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For instance today if you install Fedora and select encryption for the drives, /boot is still not encrypted (what would decrypt /?). Your data is secure from o

For instance today if you install Fedora and select encryption for the drives, /boot is still not encrypted (what would decrypt /?). Your data is secure from offline analysis, but anybody can walk up and replace /boot to record your password (not to mention more complicated hacks) the next time you use it. So verifying the bootloader with EUFI is a great thing that must happen. It could be completely transparent to most users -- their system works the same, it's just more secure. The problem is that Microsoft has engineered it so in practice only their key can be on the system to unlock it. Once this scheme gets established they might even be able to maintain a 'windows tax' just to unlock the hardware even if you don't even use their OS. That's really the only negative about EUFI.

hga 14y ago
Errr, if they let anyone else generate keys, it would defeat the whole purpose in the real world of many legit and illegit organizations and anti-trust laws that would make it impossible to draw reliable boundaries between the two (e.g. you have to tune the system for false negatives (false determinations that an org is illegit); see the recent SSL certificate mess).
- 0xABADC0DA 14y ago
  I don't follow that argument. Say the EUFI boot used the last key you booted with... Windows PCs would boot just the same, securely using the Microsoft key. But when you pressed Esc or F1 or whatever for a boot menu, instead of choosing what partition to boot from you choose which key. ie the list is 1) Microsoft, Inc. Operating System 2) Red Hat, Inc. Operating System 3) ... So even if somebody hacked Red Hat and stole their key and signed something malicious, the user would still have to select that key on boot in order for it to run. Maybe the boot menu would only list keys that verified an actual installed OS. In any case, just because you have a bunch of keys in the BIOS doesn't mean you have to automatically boot anything they sign.

hga 14y ago

Errr, if they let anyone else generate keys, it would defeat the whole purpose in the real world of many legit and illegit organizations and anti-trust laws that would make it impossible to draw reliable boundaries between the two (e.g. you have to tune the system for false negatives (false determinations that an org is illegit); see the recent SSL certificate mess).

0xABADC0DA 14y ago
I don't follow that argument. Say the EUFI boot used the last key you booted with... Windows PCs would boot just the same, securely using the Microsoft key. But when you pressed Esc or F1 or whatever for a boot menu, instead of choosing what partition to boot from you choose which key. ie the list is 1) Microsoft, Inc. Operating System 2) Red Hat, Inc. Operating System 3) ... So even if somebody hacked Red Hat and stole their key and signed something malicious, the user would still have to select that key on boot in order for it to run. Maybe the boot menu would only list keys that verified an actual installed OS. In any case, just because you have a bunch of keys in the BIOS doesn't mean you have to automatically boot anything they sign.