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Not at all, in this case. There is a giant pile of hardware in the world that relies on unsigned hardware. Meanwhile, MSI uses its hardware signing to hurt its

by xbar 3y ago

Not at all, in this case. There is a giant pile of hardware in the world that relies on unsigned hardware. Meanwhile, MSI uses its hardware signing to hurt its customers. Will some MSI users get tricked into using malicious firmware? Doubtless, eventually. That's sad. But not nearly as sad as the millions of users who can't use their own computers in a manner of their choosing. Celebrate, without remorse.

rainsford 3y ago
I get that argument, but I'm not sure you have the relative population sizes right. It seems a bit doubtful that millions of MSI users are interested in flashing custom firmware on their motherboards, but every user is potentially impacted by signed malware. Particularly since the firmware signing is a known thing and there's less restricted hardware available. People really interested in being able to do whatever they want with their hardware are presumably purchasing accordingly. Like I said, I get the support for increased openness and freedom in hardware and the appeal that has to some users. But security is a feature that a lot of users (even power users) care about too, and it's bad when that feature breaks.
- tracker1 3y ago
  Not to mention the split brain of US/TW/CN support sides for computer hardware and actually finding the correct firmware/bios images to begin with, which would make it all that much more easy for third parties to get fake sites up/out. Asus seems to have had several design issues, qc flaws and other support issues lately. MSI have had data breaches, and even then bully reviewers to the point you really can't trust a lot of their product reviews or them. Gigabyte treats their Linux using customers like hot garbage, and then there's the exploding PSU coverup/downplay. I'm not sure how many options that's leaving on the table at this point. I know there's ASRock for MBs and haven't seen anything bad about them lately.

by xbar 3y ago

rainsford 3y ago

I get that argument, but I'm not sure you have the relative population sizes right. It seems a bit doubtful that millions of MSI users are interested in flashing custom firmware on their motherboards, but every user is potentially impacted by signed malware. Particularly since the firmware signing is a known thing and there's less restricted hardware available. People really interested in being able to do whatever they want with their hardware are presumably purchasing accordingly. Like I said, I get the support for increased openness and freedom in hardware and the appeal that has to some users. But security is a feature that a lot of users (even power users) care about too, and it's bad when that feature breaks.

tracker1 3y ago
Not to mention the split brain of US/TW/CN support sides for computer hardware and actually finding the correct firmware/bios images to begin with, which would make it all that much more easy for third parties to get fake sites up/out. Asus seems to have had several design issues, qc flaws and other support issues lately. MSI have had data breaches, and even then bully reviewers to the point you really can't trust a lot of their product reviews or them. Gigabyte treats their Linux using customers like hot garbage, and then there's the exploding PSU coverup/downplay. I'm not sure how many options that's leaving on the table at this point. I know there's ASRock for MBs and haven't seen anything bad about them lately.