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I was there, 3000 years ago, when we started ringing the bell about “trusted computing”. Honestly it’s not as bad as I expected
by khalic 1y ago
I was there, 3000 years ago, when we started ringing the bell about “trusted computing”. Honestly it’s not as bad as I expected
- photios 1y ago> it’s not as bad as I expected yet :D
- khalic 1y agoNever underestimate how much things could get worse, touché
- api 1y agoMobile is where it’s bad. It never took hold fully on desktop since desktop is used for development and too many other things.
- renegat0x0 1y agoMobile is where it is all going. PCs will be like android in the near future.
- sumtechguy 1y agowhat? windows 11 was just for new features right? ... right?
- pjmlp 1y agoRight, https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/secauthz/app-isolation-overview https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/secauthz/app... https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/hardware-security/pluton/microsoft-pluton-security-processor https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/hardware-...
- fuzzy2 1y agoBut the "walled garden" on mobile (iOS mostly, but now also Android) isn't really about trusted computing at all. Trusted computing (locked bootloaders) is but a small part of it. Trusted computing and even remote attestation have legitimate use cases. It's good, great even, that they exist. But just like everything, they can be used against you.
- cubefox 1y agoIn fact most digital goods that are sold in large numbers via download, are, as far as I'm aware, sold with some form of DRM. Like films and video games. Otherwise piracy would be just too easy. MP3s don't have DRMs, and are still sold (e.g. by Amazon), but those now seem to be largely replaced by music subscription services. And this might be a reaction to the fact that music piracy is quite easy; if it wasn't, perhaps there would be no Spotify where you get basically All The Music in existence for peanuts. (Note that no equivalent subscription service exists with regards to movies or games: Netflix and Xbox Game Pass have only a limited selection of content included in their subscription.)
- pjmlp 1y agoPC was an anomaly thanks to IBM not being able to go with their plans. On UNIX, Sun was the vendor that introduced the concept of SDK SKU, thus for having developer tools, an additional SKU had to be bought, and the until then largely ignored GCC sundenly got a new focus of attention. Mainframes and micros always needed having a group of folks from the vendor professional services for specific kinds of configurations. I still remeber working on traditional timesharing UNIX systems, one single server for all teams, what you get to do is decided by IT for your role. There are plenty of examples from the past on how this has been happening already.
- 1313ed01 1y agoAn anomaly from some corporate pov, maybe, but at home the PC was definitely not more open to general purpose computing than the alternatives. Most early home computers booted straight into a BASIC prompt, and the line between being a programmer and a user was far more blurred than it is now.
- pjmlp 1y agoIt definitely was, all other platforms had vertical integration.
- bitwize 1y agoPCs from IBM could do this as well. There was a ROM'd BASIC in IBM computers that they would default to if they couldn't find a bootable disk. The BASIC that came with PC-DOS, BASICA.COM, was actually a wrapper for this ROM BASIC. The clones relied on GW-BASIC and later QBasic, which came on disk and was bundled with DOS, to supply this functionality, and didn't have BASIC in ROM. In fact, some early BIOS implementations, if they did not find a bootable disk, displayed a message "NO BASIC FOUND" or similar.
- bayindirh 1y agoI have an ugly hunch that systemd gonna be Google Play Services of Linux at some point. I beg history to prove me wrong. For anyone interested, please look at Hardware attestation and TiVoization, thanks.
- array_key_first 1y agoWell systemd is open source so it could just be forked at any point. I don't forsee this happening.
- baq 1y agoit's in the name, but it's open source and it's replacing a hodgepodge of other stuff (the point isn't why it's replacing it, or how well it's going; the point is there are replacements). if the computer won't allow to install or use other software until you install a vendor-signed version of systemd on a vendor-signed kernel we'll be there. it's about hardware attestation, not signed software, though.
- bayindirh 1y agoWhat it bothers me is the possibility of TiVoization via Kernel and systemd, actually. Combined with uutils, which is MIT, you can build a nice (!) walled garden. Let me say I have seen enough shenanigans over the years.
- symbogra 1y agoThis is a bizarre comment for an open source init system
- gjsman-1000 1y agoThe future is likely bifurcated trust: Official, encrypted, attested systems; and unofficial, unencrypted, unattested systems. The GNU freedoms never specified the right to run free software side by side with proprietary software on the same hardware; so the FSF should actually be fine with such an outcome.
- lupire 1y agoIn fact FSF specifically exempts special purpose hardware like microwaves from its purview. The philosophy is targeted at software the user has a choice to install. If the hardware provider does not intend the user to choose to install an alternative version of the system software, software freedom doesn't come into play. https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/free-bios.html https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/free-bios.html
- fragmede 1y agoWhich honestly I disagree with. Tivo didn't want you installing alternate OSes on their device and neither did Sony. Alternate OS support was eventually removed from the PS3. As to the microwave, you've not had any of them do anything annoying, like beep annoying at the wrong times, or wanted a button or override beeping in the middle of the night to not wake up other people? why can't I want to install an alternate firmware to my microwave or my TV. My soldering iron supports that.
- zelphirkalt 1y agoThat seems to be either an oversimplified take on the FSF's position, or argument in bad faith. The FSF wants people to be able to run free software for all purposes, as they fight for user freedoms. If said free software cannot be used, because of all kinds of vendors limiting their services to proprietary software or platforms, then this should be a major concern to the FSF, because their advocated kind of software is being sabotaged.
- iamnothere 1y agoThe problem with bifurcated trust is the ongoing efforts to force people into carrying a “trusted” pocket spy. Cashless payments, mobile train tickets, and digital ID are making it extremely difficult to live without a pocket spy in some places. If my bank requires me to use a phone for transfers (mine doesn’t), it might be acceptable to leave one in a desk drawer powered off as you would do with a hardware authentication token. It’s a special device for occasionally accessing a service. Fine. But when governments and industry collude to force citizens to carry these devices in order to live life normally, that’s not OK. My intent is to be as stubborn and obnoxious as possible in resisting this until they either give up and provide an alternate path or lock me away for noncompliance. Fortunately there is still an alternate path available for most things, primarily thanks to elders who have trouble with new tech. (Thank you elders!)
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- JeremyNT 1y agoAlternate take: it's exactly as bad as you expected, but your timeline was off. And even so, perhaps it's later than you realize. Device attestation in the browser is the final nail in the coffin, and it's a question of "when" not "if" major sites start requiring it in the name of "safety" from bots.
- baby_souffle 1y ago> and it's a question of "when" not "if" major sites start requiring it in the name of "safety" from bots. I recently found a plugin that can alert to JS doing shady "fingerprint-like" activity. I did not expect it to go off quite as often as it does now. It would seem that some sites are already asking _very_ probing questions about the browser so it's only a matter of time before they go one step further and demand proof and gate on furnishment of that proof.
- kruffalon 1y agoWould you mind sharing a link to that plugin?
- baby_souffle 1y ago> Would you mind sharing a link to that plugin? Sure thing! https://jshelter.org/ https://jshelter.org/ is the homepage.
- buyucu 1y agoTrusted computing is just another name for vendor lock-in. It was never about security.
- JKCalhoun 1y agoA more generous explanation is that it might be both — vendor lock-in also happens to be a security measure. Having important info on your device and having that device accessible to the wild, wild, internet is a very real problem. If the "walled garden" is a flawed solution we should work on a better one.
- izzydata 1y agoHaving a separate dedicated general purpose computing device not connected to the open internet perhaps.
- buyucu 1y agoAnyone who thinks that vendor lock-in is a security feature didn't learn a thing from the Crowdstrike incident last year. The biggest security incident in the history of the entire internet was caused by a cybersecurity ''vendor''.
- EvanAnderson 1y agoIt's really about keeping third-party interests secure from the users. Pesky users being allowed to run their own code thwarts control efforts.
- aa-jv 1y agoI don't agree, it is absolutely dreadful, and we saw this coming and did nothing about it. Think about it: you need permission to run software on your own hardware. Every time you launch a Mac App, it checks in with its masters to be sure its okay to do so - every time you install an app on your mobile device, it does the same thing. People accept this terrible state of affairs because the "user experience is better" - but this is a fallacy. Under the cover of 'security issues' that their are incapable of fixing, due to very poor architecture decisions, OS vendors have instead bolted on an insanity and sold it to the user as progress. Every computing device should have everything it needs, onboard, to write software for that computing device. That they don't is because the OS vendors are cowardly running from the bloat of yesteryear and adding more bloat tomorrow to cover it all up. There will be a backlash against this. We see it already in the retro-computing and alternative-platform hacking communities, which are growing and growing, exponentially, by the year. Its only a matter of time that someone wraps up this freedom-to-use concept in hardware that is sexy enough to compete with the totalitarian-authoritarian platform providers. Any .. day .. now ..
- detourdog 1y agoIt can be turned off on your Mac if that is what you want.
- swiftcoder 1y agoSo far, yes. It's getting hardware with every release. First you had to click approve in a dialog to launch unsigned software. Later you had to right click -> "open" -> then approve. Now you have to open system settings to find the button to show the approval prompt. Meanwhile to install a kernel extension you now have to reboot into safe mode and disable part of system integrity protection (with big warnings that it's at your own risk). For the average user, kernel extension are already gone, and unsigned software not far behind.
- codyb 1y agoDevil's advocating here... when have kernel extensions _ever been_ a part of the average user's experience?