8 ms·

Stop UEFI

91 points by kephra 14y ago

thedeuce 14y ago
zzzzzzz
drhowarddrfine 14y ago
US citizens can file an anti-trust complaint with the US government here: http://www.justice.gov/atr/contact/newcase.html http://www.justice.gov/atr/contact/newcase.html I have and got a response from the same attorney involved in past anti-trust litigation against Microsoft. I also wrote my Congressman who was very much aware of all this and told me it's on Congress's radar screen.
sp332 14y ago
The linked video of Cory Doctorow's keynote at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin, "The Coming War on General Computation" is very interesting, insightful, and worrying. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg
- kephra 14y ago
  The digital imprimature of John Walker is even more worrying, as he saw this coming nearly 10 years ago. http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/ http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/
- astrodust 14y ago
  I'm sure Cory would have given a talk in 1970 on "The Coming War on General Purpose Hardware" where he bemoans the rise of the integrated circuit and an end to you being able to rearrange the components in your computer to suit your whims. There's nothing worrying about it. What's happening is what used to be general purpose is now becoming an appliance. Until Cory is out there petitioning blender makers to open their firmware, he's just grabbing headlines with this nonsense.
  - sp332 14y ago
    Funny you should mention that. I put a blender there. It was made out of printed parts, so it would only last a month before I’d need to print new bearings and other moving parts. http://craphound.com/overclocked/Cory_Doctorow_-_Overclocked_-_Printcrime.html http://craphound.com/overclocked/Cory_Doctorow_-_Overclocked... Anyway, no, the problem is that other people get to decide what software you get to run on your computer. And those people aren't engineers who want to build cheaper and more convenient, if limited, appliances. The people who will be deciding what software you can run are the lawyers and congressional lobbyists.
  - orangecat 14y ago
    With platforms like Arduino, you can in fact plug arbitrary components into your computer. For now. There's nothing worrying about it. What's happening is what used to be general purpose is now becoming an appliance. I find the prospect of Apple or Microsoft having veto power over how I use "my" computer extremely worrying. Until Cory is out there petitioning blender makers to open their firmware, he's just grabbing headlines with this nonsense. The manufacturers of blenders are generally not advocating that taking them apart should be a federal crime.
    - sp332 14y ago
      "Components" as in individual transistors, resistors, and capacitors as opposed to integrated circuits. And MS already has veto power. You can't run device drivers that haven't been OK'd and cryptographically signed by them. DRM is baked into the media layers (e.g. you can't watch a blu-ray movie on a non-HDCP monitor).
      - orangecat 14y ago
        You can't run device drivers that haven't been OK'd and cryptographically signed by them. DRM is baked into the media layers Yes, and that sucks. But that's just Windows, and there are other options. For now.
    - astrodust 14y ago
      > I find the prospect of Apple or Microsoft having veto power over how I use "my" computer extremely worrying. This is because we expect "computers" to do so many things. When their area of responsibility shrinks to more trivial tasks, like only browsing or running simple apps, the limitations become less of an issue. There will always be a need for a "development" caliber platform where you can do whatever, install anything, build whatever you want. It's just that for 90% of the people out there, they don't need or want this. While I find it amusing that grandma's new MacBook Air comes with a C compiler, bash, and Perl, this really isn't something she's ever going to find a use for and would hardly notice if it was absent. For the 10% of the market that does care, perhaps they need a different sort of product. The two markets are destined to split.
drivebyacct2 14y ago
Which should be a very small number of them as long as they've followed the restrictions that Microsoft places on OEMs to ship Windows 8 certified devices. (Not to get in the way of anyone's pitchfork of course.)
drcube 14y ago
I honestly don't understand how this can be legal. There's precedent, at least in the US. The Bell system was forced to allow non-AT&T hardware on their network. Automobile manufacturers were required to allow third parties to service vehicles. Also, I don't understand the need. I've heard the excuses about malware, but is that even a significant problem? I know I've never booted up a machine and said to myself, "You know what I need? An upgrade to my BIOS." I mean, it is purely and transparently anti-competitive. But why now? This is something the 90s, we're-deathly-afraid-of-linux Microsoft would do. So why now and not then?
- kephra 14y ago
  I guess, because Microsoft now realized that they lost the age of internet, they lost the browser war, the search engine war, and the mobile phone war. They know that Windows 8 sucks that much, that people want to install Windows 7 or Linux, and they need to prevent us doing this. Its similar like a dictator shooting at civilians at the moment he realized that he lost the love of his people.
  - tzs 14y ago
    > I guess, because Microsoft now realized that they lost the age of internet, they lost the browser war, the search engine war, and the mobile phone war. They know that Windows 8 sucks that much, that people want to install Windows 7 or Linux, and they need to prevent us doing this Then why did they make it so that to get your x86 hardware certified and allowed to use the Windows 8 logo, you are REQUIRED to provide a UEFI setting to turn off secure boot and to allow the user to remove and add keys? If they are trying to prevent people from running Linux or Windows 7, you'd expect them to leave it up to the OEM whether or not secure boot can be disabled or the keys can be modified--knowing that many OEMs would not bother, rather than explicitly requiring the OEMs to allow that.
    - shawnz 14y ago
      > If they are trying to prevent people from running Linux or Windows 7 [...] If they were trying to do this, all they'd have to do is tell OEMs to only allow the system to boot with Windows bootmgr. No fancy signature checking required! And they could have done it at any point in the past, even with BIOS.
cooldeal 14y ago
We have a huge malware problem and these folks are worried that there's one more setting that a user might need to change before installing Linux? You know, apart from changing the boot order of the devices, partitioning the hard disk, installing into the right partitions, configuring dual boot etc. ? >This is most easy from Germany, where we have a law that allows us to send back any mail order, internet order or things that had been sold at the door or on phone within 14 days, and charge our money back. So my suggesting is doing this at the moment the first computers ship that are locked to boot only Microsoft systems. Order them, unpack them, ruin the paper and cardboards, and send them back with a note: Can not install Linux. >The same can be done by people who have an American Express credit card, within 30 days worldwide, I think. Please think twice before doing that, this will just make the OEMs think that a section of Linux users are mean and just too costly to support. I prefer that some other way of indicating support for Linux is used, like buying hardware with preinstalled Linux. >It also won't help much if major distributions like Ubuntu or RedHat get a signed key into the boot loader, because UEFI will prevent any normal Linux system programmer from installing his own self compiled operating system. Huh what? Doesn't Microsoft mandate(to the extent they can, because of antitrust laws) that secure boot be able to be turned off and users be able to add their own keys? Or is the author talking about the slippery slope of the mysterious future?
- arrrg 14y ago
  I would also imagine that intentionally ordering something you don’t intend to keep is illegal (though that’s obviously not really enforceable) and to me very clearly morally questionable. The law exists to protect consumers. I think abusing it to further political goals is just a bad idea.
- mcpherrinm 14y ago
  > that secure boot be able to be turned off and users be able to add their own keys? On x86, but not on ARM. And that's quite possibly more important, because ARM platforms are likely porting targets for things like Android that "regular users" might actually want.
  - cooldeal 14y ago
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
michaelmior 14y ago
I don't understand why the author seems against UEFI in general. I can understand the concerns with Secure Boot, but that's only part of the spec. Am I missing something?
- wmf 14y ago
  Clearly the author knows nothing about UEFI other than it has secure boot.
- kephra 14y ago
  You might want to watch Cory Doctorow and read John Walker, to understand that the current UEFI implementation is just a first shot of the coming war on general computation. And I think we have to fight them early, before its to late.
  - jcoder 14y ago
    Parent asked why you are against it in general.
- sp332 14y ago
  UEFI is cool. The page is about UEFI Secure Boot.
  - kephra 14y ago
    Thanks for pointing this out. I clarified the title and text about this.
- rwmj 14y ago
  I'm not convinced that putting most of an OS into the bootloader is a good idea. Particularly when that OS is closed source and written by the same geniuses that write BIOSes.
  - lgeek 14y ago
    > Particularly when that OS is closed source Not exactly: http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/tianocore/index.php?title=EDK2 http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/tianocore/index.php?ti...
pooriaazimi 14y ago
> Order them, unpack them, ruin the paper and cardboards, and send them back with a note: Can not install Linux. What a stupid idea. What happens next, you think? OEMs will hug you and other Linux users and kiss you? No, they won't issue driver updates. And your graphic card is useless. If you (Linux users) cost them too much, they'll dump you. It's business, nothing personal. But, of course, it's open source. You can always write the drivers yourself. ----- By the way, it's very funny that a "forward-thinking, open source-loving" guy who (supposedly) wants to make computing world better, doesn't think it's absolutely immoral to do such a stupid thing. You ruin the cables, and the company has to pay for it. The CEO doesn't pay the money from his pocket you know, they increase the price for "all" customers a little bit, so it's Dell (or other OEM) customers pays who are paying money for your stupid "cause".
- comex 14y ago
  OEMs do not, as a rule, provide drivers for Linux desktops. Graphics card manufacturers are not OEMs, and the rest is mostly open source...
  - pooriaazimi 14y ago
    You're right. They don't provide graphics card drivers, but they "do" provide some (less important) drivers. I can't find a link (slow internet connection right now), but see here for example: http://www.canonical.com/engineering-services/oem-services/why-ubuntu/drivers http://www.canonical.com/engineering-services/oem-services/w... Anyway, my point was that if Linux guys prove to be costly, they'll be dumped or neglected. It's bad for open source guys, it's bad for OEMs (they get worse deals with Microsoft), and it's bad for everyone other than Microsoft. So, if you think SecureBoot is bad, make your case like civil citizens without inducing cost to others.
    - comex 14y ago
      That page is about "drivers" in the sense of "reasons that drive the decision to ship Linux", not hardware drivers :) I don't actually support the kind of crude protest measure suggested by the article (although I doubt a non-negligible number of people will actually carry it out in any case), but drivers really aren't the issue here.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
I would like to offer up what is probably a bit more provocative than I want it to be but here goes. We should totally endorse secure boot for "webiances." I have to invent a word here because we haven't coined one yet, but its a device you use to surf the web, read email, chat on facebook, edit our resumes, Etc. It is something hobbiests and experimenters never ever need to write code for. Its the thing our grandparents use and we don't have to worry that Rico from Brazil is going to clean out their accounts with. It is an information telephone/tv/typewriter, it is an appliance. Few people complain that you cannot boot unsigned code on the computer in your BMW, that is a good thing, you want to trust your car. That said, there should always be (and no doubt will be) computers that engineers, hobbiests, and others use which are completely programmable. Those will be distinguished as being "General Purpose" computers as opposed to "Task specific" computers. They may even share the same instruction set architecture with their counterparts, but it should be perfectly Ok for a task specific device to refuse to run any code that hasn't been verified though some system of trust. The comments about unlocking phone bootloaders, or the iPad, are quite relevant here. Those devices, when locked, aren't general purpose computers. Locked they can be task specific and reasonably safe [1]. Without such barriers they put their users at unnecessary risk and for users who have neither the ability nor the time to understand the risks that is a good thing. [1] "reasonably safe" - This discussion will often jump to 'nothing is 100% secure' which is true of course and not the point. Planes fall out of the sky and kill people, but they are 'reasonably safe' which means that the risk of them killing us is acceptable given the benefit returned. Similarly with cars. Computers these days are not 'reasonably safe'. Huge swaths of non-technically literate people are harmed every year by the inability to create a reasonably safe environment for them to use.
- wmf 14y ago
  So I guess the standard counterargument is that if these "webiances" are allowed to be sold (oops, too late) then they will take 99% of the market and PCs will increase in price to the $2,000-$5,000 range and then all innovation will stop.
  - cube13 14y ago
    High prices didn't stop the first wave of computer innovation. The Apple ][ cost $1200 at release. In 1977.
unimpressive 14y ago
These tactics aren't exactly going to inspire good will towards linux users. Not to mention the ethical issues here.
donniezazen 14y ago
This will become the end of Linux and free software. For crying out loud. Nothing can stop LinuX.
- zokier 14y ago
  >Nothing can stop LinuX. Not even spelling mistakes. hint: it's spelled Linux
jasonlingx 14y ago
Isn't UEFI something I need to boot from a disk larger than 2.2 TB?
- pgeorgi 14y ago
  No, it's not. BIOS supports LBA48 for a _long_ time now (which can address a couple of PB). The main issue is the MBR format which doesn't allow >2TB easily (there are hacks, but those break with older systems). It would be perfectly possible to teach BIOS GPT, and use the boot sector of the system partition for booting (ie. what happens today). 2TB disks are just the excuse to finally force the issue (after about 10 years of promoting EFI without much success).
jwildeboer 14y ago
Yawn. Same discussion when Intel introduced the TPM - doomsday didn't happen. Or the Clipper chip? Doomsday didn't happen. UEFI SecureBoot on Intel/AMD is optional and will not deliver on its promises IMHO. The REAL thing to focus on (and the one thing that all of these doosmday guys seem to willingly ignore) is that on the ARM platform it is truly worse what the Windows requirements are enforcing - locked bootloader, no way to change that. So instead of whining about an OPTIONAL problem, how about fighting a REAL problem?
- pgeorgi 14y ago
  clipper chip didn't materialize. TPM was widely misunderstood (thanks to the Anderson "TCPA FAQ", which went into hyperbole real quickly). It was also defused a bit due to public pressure. With the Windows Logo Requirements (which are the real issue surrounding secureboot), there are some indications that things will end up bad, but that's speculation (but on a better foundation than the TCPA FAQ back then IMHO). What's going on now is public pressure - and it already worked to some degree, since the Logo Requirements went from "has to provide it, disabling optional" on x86 to "must allow disabling secureboot".
losethos 14y ago
God is just. You know the egyptians killed jewish babies before passover? Moses was floated down stream. God did justice eye-for-eye on the Egyptian babies. God says... C:\Text\WEALTH.TXT y was divided into three great branches; physics, or natural philosophy; ethics, or moral philosophy; and logic. This general division seems perfectly agreeable to the nature of things. The great phenomena of nature, the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, eclipses, comets; thunder and lightning, and other extraordinary meteors; the generation, the life, growth, and dissolution of plants and animals; are objects which, as they necessarily excite the wonder, so they naturally call forth the curiosi

91 points by kephra 14y ago

zzzzzzz

US citizens can file an anti-trust complaint with the US government here: http://www.justice.gov/atr/contact/newcase.html http://www.justice.gov/atr/contact/newcase.html I have and got a response from the same attorney involved in past anti-trust litigation against Microsoft. I also wrote my Congressman who was very much aware of all this and told me it's on Congress's radar screen.

sp332 14y ago

The linked video of Cory Doctorow's keynote at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin, "The Coming War on General Computation" is very interesting, insightful, and worrying. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg

kephra 14y ago
The digital imprimature of John Walker is even more worrying, as he saw this coming nearly 10 years ago. http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/ http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/
astrodust 14y ago
I'm sure Cory would have given a talk in 1970 on "The Coming War on General Purpose Hardware" where he bemoans the rise of the integrated circuit and an end to you being able to rearrange the components in your computer to suit your whims. There's nothing worrying about it. What's happening is what used to be general purpose is now becoming an appliance. Until Cory is out there petitioning blender makers to open their firmware, he's just grabbing headlines with this nonsense.
- sp332 14y ago
  Funny you should mention that. I put a blender there. It was made out of printed parts, so it would only last a month before I’d need to print new bearings and other moving parts. http://craphound.com/overclocked/Cory_Doctorow_-_Overclocked_-_Printcrime.html http://craphound.com/overclocked/Cory_Doctorow_-_Overclocked... Anyway, no, the problem is that other people get to decide what software you get to run on your computer. And those people aren't engineers who want to build cheaper and more convenient, if limited, appliances. The people who will be deciding what software you can run are the lawyers and congressional lobbyists.
- orangecat 14y ago
  With platforms like Arduino, you can in fact plug arbitrary components into your computer. For now. There's nothing worrying about it. What's happening is what used to be general purpose is now becoming an appliance. I find the prospect of Apple or Microsoft having veto power over how I use "my" computer extremely worrying. Until Cory is out there petitioning blender makers to open their firmware, he's just grabbing headlines with this nonsense. The manufacturers of blenders are generally not advocating that taking them apart should be a federal crime.
  - sp332 14y ago
    "Components" as in individual transistors, resistors, and capacitors as opposed to integrated circuits. And MS already has veto power. You can't run device drivers that haven't been OK'd and cryptographically signed by them. DRM is baked into the media layers (e.g. you can't watch a blu-ray movie on a non-HDCP monitor).
    - orangecat 14y ago
      You can't run device drivers that haven't been OK'd and cryptographically signed by them. DRM is baked into the media layers Yes, and that sucks. But that's just Windows, and there are other options. For now.
  - astrodust 14y ago
    > I find the prospect of Apple or Microsoft having veto power over how I use "my" computer extremely worrying. This is because we expect "computers" to do so many things. When their area of responsibility shrinks to more trivial tasks, like only browsing or running simple apps, the limitations become less of an issue. There will always be a need for a "development" caliber platform where you can do whatever, install anything, build whatever you want. It's just that for 90% of the people out there, they don't need or want this. While I find it amusing that grandma's new MacBook Air comes with a C compiler, bash, and Perl, this really isn't something she's ever going to find a use for and would hardly notice if it was absent. For the 10% of the market that does care, perhaps they need a different sort of product. The two markets are destined to split.

drivebyacct2 14y ago

Which should be a very small number of them as long as they've followed the restrictions that Microsoft places on OEMs to ship Windows 8 certified devices. (Not to get in the way of anyone's pitchfork of course.)

drcube 14y ago

I honestly don't understand how this can be legal. There's precedent, at least in the US. The Bell system was forced to allow non-AT&T hardware on their network. Automobile manufacturers were required to allow third parties to service vehicles. Also, I don't understand the need. I've heard the excuses about malware, but is that even a significant problem? I know I've never booted up a machine and said to myself, "You know what I need? An upgrade to my BIOS." I mean, it is purely and transparently anti-competitive. But why now? This is something the 90s, we're-deathly-afraid-of-linux Microsoft would do. So why now and not then?

kephra 14y ago
I guess, because Microsoft now realized that they lost the age of internet, they lost the browser war, the search engine war, and the mobile phone war. They know that Windows 8 sucks that much, that people want to install Windows 7 or Linux, and they need to prevent us doing this. Its similar like a dictator shooting at civilians at the moment he realized that he lost the love of his people.
- tzs 14y ago
  > I guess, because Microsoft now realized that they lost the age of internet, they lost the browser war, the search engine war, and the mobile phone war. They know that Windows 8 sucks that much, that people want to install Windows 7 or Linux, and they need to prevent us doing this Then why did they make it so that to get your x86 hardware certified and allowed to use the Windows 8 logo, you are REQUIRED to provide a UEFI setting to turn off secure boot and to allow the user to remove and add keys? If they are trying to prevent people from running Linux or Windows 7, you'd expect them to leave it up to the OEM whether or not secure boot can be disabled or the keys can be modified--knowing that many OEMs would not bother, rather than explicitly requiring the OEMs to allow that.
  - shawnz 14y ago
    > If they are trying to prevent people from running Linux or Windows 7 [...] If they were trying to do this, all they'd have to do is tell OEMs to only allow the system to boot with Windows bootmgr. No fancy signature checking required! And they could have done it at any point in the past, even with BIOS.

cooldeal 14y ago

We have a huge malware problem and these folks are worried that there's one more setting that a user might need to change before installing Linux? You know, apart from changing the boot order of the devices, partitioning the hard disk, installing into the right partitions, configuring dual boot etc. ? >This is most easy from Germany, where we have a law that allows us to send back any mail order, internet order or things that had been sold at the door or on phone within 14 days, and charge our money back. So my suggesting is doing this at the moment the first computers ship that are locked to boot only Microsoft systems. Order them, unpack them, ruin the paper and cardboards, and send them back with a note: Can not install Linux. >The same can be done by people who have an American Express credit card, within 30 days worldwide, I think. Please think twice before doing that, this will just make the OEMs think that a section of Linux users are mean and just too costly to support. I prefer that some other way of indicating support for Linux is used, like buying hardware with preinstalled Linux. >It also won't help much if major distributions like Ubuntu or RedHat get a signed key into the boot loader, because UEFI will prevent any normal Linux system programmer from installing his own self compiled operating system. Huh what? Doesn't Microsoft mandate(to the extent they can, because of antitrust laws) that secure boot be able to be turned off and users be able to add their own keys? Or is the author talking about the slippery slope of the mysterious future?

arrrg 14y ago
I would also imagine that intentionally ordering something you don’t intend to keep is illegal (though that’s obviously not really enforceable) and to me very clearly morally questionable. The law exists to protect consumers. I think abusing it to further political goals is just a bad idea.
mcpherrinm 14y ago
> that secure boot be able to be turned off and users be able to add their own keys? On x86, but not on ARM. And that's quite possibly more important, because ARM platforms are likely porting targets for things like Android that "regular users" might actually want.
- cooldeal 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

michaelmior 14y ago

I don't understand why the author seems against UEFI in general. I can understand the concerns with Secure Boot, but that's only part of the spec. Am I missing something?

wmf 14y ago
Clearly the author knows nothing about UEFI other than it has secure boot.
kephra 14y ago
You might want to watch Cory Doctorow and read John Walker, to understand that the current UEFI implementation is just a first shot of the coming war on general computation. And I think we have to fight them early, before its to late.
- jcoder 14y ago
  Parent asked why you are against it in general.
sp332 14y ago
UEFI is cool. The page is about UEFI Secure Boot.
- kephra 14y ago
  Thanks for pointing this out. I clarified the title and text about this.
rwmj 14y ago
I'm not convinced that putting most of an OS into the bootloader is a good idea. Particularly when that OS is closed source and written by the same geniuses that write BIOSes.
- lgeek 14y ago
  > Particularly when that OS is closed source Not exactly: http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/tianocore/index.php?title=EDK2 http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/tianocore/index.php?ti...

pooriaazimi 14y ago

> Order them, unpack them, ruin the paper and cardboards, and send them back with a note: Can not install Linux. What a stupid idea. What happens next, you think? OEMs will hug you and other Linux users and kiss you? No, they won't issue driver updates. And your graphic card is useless. If you (Linux users) cost them too much, they'll dump you. It's business, nothing personal. But, of course, it's open source. You can always write the drivers yourself. ----- By the way, it's very funny that a "forward-thinking, open source-loving" guy who (supposedly) wants to make computing world better, doesn't think it's absolutely immoral to do such a stupid thing. You ruin the cables, and the company has to pay for it. The CEO doesn't pay the money from his pocket you know, they increase the price for "all" customers a little bit, so it's Dell (or other OEM) customers pays who are paying money for your stupid "cause".

comex 14y ago
OEMs do not, as a rule, provide drivers for Linux desktops. Graphics card manufacturers are not OEMs, and the rest is mostly open source...
- pooriaazimi 14y ago
  You're right. They don't provide graphics card drivers, but they "do" provide some (less important) drivers. I can't find a link (slow internet connection right now), but see here for example: http://www.canonical.com/engineering-services/oem-services/why-ubuntu/drivers http://www.canonical.com/engineering-services/oem-services/w... Anyway, my point was that if Linux guys prove to be costly, they'll be dumped or neglected. It's bad for open source guys, it's bad for OEMs (they get worse deals with Microsoft), and it's bad for everyone other than Microsoft. So, if you think SecureBoot is bad, make your case like civil citizens without inducing cost to others.
  - comex 14y ago
    That page is about "drivers" in the sense of "reasons that drive the decision to ship Linux", not hardware drivers :) I don't actually support the kind of crude protest measure suggested by the article (although I doubt a non-negligible number of people will actually carry it out in any case), but drivers really aren't the issue here.

ChuckMcM 14y ago

I would like to offer up what is probably a bit more provocative than I want it to be but here goes. We should totally endorse secure boot for "webiances." I have to invent a word here because we haven't coined one yet, but its a device you use to surf the web, read email, chat on facebook, edit our resumes, Etc. It is something hobbiests and experimenters never ever need to write code for. Its the thing our grandparents use and we don't have to worry that Rico from Brazil is going to clean out their accounts with. It is an information telephone/tv/typewriter, it is an appliance. Few people complain that you cannot boot unsigned code on the computer in your BMW, that is a good thing, you want to trust your car. That said, there should always be (and no doubt will be) computers that engineers, hobbiests, and others use which are completely programmable. Those will be distinguished as being "General Purpose" computers as opposed to "Task specific" computers. They may even share the same instruction set architecture with their counterparts, but it should be perfectly Ok for a task specific device to refuse to run any code that hasn't been verified though some system of trust. The comments about unlocking phone bootloaders, or the iPad, are quite relevant here. Those devices, when locked, aren't general purpose computers. Locked they can be task specific and reasonably safe [1]. Without such barriers they put their users at unnecessary risk and for users who have neither the ability nor the time to understand the risks that is a good thing. [1] "reasonably safe" - This discussion will often jump to 'nothing is 100% secure' which is true of course and not the point. Planes fall out of the sky and kill people, but they are 'reasonably safe' which means that the risk of them killing us is acceptable given the benefit returned. Similarly with cars. Computers these days are not 'reasonably safe'. Huge swaths of non-technically literate people are harmed every year by the inability to create a reasonably safe environment for them to use.

wmf 14y ago
So I guess the standard counterargument is that if these "webiances" are allowed to be sold (oops, too late) then they will take 99% of the market and PCs will increase in price to the $2,000-$5,000 range and then all innovation will stop.
- cube13 14y ago
  High prices didn't stop the first wave of computer innovation. The Apple ][ cost $1200 at release. In 1977.

unimpressive 14y ago

These tactics aren't exactly going to inspire good will towards linux users. Not to mention the ethical issues here.

donniezazen 14y ago

This will become the end of Linux and free software. For crying out loud. Nothing can stop LinuX.

zokier 14y ago
>Nothing can stop LinuX. Not even spelling mistakes. hint: it's spelled Linux

jasonlingx 14y ago

Isn't UEFI something I need to boot from a disk larger than 2.2 TB?

pgeorgi 14y ago
No, it's not. BIOS supports LBA48 for a _long_ time now (which can address a couple of PB). The main issue is the MBR format which doesn't allow >2TB easily (there are hacks, but those break with older systems). It would be perfectly possible to teach BIOS GPT, and use the boot sector of the system partition for booting (ie. what happens today). 2TB disks are just the excuse to finally force the issue (after about 10 years of promoting EFI without much success).

jwildeboer 14y ago

Yawn. Same discussion when Intel introduced the TPM - doomsday didn't happen. Or the Clipper chip? Doomsday didn't happen. UEFI SecureBoot on Intel/AMD is optional and will not deliver on its promises IMHO. The REAL thing to focus on (and the one thing that all of these doosmday guys seem to willingly ignore) is that on the ARM platform it is truly worse what the Windows requirements are enforcing - locked bootloader, no way to change that. So instead of whining about an OPTIONAL problem, how about fighting a REAL problem?

pgeorgi 14y ago
clipper chip didn't materialize. TPM was widely misunderstood (thanks to the Anderson "TCPA FAQ", which went into hyperbole real quickly). It was also defused a bit due to public pressure. With the Windows Logo Requirements (which are the real issue surrounding secureboot), there are some indications that things will end up bad, but that's speculation (but on a better foundation than the TCPA FAQ back then IMHO). What's going on now is public pressure - and it already worked to some degree, since the Logo Requirements went from "has to provide it, disabling optional" on x86 to "must allow disabling secureboot".

losethos 14y ago

God is just. You know the egyptians killed jewish babies before passover? Moses was floated down stream. God did justice eye-for-eye on the Egyptian babies. God says... C:\Text\WEALTH.TXT y was divided into three great branches; physics, or natural philosophy; ethics, or moral philosophy; and logic. This general division seems perfectly agreeable to the nature of things. The great phenomena of nature, the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, eclipses, comets; thunder and lightning, and other extraordinary meteors; the generation, the life, growth, and dissolution of plants and animals; are objects which, as they necessarily excite the wonder, so they naturally call forth the curiosi