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This doesn't make any sense. For example, Secure Boot can help protect against an evil maid attack against Full Disk Encryption. How would something "higher-lev

This doesn't make any sense. For example, Secure Boot can help protect against an evil maid attack against Full Disk Encryption. How would something "higher-level" be able to do this? People should take a look at the rather secure Xbox 360 to look at how chain of trust is established from the hardware through boot stages to hypervisor and OS. Were it not for a tiny mistake and literal electrical glitching of the processor, the Xbox would remain an impressively secure platform. Hell, it's one regardless. Secure Boot, or something like it, is necessary to protect your bootloader, and thus, everything else (See: Flame and friends). Quite frankly, UEFI/Secure Boot, itself, is not that bad. People are upset that Microsoft gets to be pre-enrolled but they seem to not point out that it's disablable, people can sign their own bootloaders if they want, or better yet, can enroll their own keys and sign bootloaders themselves for ultimate security. Even if MS were working with higher authorities they wouldn't be able to sign a malicious bootloader if you enroll your own keys. edit: Instead of downvoting, maybe you could explain how SecureBoot could possibly work without pre-enrolling MS keys, or how some other form of verified boot would work without pre-enrolling someone's keys. In fact, there's a whole consortium of very smart individuals who would like to know.

knowaveragejoe 14y ago
I think the issue most people take with it is the ability of the manufacturer to lock down what a user could do with the hardware they paid for. In my mind it's similar to Apple's hold on the iPhone hardware(whether or not that's still the case I don't know, I haven't kept up on it in a while) - but with general purpose computers. Also, my mention of the issue stemming from the higher-level realm is founded in the idea that exploitation of a device's firmware can't take place without either A) physical access or B) exploitation of higher level software to work its way down. As I mentioned I'm no expert, so I don't know if there are other methods available to attackers. Please elaborate if there are.
- drivebyacct2 14y ago
  I don't understand your point. If higher level software is exploited, they don't need physical access and not only are you screwed, without Secure Boot, you have no way of knowing you're screwed. Again, Microsoft is not locking down what you can do. It's a feature of UEFI that is there to protect users. The ONLY way that Microsoft intersects with this is that they have the privilege of being pre-enrolled on computers, because let's face it, 99.999% of people buy computers with Windows on them and they expect it to run. Not that they have to boot into a special OS, enroll keys and install Windows themselves. (Again, see my earlier post about how they can disable Secure Boot or enroll their own keys) With Secure Boot, your bootloader can't be compromised. Not even with physical access, not even with a higher level software escalation. That's kind of the point. I'm not sure how else to explain it. You basically named the only two ways to affect a computer, so I really don't know what you're getting at, I guess. Downvotes for explanations, jeez. If your takeaway is that I don't believe in personal device freedom, you're either not understanding the issues at hand, or you've conveniently ignored the explanation I offer in this post.
  - beagle3 14y ago
    > The ONLY way that Microsoft intersects with this is that they have the privilege of being pre-enrolled on computers, because let's face it, 99.999% of people buy computers with Windows on them and they expect it to run. Not that they have to boot into a special OS, enroll keys and install Windows themselves. (Again, see my earlier post about how they can disable Secure Boot or enroll their own keys) 99.999% of people buy computers with preinstalled windows. If they are computer-litrate enough to install windows, they are literate enough to authorize a new Windows boot sector (the hash/fingerprint of would be printed on a new Windows media or sticker). I wouldn't have a problem with Microsoft's preinstalled key if I had reason to believe this will work well when you authorize other keys. But so far, no manufacturer cares that anything other than Windows works on their machine/bios, and I wouldn't be surprised if adding more secure boot keys is somehow broken (the way a lot of BIOS power-management/apic tables are broken and no one cares because they work well enough on Windows) > With Secure Boot, your bootloader can't be compromised. Not even with physical access, not even with a higher level software escalation. I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I'm willing to sell for a good price if you believe that. Yes, it will be harder to do, but ... PS3, XBox, XBox 360, Wii, iPhone {2G,3G,3GS,4,4S}, iPad {1,2} and many other devices all have secure boots. And all have, in the past, been rooted by software or a combination of software and minimal physical access. (Of these, I think only the XBox 360 required physical access after two months has passed since the first boot exploit was released). Theory, meet practice.
    - drivebyacct2 14y ago
      >99.999% of people buy computers with preinstalled windows. If they are computer-litrate enough to install windows, they are literate enough to authorize a new Windows boot sector (the hash/fingerprint of would be printed on a new Windows media or sticker). I wouldn't have a problem with Microsoft's preinstalled key if I had reason to believe this will work well when you authorize other keys. I'm assuming that you didn't understand what I wrote. For pre-installed Windows to work, it has to have the Microsoft keys enrolled. That's why their keys come preinstalled. If they weren't preinstalled, Windows wouldn't boot. That was my point about the 99.99%. I'm not sure what you're getting at, I assume you didn't understand. (And no, pressing "Next", "next", "next" in an installer is not the same as enrolling private keys into a write-only area of your computer's BIOS). >I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I'm willing to sell for a good price if you believe that. Ok, I'll put you in the category of people that swore for years that Motorola's bootloader protection would be hacked. That was... 3 years now since they introduced that and nary a vulnerability found? >PS3, XBox, XBox 360, Wii, iPhone {2G,3G,3GS,4,4S}, iPad {1,2} and many other devices all have secure boots. And all have, in the past, been rooted by software or a combination of software and minimal physical access. Oh, you just don't know what you're talking about (or what Secure Boot is, one of the two). Only the Xbox 360 had boot verification in the style of secure boot and it was never compromised. [1] The others did NOT use a hardware based bootloader verification. The only other mainstream usage of this style (that I'm aware of) is Motorola's signed bootloaders [1] While the Xbox was attacked via Hypervisor vulnerability, a timing attack found (both of which were fixed remotely) and now through electroshocking the CPU, the verified boot itself was not compromised.

knowaveragejoe 14y ago

I think the issue most people take with it is the ability of the manufacturer to lock down what a user could do with the hardware they paid for. In my mind it's similar to Apple's hold on the iPhone hardware(whether or not that's still the case I don't know, I haven't kept up on it in a while) - but with general purpose computers. Also, my mention of the issue stemming from the higher-level realm is founded in the idea that exploitation of a device's firmware can't take place without either A) physical access or B) exploitation of higher level software to work its way down. As I mentioned I'm no expert, so I don't know if there are other methods available to attackers. Please elaborate if there are.

drivebyacct2 14y ago
I don't understand your point. If higher level software is exploited, they don't need physical access and not only are you screwed, without Secure Boot, you have no way of knowing you're screwed. Again, Microsoft is not locking down what you can do. It's a feature of UEFI that is there to protect users. The ONLY way that Microsoft intersects with this is that they have the privilege of being pre-enrolled on computers, because let's face it, 99.999% of people buy computers with Windows on them and they expect it to run. Not that they have to boot into a special OS, enroll keys and install Windows themselves. (Again, see my earlier post about how they can disable Secure Boot or enroll their own keys) With Secure Boot, your bootloader can't be compromised. Not even with physical access, not even with a higher level software escalation. That's kind of the point. I'm not sure how else to explain it. You basically named the only two ways to affect a computer, so I really don't know what you're getting at, I guess. Downvotes for explanations, jeez. If your takeaway is that I don't believe in personal device freedom, you're either not understanding the issues at hand, or you've conveniently ignored the explanation I offer in this post.
- beagle3 14y ago
  > The ONLY way that Microsoft intersects with this is that they have the privilege of being pre-enrolled on computers, because let's face it, 99.999% of people buy computers with Windows on them and they expect it to run. Not that they have to boot into a special OS, enroll keys and install Windows themselves. (Again, see my earlier post about how they can disable Secure Boot or enroll their own keys) 99.999% of people buy computers with preinstalled windows. If they are computer-litrate enough to install windows, they are literate enough to authorize a new Windows boot sector (the hash/fingerprint of would be printed on a new Windows media or sticker). I wouldn't have a problem with Microsoft's preinstalled key if I had reason to believe this will work well when you authorize other keys. But so far, no manufacturer cares that anything other than Windows works on their machine/bios, and I wouldn't be surprised if adding more secure boot keys is somehow broken (the way a lot of BIOS power-management/apic tables are broken and no one cares because they work well enough on Windows) > With Secure Boot, your bootloader can't be compromised. Not even with physical access, not even with a higher level software escalation. I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I'm willing to sell for a good price if you believe that. Yes, it will be harder to do, but ... PS3, XBox, XBox 360, Wii, iPhone {2G,3G,3GS,4,4S}, iPad {1,2} and many other devices all have secure boots. And all have, in the past, been rooted by software or a combination of software and minimal physical access. (Of these, I think only the XBox 360 required physical access after two months has passed since the first boot exploit was released). Theory, meet practice.
  - drivebyacct2 14y ago
    >99.999% of people buy computers with preinstalled windows. If they are computer-litrate enough to install windows, they are literate enough to authorize a new Windows boot sector (the hash/fingerprint of would be printed on a new Windows media or sticker). I wouldn't have a problem with Microsoft's preinstalled key if I had reason to believe this will work well when you authorize other keys. I'm assuming that you didn't understand what I wrote. For pre-installed Windows to work, it has to have the Microsoft keys enrolled. That's why their keys come preinstalled. If they weren't preinstalled, Windows wouldn't boot. That was my point about the 99.99%. I'm not sure what you're getting at, I assume you didn't understand. (And no, pressing "Next", "next", "next" in an installer is not the same as enrolling private keys into a write-only area of your computer's BIOS). >I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I'm willing to sell for a good price if you believe that. Ok, I'll put you in the category of people that swore for years that Motorola's bootloader protection would be hacked. That was... 3 years now since they introduced that and nary a vulnerability found? >PS3, XBox, XBox 360, Wii, iPhone {2G,3G,3GS,4,4S}, iPad {1,2} and many other devices all have secure boots. And all have, in the past, been rooted by software or a combination of software and minimal physical access. Oh, you just don't know what you're talking about (or what Secure Boot is, one of the two). Only the Xbox 360 had boot verification in the style of secure boot and it was never compromised. [1] The others did NOT use a hardware based bootloader verification. The only other mainstream usage of this style (that I'm aware of) is Motorola's signed bootloaders [1] While the Xbox was attacked via Hypervisor vulnerability, a timing attack found (both of which were fixed remotely) and now through electroshocking the CPU, the verified boot itself was not compromised.