ago
  The Xbox 360 for example used these fuses in the CPU to prevent downgrades [1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_eFUSE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_eFUSE
- discreditable 6y ago
  How the Nintendo Switch prevents downgrades by irreparably blowing its own fuses: https://hackernoon.com/how-the-nintendo-switch-prevents-downgrades-by-irreparably-blowing-its-own-fuses-884bd3b7a8ba https://hackernoon.com/how-the-nintendo-switch-prevents-down...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Hackbraten 6y ago
I hate DRM, and I’m a free software advocate. However, if I were in the shoes of a TV content provider who relies on DRM, I would seriously consider lobbying system designers to prevent firmware downgrades. I wouldn’t want consumers to downgrade their systems and exploit already-patched vulnerabilities in order to circumvent DRM. One could argue that DRM is evil and wrong, too. But then again, it enables subscriptions and renting and there’s arguably a market for both.
- krageon 6y ago
  The DRM module could be on a separate bit of memory from the actual OS, meaning that it would stay upgraded even if the rest was downgraded. It doesn't use fuses (AFAIK anyway), but f.e. the baseband on your phone works like this.
  - Hackbraten 6y ago
    Wouldn’t the decrypted stream still have to go through the actual OS’s main memory?
  - xg15 6y ago
    Isn't this effectively what a TPM is? But I think this only works to an extent as, if you want your DRM not be trivially circumventable, it will be a cross-cutting concern and not easily restricted to a module. E.g., the most secure TPM is useless if the OS simply ignores any responses and shows the movie anyway. What you could do is to close off the whole media path: The OS only sees the encrypted media, which it sends to some combined TPM/decoding hardware, which more or less sends it directly to the screen. I believe to some extent this is what is done in practice. You could technically see the TPM/graphics card/screen assembly as a "module" and can keep the OS separate of it - but this risks your "module" becoming so essentiall that it'll be unclear what is the dog and what is the tail.
- xg15 6y ago
  The problem I see is that this is a very slippery slope. There is a lot of money to be made and a lot of innovative business models to find on top of hardware that can be arbitrarily restricted. I'm not convinced at all this would stop with copy protection. In fact, we can already see things like unskippable commercials, apps with dark patterns and deliberate anti-features, smart TVs that suddenly gain banner ads, and political conflicts being played out in app stores. All of that stuff is only possible because consumer devices are locked down and answer first to the vendor, then to the user. You can say that all if this is an exciting new market that unlocks enormous amounts of innovation - I just don't think this is the kind of innovation that we should want.

Google234 6y ago

Downgrading might also break apps and streaming services.