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I can assure you it would be an operational nightmare for many medium to large companies to have to have technicians open up computers to flip a switch on the h

by mrb 11y ago

I can assure you it would be an operational nightmare for many medium to large companies to have to have technicians open up computers to flip a switch on the hundreds or thousands of harddrives whenever they need a firmware upgrade (and it's more common than you think). See https://laur.ie/blog/2015/06/ssds-a-gift-and-a-curse/ https://laur.ie/blog/2015/06/ssds-a-gift-and-a-curse/ for an example of the pain of being unable to flash yourself: "An awesome contractor for Samsung agreed that if we drove over batches of drives (luckily, they are incredibly close to our datacenter) they would flash them and return them the next day." What happens when companies get sick of having to flip the switch? They would leave it in the insecure position all the time.

SomeStupidPoint 11y ago
> What happens when companies get sick of having to flip the switch? They would leave it in the insecure position all the time. Okay, but how is that worse than now? That situation sounds strictly better: things like user work stations, which tend to be the entry points to corporate network for malware stay in a higher security mode and have their HDD firmware updated less often; things like servers in racks are in the same situations, and ops continues on just live they have been.
- mrb 11y ago
  Yes it would be better than now. But the OP was suggesting signed firmware + no switch, which would be an even better solution.
  - marssaxman 11y ago
    only if the idea of locked hardware you can't control doesn't bother you. I'd rather use open hardware and rely on a simple physical interlock for security. Different customers have different needs, so it would be appropriate that different products might have different security features.
    - murbard2 11y ago
      What I suggested isn't locked since there is a manual override. The button is meant to allow unsigned patches, while signed patches are accepted by default. Give it three states if you want: deny all, signed only, accept all. Ship it set on "signed only" which is the default 99% of buyers want.
      - marssaxman 11y ago
        Nice. I like it.

by mrb 11y ago

SomeStupidPoint 11y ago

> What happens when companies get sick of having to flip the switch? They would leave it in the insecure position all the time. Okay, but how is that worse than now? That situation sounds strictly better: things like user work stations, which tend to be the entry points to corporate network for malware stay in a higher security mode and have their HDD firmware updated less often; things like servers in racks are in the same situations, and ops continues on just live they have been.

mrb 11y ago
Yes it would be better than now. But the OP was suggesting signed firmware + no switch, which would be an even better solution.
- marssaxman 11y ago
  only if the idea of locked hardware you can't control doesn't bother you. I'd rather use open hardware and rely on a simple physical interlock for security. Different customers have different needs, so it would be appropriate that different products might have different security features.
  - murbard2 11y ago
    What I suggested isn't locked since there is a manual override. The button is meant to allow unsigned patches, while signed patches are accepted by default. Give it three states if you want: deny all, signed only, accept all. Ship it set on "signed only" which is the default 99% of buyers want.
    - marssaxman 11y ago
      Nice. I like it.