4 ms·

There's a certain kind of tinfoil-hat people who predict that Microsoft is about to restrict what software they can run on their computers. There were similar c

There's a certain kind of tinfoil-hat people who predict that Microsoft is about to restrict what software they can run on their computers. There were similar conspiracy theories when Windows 8 launched - some kind of secure boot scheme. Never mind that nothing of the sort happened and you can still run whatever you want on your PC, both with and without Windows. Meanwhile Apple has all kinds of anti-competitive restrictions but this is fine.

mjg59 5y ago
> Never mind that nothing of the sort happened and you can still run whatever you want on your PC To be fair, that was largely because of significant public pushback on early versions of the Microsoft requirements (which didn't require that it be possible to disable secure boot) and a lot of negotiation with Microsoft to ensure that third party operating systems would be able to get signatures. (Source: one of the people who designed and implemented Shim and ensured that Microsoft would be willing to sign it)
dane-pgp 5y ago
Even if you trust Microsoft not to abuse its "secure (against the user) boot" scheme, despite the evidence[0], you should realise how eager governments are to remove apps from app stores and how quickly they would take advantage of a technology that allows them to limit desktops and laptops to running only "approved" applications too. People rightly foresaw the potential for scope-creep in Apple's latest device-side file scanning "feature", and we should be similarly cautious for any similar feature that makes it hard for Microsoft to oppose enforcing a government-maintained blacklist or whitelist of installable software. [0] https://www.computerworld.com/article/2542952/aussies-rage-against-the-microsoft-machine-over-vista-security-feature.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/2542952/aussies-rage-a...
userbinator 5y ago
There's a certain kind of tinfoil-hat people who predict that Microsoft is about to restrict what software they can run on their computers. Try writing a device driver for recent versions of Windows and getting it to work without signing it... Stallman has been and will continue to be right on this point.
- mjg59 5y ago
  > Try writing a device driver for recent versions of Windows and getting it to work without signing it... Disable secure boot and disable integrity checks with bcdedit?

mjg59 5y ago

> Never mind that nothing of the sort happened and you can still run whatever you want on your PC To be fair, that was largely because of significant public pushback on early versions of the Microsoft requirements (which didn't require that it be possible to disable secure boot) and a lot of negotiation with Microsoft to ensure that third party operating systems would be able to get signatures. (Source: one of the people who designed and implemented Shim and ensured that Microsoft would be willing to sign it)

dane-pgp 5y ago

Even if you trust Microsoft not to abuse its "secure (against the user) boot" scheme, despite the evidence[0], you should realise how eager governments are to remove apps from app stores and how quickly they would take advantage of a technology that allows them to limit desktops and laptops to running only "approved" applications too. People rightly foresaw the potential for scope-creep in Apple's latest device-side file scanning "feature", and we should be similarly cautious for any similar feature that makes it hard for Microsoft to oppose enforcing a government-maintained blacklist or whitelist of installable software. [0] https://www.computerworld.com/article/2542952/aussies-rage-against-the-microsoft-machine-over-vista-security-feature.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/2542952/aussies-rage-a...

userbinator 5y ago

There's a certain kind of tinfoil-hat people who predict that Microsoft is about to restrict what software they can run on their computers. Try writing a device driver for recent versions of Windows and getting it to work without signing it... Stallman has been and will continue to be right on this point.

mjg59 5y ago
> Try writing a device driver for recent versions of Windows and getting it to work without signing it... Disable secure boot and disable integrity checks with bcdedit?