Last time I was starting vanishing of Ethan Carter, but even though it was playable, the experience wasn't free of stutters, whereas windows ran flawlessly.
In any case, it is always nice to jump back and check out how far Linux has come.
I'm of course ignoring the fact that a lot of Linux distros still do not have Secure Boot enabled by default, and therefore do not enforce any kernel driver signing policy.
A part of the roadmap to only allowing average users to execute native programs their overlords approve of. We're already sadly most of the way there with the scary dialogs and dark patterns anyone has to navigate to run anything unapproved.
The right conditions: https://twitter.com/BillDemirkapi/status/1499735326406938625
Any situation where certs cannot be revoked for any reason is bad.
The cover story was security, which might be mathematically correct but in practice has been shown false in every way. Look how much malware gets signed and shipped on devices and sold on app stores: the vendor gets their cut, /shrug. Look how many devices have been intentionally bricked to force new sales - yay them again. And then there's the certificate management illusion.
https://twitter.com/BillDemirkapi/status/1499735326406938625
A single or even multiple breaches doesn’t suddenly remove all value from all other code signing models.
but in this case it's literally not caused by hardware vendors ? They're not even a party to this arrangement. The requirement is being enforced by windows, and the certificates are issued by various CAs. If you don't want that just use linux or something, or disable signature enforcement within windows.
[1] https://www.digicert.com/signing/code-signing-certificates "REQUIRES TWO-FACTOR AUTHENTICATION USING HARDWARE TOKEN"
relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1200/
I'll also add that Amazon Key Management Service, Azure Key Vault, and Google Key Management Service store several hundred million private keys combined with no leaks so far (they are non-exportable and access is audited)
It is very rare that we see malware signed by a publisher's certificate, which is why it is in the news every time it happens.
An interesting leak from a entity with a very interesting request in the first place.
Can the same certificate be used to cause supply chain attacks?
[1] https://distrowatch.com/search.php?pkg=shim&relation=lessequ...
Everyone can load their own signing keys into firmware. However, if you want something that "just works", Microsoft signs a package called Shim[1] that can be loaded on most computers due to the pre-loaded keys.
A relationship with Microsoft is not needed in any way or form to have Secure Boot.
As for Windows packages, there are several "package" systems:
- AppInstaller (winget): A SHA256 hash is included in the application manifest. I might be wrong, but I do not believe the manifests are signed afterwards. Packages are verified upon installation.
- MSIX packages: They are signed and timestamped with a publisher certificate. They are verified upon installation.
- Executables: Not really packages as such, but PS1 scripts and .EXE executables support Authenticode signatures. They are verified upon execution.
As for Linux, there are several package systems:
- DPKG/DEB: Built-in support for verification with hashes generated at install time. Packages can be GPG signed for stronger security, but it is disabled by default. Repository metadata is often GPG signed.
- RPM: Like DEB above it supports verification with MD5. It also has GPG integration. I believe it is disabled by default as well.
Linux does unfortunately not have support for signatures of ELF executables.
If people have got recommendations I am all ears
That's why we have web browsers running untrusted remote code.
Fortunately. This whole pseudo security brings nothing.
People scream about right to repair. When certificate is revoked or has expired your computer will stop working. It's that simple.
The real reason this is problematic is that Windows kernel driver signing wasn't complete before 2015. For signing (of anything) to be robust, it must be paired with a timestamping server. The signature then has these components:
1. The signature itself.
2. The certificate.
3. A data structure containing a hash of the signature, and a timestamp, signed by a timestamping authority.
The purpose of (3) is to prove when the signature was computed, which in turn means that signatures can live longer than the certificates themselves. Note that normal Windows (and Apple) code signing for user space gets this right for a long time. Apparently Windows didn't in kernel mode until 7 years ago.
Introducing timestamping isn't all that easy. If you stop accepting signatures because the underlying certificate expired, then you just put a time bomb in everyone's computers. So Microsoft had to allow the usage of expired certs and hope they'd never leak. They (eventually) lost that bet and the cert will now be revoked, but it won't have been used for many years so probably the overall damage is small.
Guess someone out there still believes that windows code signing is a security feature rather than just a way to keep the smaller developers out of the ecosystem.
UEFI with Secure Boot enabled will only load the stage 1 bootloader if it is signed with the firmware trusted certificate. We don't know if this component is malicious, we just know it is signed by the certificate.
The stage 1 bootloader (shim) will then be responsible for loading the next component (stage 2 bootloader). It will only boot the component if it is signed with a trusted (chosen by the user/distro) certificate.
The bad guys can't insert themselves into this process, as they either have to be trusted by the UEFI firmware (protected by an owner password), signed by Microsoft (to replace the shim) or be signed by the distro's certificate.
As long as the chain is unbroken it is secure.
There is nothing in Secure Boot that prevent people from running their own software. You can update the Secure Boot DB/DBX with whatever you want. Yes, the certificates expire - my computer was bought 4 years ago and Microsoft's UEFI CA will expire in 4 years. At that point I will probably have bought a new computer, but if I have not, I can update the certificate to the new one they released.
Secure Boot is very much an improvement over non-secure booting, and Authenticode signing is an extension of that security to enable signed-only software to run.
That's the gist of trusted computing they are building an alternative internet/mainframe computer inside yours that they only have access to.
Where have you been the last 23+ years? The videogame industry has been stealing PC games since 1997 with ultima online. Hear it from the dev's themselves.
Don't think MMO's killed local PC games? Listen here kids.
https://youtu.be/lnnsDi7Sxq0?t=1134
EA killed ultima 9 when the UO beta got massive interest, that lead to the death of PC games as local applications, the industry from then on there was a massive war to back end all PC games, they couldn't immediately do that to quake and urneal because we'd been treated too good with Warcraft 1-3, Descent 1-3, Quake 1-3, and build engine games like Duke 3d. The entire industry has always wanted to kill piracy and Ultima online gave the entire industry the go ahead once they realized that many of our fellow programmers and gamers were irrationally stupid beyond their wildest dreams.
Anyone playing quake and Descent at the time fear the loss of dedicated servers and level editors which used to come with the games, we knew if Ultima online was successful that Publishers would want to back end every fucking PC game and that's the end of the personal computer and the return of IBM and mainframe computing.
"Signed exe's" and trusted computing is the return of mainframe computing of the 60's in new bullshit language but I don't expect the mmo/steam generation to do anything but froth at the mouth. When they were the ones killing gaming and gave birth to microtransactions.
You can't put MTX in diablo 1, warcraft 1-3, or starcraft 1 because they are local applications that run entirely from your pc. None of the code has been stolen out of the game carved back behind a user account and login requirement. Like with most PC games these days.
We're losing gaming history and generation mmo is to blame for their general cluelessness of the evil of mainframe computing.
Pegasus.
No. Those environments will happyly install the malware code because it is signed by Microsoft.
Some people need money to sustain their families. As a prostitute you can choose your clients but this might lead to lower income. ( yes, i do think that me, having to use Microsoft software is prostitution, but i didn't had any employer which gave me a chance to install linux).
Clearly that isn’t true.
AFAIK if a manufacturer wants to sell Windows PC, it has to support secure boot.