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Trusted computing is all about ensuring that your machine is trusted to run payloads and you can't observe or interact with them. Sad! I see why the free softwa

Trusted computing is all about ensuring that your machine is trusted to run payloads and you can't observe or interact with them. Sad! I see why the free software people call it treacherous computing

gjsman-1000 3y ago
Shameless plug for the article I wrote 1 year ago now, "Remote Attestation Is Coming Back," which warned that this was coming to the web and had quite a discussion about that idea: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32282305 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32282305
- howinteresting 3y ago
  Thank you for writing this. Remote attestation for consumer software is such a disturbing idea. In the past the main adversarial pressure has been exploiting security vulnerabilities ("jailbreaking"), but the software industry is getting its act together re that.
- jchw 3y ago
  I remember this article! And of course, nothing has improved. It's ironic that in 1992, software publishers proclaimed that piracy would be the end of the computer age in the classic "Don't Copy That Floppy!" campaign. To me, it seems like nearly the opposite thing is going to end the computer age: integrity checking. Most computers are toys that we lease from companies that are bigger and more influential than governments, and using it in ways they don't like is against the law.
mike_hearn 3y ago
TC is value neutral so the FSF slurs don't make sense. Consider what happens when the machine in question is a cloud VM. Then you can run workloads on a rented machine without the risk of the cloud vendor spying on or tampering with your server. Likewise if the machine gets hacked. These are highly desirable properties for many people. For example Signal uses TC so the mobile apps can verify the servers before doing contact list intersection, keeping the contacts private from the Signal operators. Another use case is multiparty computation. Three people wish to compare some values without a risk that anyone will see the combined data. TC can do this with tractable compute overhead, unlike purely cryptographic techniques. Observe what this means for P2P applications. A major difficulty in building them is that peers can't trust each other, so you have to rely on complex and unintuitive algorithms (e.g. block chains) or duplication of work (e.g. SETI@Home) or benign dictators (e.g. Tor) to try and stop cheating. With TC peers can attest to each other and form a network with known behavior, meaning devs can add features rather than spend all their time designing around complicated attacks. These uses require you have a computer that you do trust which can audit the remote server before uploading data to it. But you can compile and/or run that program on your laptop or smartphone, the verification process is easy. But exactly because TC is general it doesn't distinguish based on who owns the machine. It doesn't see your PC as morally superior to a remote server, they're all just computers. So yes, in theory a remote server could demand you run something locally and then do a HW remote attestation for it. In practice though this never happens anymore outside of games consoles (as far as I'm aware), because most consumer devices don't have the right hardware for it, and even if they did you can't do much hardware interaction inside attested code.
- dhx 3y ago
  Why should anyone trust a remote server providing a signed statement of authenticity when Intel[1], MSI[2], Lenovo[3], NVIDIA[4], Microsoft and others keep losing their keys? Even if they haven't lost their keys recently, technology companies don't have a great track record of producing foolproof hardware designs (e.g. recent case of [5]), if foolproof was ever a reasonable expectation. For starters, it's assuming technology such as ptychographic X-ray computed tomography and focused ion beam machining won't become more commonplace and commercially viable to readily break TPM attestation schemes. Or that with wider use of TPM attestation, more effort will be expended into breaking it whereas for the current state with minimal adoption, few people care. The issue client-side is that if a single vendor or TPM design is compromised, threat actors have ample motive, resources and ability to exploit this compromised hardware, whilst everyone else has few choices, such as dumping at great expensve some more e-waste. And critically, you as a user are blocked by your acceptance of TPM attestation technology from discovering attacks and auditing your own system security, as you ceded control of your own systems. Instead, your systems are controlled by a few technology companies that have a proven terrible track record of fulfilling their alleged intent of keeping your systems and data secure. And why should they care if it doesn't lead to a higher profit at the end of the year? [1] https://github.com/binarly-io/SupplyChainAttacks/blob/main/MSI/IntelOemKeyImpactedDevices.md https://github.com/binarly-io/SupplyChainAttacks/blob/main/M... [2] https://github.com/binarly-io/SupplyChainAttacks/blob/main/MSI/MsiImpactedDevices.md https://github.com/binarly-io/SupplyChainAttacks/blob/main/M... [3] https://github.com/binarly-io/SupplyChainAttacks/blob/main/Lenovo%3ALCFC/IntelKeysImpactedDevices.md https://github.com/binarly-io/SupplyChainAttacks/blob/main/L... [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30565985 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30565985 [5] https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.14717 https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.14717
- funcDropShadow 3y ago
  > TC is value neutral so the FSF slurs don't make sense Trusted computing is often used such that one might think, it implies the user can trust something (his computer). But it is the other way around. A service provider can trust a machine - that a user bought -- to not do what the user wants. That is misleading at best.
josephcsible 3y ago
Exactly. Trusted Computing means that the FAANGs and the MAFIAA can trust that your computer will put their interests ahead of your interests. There is zero benefit to you.

Trusted computing is all about ensuring that your machine is trusted to run payloads and you can't observe or interact with them. Sad! I see why the free software people call it treacherous computing

gjsman-1000 3y ago

Shameless plug for the article I wrote 1 year ago now, "Remote Attestation Is Coming Back," which warned that this was coming to the web and had quite a discussion about that idea: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32282305 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32282305

howinteresting 3y ago
Thank you for writing this. Remote attestation for consumer software is such a disturbing idea. In the past the main adversarial pressure has been exploiting security vulnerabilities ("jailbreaking"), but the software industry is getting its act together re that.
jchw 3y ago
I remember this article! And of course, nothing has improved. It's ironic that in 1992, software publishers proclaimed that piracy would be the end of the computer age in the classic "Don't Copy That Floppy!" campaign. To me, it seems like nearly the opposite thing is going to end the computer age: integrity checking. Most computers are toys that we lease from companies that are bigger and more influential than governments, and using it in ways they don't like is against the law.

mike_hearn 3y ago

TC is value neutral so the FSF slurs don't make sense. Consider what happens when the machine in question is a cloud VM. Then you can run workloads on a rented machine without the risk of the cloud vendor spying on or tampering with your server. Likewise if the machine gets hacked. These are highly desirable properties for many people. For example Signal uses TC so the mobile apps can verify the servers before doing contact list intersection, keeping the contacts private from the Signal operators. Another use case is multiparty computation. Three people wish to compare some values without a risk that anyone will see the combined data. TC can do this with tractable compute overhead, unlike purely cryptographic techniques. Observe what this means for P2P applications. A major difficulty in building them is that peers can't trust each other, so you have to rely on complex and unintuitive algorithms (e.g. block chains) or duplication of work (e.g. SETI@Home) or benign dictators (e.g. Tor) to try and stop cheating. With TC peers can attest to each other and form a network with known behavior, meaning devs can add features rather than spend all their time designing around complicated attacks. These uses require you have a computer that you do trust which can audit the remote server before uploading data to it. But you can compile and/or run that program on your laptop or smartphone, the verification process is easy. But exactly because TC is general it doesn't distinguish based on who owns the machine. It doesn't see your PC as morally superior to a remote server, they're all just computers. So yes, in theory a remote server could demand you run something locally and then do a HW remote attestation for it. In practice though this never happens anymore outside of games consoles (as far as I'm aware), because most consumer devices don't have the right hardware for it, and even if they did you can't do much hardware interaction inside attested code.

dhx 3y ago
Why should anyone trust a remote server providing a signed statement of authenticity when Intel[1], MSI[2], Lenovo[3], NVIDIA[4], Microsoft and others keep losing their keys? Even if they haven't lost their keys recently, technology companies don't have a great track record of producing foolproof hardware designs (e.g. recent case of [5]), if foolproof was ever a reasonable expectation. For starters, it's assuming technology such as ptychographic X-ray computed tomography and focused ion beam machining won't become more commonplace and commercially viable to readily break TPM attestation schemes. Or that with wider use of TPM attestation, more effort will be expended into breaking it whereas for the current state with minimal adoption, few people care. The issue client-side is that if a single vendor or TPM design is compromised, threat actors have ample motive, resources and ability to exploit this compromised hardware, whilst everyone else has few choices, such as dumping at great expensve some more e-waste. And critically, you as a user are blocked by your acceptance of TPM attestation technology from discovering attacks and auditing your own system security, as you ceded control of your own systems. Instead, your systems are controlled by a few technology companies that have a proven terrible track record of fulfilling their alleged intent of keeping your systems and data secure. And why should they care if it doesn't lead to a higher profit at the end of the year? [1] https://github.com/binarly-io/SupplyChainAttacks/blob/main/MSI/IntelOemKeyImpactedDevices.md https://github.com/binarly-io/SupplyChainAttacks/blob/main/M... [2] https://github.com/binarly-io/SupplyChainAttacks/blob/main/MSI/MsiImpactedDevices.md https://github.com/binarly-io/SupplyChainAttacks/blob/main/M... [3] https://github.com/binarly-io/SupplyChainAttacks/blob/main/Lenovo%3ALCFC/IntelKeysImpactedDevices.md https://github.com/binarly-io/SupplyChainAttacks/blob/main/L... [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30565985 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30565985 [5] https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.14717 https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.14717
funcDropShadow 3y ago
> TC is value neutral so the FSF slurs don't make sense Trusted computing is often used such that one might think, it implies the user can trust something (his computer). But it is the other way around. A service provider can trust a machine - that a user bought -- to not do what the user wants. That is misleading at best.

josephcsible 3y ago

Exactly. Trusted Computing means that the FAANGs and the MAFIAA can trust that your computer will put their interests ahead of your interests. There is zero benefit to you.