Remote attestation is the true enemy of your freedom. The power of the authoritarian corporatocracy to force you to use only the (entire) systems they control. It's worth reading https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html again just to see how prescient Stallman was.
You don't need that. Streaming is already crippled on Linux. Hell, Netflix won't even stream full quality on Chrome!
> https://help.netflix.com/en/node/13444
4K Ultra HD on a computer
Netflix is available in Ultra HD on Windows and Mac computers with:
Microsoft Edge for Windows
Windows app for Windows 10 and Windows 11
Safari for MacOS 11.0 or laterhttps://www.baynews9.com/fl/tampa/news/2022/05/06/florida-ba...
If you're worried about book bannings in states like Florida, DeSantis is up for reelection in just over 3 months. Go volunteer or donate money to his opponent (probably Charlie Crist).
To be pedantic, it was diseases and outright, explicit murder. (which is not an excuse. Biological warfare is a modern war crime, after all.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_Indigeno...
banking on the wolf to behave in the hen [house] this time
Fair point, but the United States is rapidly moving towards authoritarian governance right now. There are steps that every U.S. citizen who reads my comment can take to help stop this decline immediately. I don't like the idea of this sort of TPM 3.0 module in my computer's hardware, but it's a 'day after tomorrow' problem for me, not a 'right now' problem.
The video does a good job of the original threat model for this technology and how it works on Xbox.
I write some notes[3] about how to use it in openSUSE MicroOS / Tumbleweed, but can be extrapolated to many other distributions too.
[1] https://github.com/keylime/keylime [2] https://github.com/keylime/rust-keylime [3] https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:MicroOS/RemoteAttestation
Have you seen OCP's Caliptra RoT, which requires OSS firmware, enforced by dual-signing of firmware by both OEM and owner? Currently for hyper-scalers, but this approach can be adopted by other enterprise customers, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9PlCm4tLb8. Attestation will be done to Caliptra, which can then release SoC boot ROM from reset.
Not everywhere in the world (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mein_Kampf#Current_availabilit...)
In the USA, freedom of speech is in very high regard, and that’s in conflict with the idea of banning any publication.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AACS_encryption_key_controvers...
Pluto (Greek: Πλούτων Plouton, "giver of wealth", Pluton in French and German) the most common name for the classical ruler of the underworld. Plouton was one of several euphemistic names for Hades, described in the Iliad as the god most hateful to mortals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto_(mythology)
Microsoft has already tried to monopolize the PC consumer market before. And back then the risks were tiny compared to what is at stake now.
https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-courts-findings-f...
I say that as a person of Eastern European/Jewish extraction.
Do I like fascists/fascism? No. Do I like Nazis? No.
But I do like freedom of expression. And if the price of that freedom is that hateful scumbags get to speak their piece, that's okay with me. But I'll have something to say about it too. As it should be.
[0] https://archive.org/details/mein-kampf-audiobook
[1] https://harperandharley.org/pdf/mein-kampf/
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Mein-Kampf-Adolf-Hitler-ebook/dp/B002...
Exactly this. As soon as governments (or lobbyists) discover that this level of control is available to them, they will introduce whatever remaining laws they need, banning E2E encrypted chat apps, or Tor, or bittorrent clients.
I suspect that, like civil asset forfeiture, or running commands on botnet-infected devices[0], these actions will have only the thinnest veneer of "due process" applied to them. After all, if your computer is running "illegal" software, why should the government wait for your permission before deleting that software, or even tell you that it had done it after the fact?
[0] https://uk.pcmag.com/security/139675/us-disrupts-cyclops-bli...
Actually, IIUC this is already the case on Android[0].
Some (many? most?) banks/banking apps are rejecting (and/or complaining about) access from rooted phones right now.
I can't confirm this personally, as I'd rather have my tonsils extracted through my ears than use a surveillance device^W^W smart phone to do anything financially related.
Perhaps someone who uses banking apps on their surveillance device could chime in on that?
[0] https://www.howtogeek.com/241012/safetynet-explained-why-and...
https://boingboing.net/2011/12/27/the-coming-war-on-general-...
https://github.com/jwise/28c3-doctorow/blob/master/transcrip...
Don't know enough about the subject to tell if his "attempts to control general computation will converge on rootkits" prediction has held up.
Soon my old 3G dumbphone will be useless as the mobile operator ends the service. People are pushed to newer phones^W surveillance devices and I have to hunt for real 2G phone soon.
DEF CON 23 - Cory Doctorow - Fighting Back in the War on General Purpose Computers
[0] https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-X-Series-Laptops/BIOS-...
From https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Lenovo_ThinkPad_T14/T14s_(I...
2015: Governments recognize the importance of TPM 2.0 through ISO adoption https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2015/06/29/governmen...
2022: Microsoft Can Kiss My A* | Do You Own Your PC? [Smart App Control] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv5xHfZnk4s&t=163s
The Trojan Platform Module (TPM)
I think it’s also worth asking why he didn’t have more impact despite pretty clearly seeing this problem. Part of the answer has to be resource disparities but I don’t think it’s just that - Linux didn’t really capitalize at all on Microsoft’s lost decade, and much of the innovation in security has happened on other platforms. I think there’s also some kind of blind spot in the open source community where a lot of people see this as something other people need, not them personally.
https://www.virginiamercury.com/2022/07/06/free-speech-group...
That's not always the case: https://www.softwarefreedom.org/blog/2012/jan/12/microsoft-c... "Disabling Secure [Boot] MUST NOT be possible on ARM systems."
Why can't hardware vendors embrace standards-based open platforms like Global Platform [1].
[Edit] Google is also pushing Android Ready SE Alliance [2].
[1] https://globalplatform.org/
[2] https://security.googleblog.com/2021/03/announcing-android-r...
Regarding Bonzi Buddy, I disagree. I think user data is as important, if not more important, than root access - which is why I'm dumbfounded when ancient server security features, like Linux's sudo system, are applied to the consumer device like a PC or a smartphone. These contexts are much better server by a sandboxing, permission-based whatever that seems to pick up steam, like the current permission systems on smartphones. Grandma's logins and bank data will be stolen from her own user account just the same as an admin account. Related XKCD[1]
People fought against that and actually won, 23 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10106870
Unfortunately, that may have been the only victory, as they slowly started introducing a lot of other stuff silently under the guise of "security".
"not secure by design" nowadays comes close to being a coveted feature
Absolutely. As the saying goes, "insecurity is freedom".
As far as scripts for it, this thread has some sage advice:
https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/n3v0s5/disable_win...
The tools to disable telemetry and bloat:
https://github.com/irmatade/sharpapp https://www.oo-software.com/fr/shutup10 https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater
MSFT doc on what all telemetry is gathered, and what is considered "required" telemetry (although they give you enough info to block it at the router):
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/configure-w...
I do like Win10 as an OS. On the whole I'd say the Satya era of MSFT is a mixed bag, but better on the whole than it was before.
[0] When It Comes to Banning Books, Both Right and Left Are Guilty | Opinion: https://www.newsweek.com/when-it-comes-banning-books-both-ri...
At a past job, we used Entrust [0] and I'm aware of Virtru [1] as well.
Edit: I forgot about Sharepoint, which also sort-of fills the ACL document-sharing niche. (though I'm less certain about whether it uses encryption to enforce its access policies)
> The claimed requirement to remove the third party UEFI CA certificate from 2022 Secured Core PCs is entirely unrelated to Pluton (it's required regardless of whether Pluton is enabled or not, and even whether the CPU has Pluton or not)
Pluton is de-facto a Secured Core PC implementation, and Secure Core PCs are also making this change. Thus it effects both Pluton and Secured Core, but the new requirement does not effect non-Pluton and non-Secure-Core systems. Because Secured-Core PCs are currently niche and will no longer exist once Pluton is broadly adopted, Pluton will be the first appearance of this change for the vast majority of users.
If I'm selling a 12th Gen Intel system right now, I can keep the 3rd-party UEFI certificate enabled. If I am selling a 12th Gen Secure Core PC, then this year I must disable that certificate, but my non-Secured-Core PCs can again keep it open. When Pluton arrives, that door must be shut.
You can verify this with Microsoft's Secured Core PC documentation:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/dev...
> Most of the description of Pluton is actually a description of a TPM. You don't need DICE for remote attestation. TPMs are already a hardware keystore.
To an extent. The original TPM is very finicky as documented by the comments on this post and elsewhere - even changing a RAM stick could invalidate the TPM's assertion. For this reason, the TPM was very unideal for DRM due to it's all-or-nothing approach, which Microsoft Pluton does not make the mistake of repeating, allowing for much more granular security that makes it much more easily applied. The second reason why Pluton is much more dangerous is that the TPM could be easily virtualized or hacked over the bus rendering DRM use-cases quite broken, whereas Pluton supports neither weakness, making its DRM potential (again) much more potent. Finally, using DICE, unlike a TPM, the Pluton is explicitly designed to give a computer a permanent identity that can never be erased, which (again) TPM does not guarantee.
Useful HN comment explaining: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25193346
That's actually the big reason why the Remote Assertion is an important point here. The TPM version of it was almost unusable outside of very niche business applications and BitLocker, while with DICE, the Pluton is far more potent. (After all, if TPM worked fine on it's own, why does DICE even exist?)
I think the last point to further back this view I will also add is these comments from a Microsoft employee on the subject.
https://lobste.rs/s/fdguww/dangers_microsoft_pluton#c_tdlo1r
> System firmware is already being updated via Windows Update. The discussion about Pluton and Windows Update is around Pluton getting firmware updates that way (the existing story around firmware updates for TPMs is largely not good)
Microsoft themselves states in Pluton's announcement that Pluton will hardware-integrate with Windows Update for various system firmware, through their "chip-to-cloud" security initiative. To quote them:
"One of the other major security problems solved by Pluton is keeping the system firmware up to date across the entire PC ecosystem. Today customers receive updates to their security firmware from a variety of different sources than can be difficult to manage, resulting in widespread patching issues. Pluton provides a flexible, updateable platform for running firmware that implements end-to-end security functionality authored, maintained, and updated by Microsoft. Pluton for Windows computers will be integrated with the Windows Update process in the same way that the Azure Sphere Security Service connects to IoT devices."
This is a little frustratingly vague and thus part of the reason why Pluton requires some speculation. Judging by the reference to "different sources that are difficult to manage", it appears you don't update Pluton, Pluton updates you. Pluton has an active role in your system's security, whereas TPM was only passive.
1. This would require that Intel and AMD find it less intrusive to build an entire additional SoC into their processors, on whatever node necessary, than to package their software for Windows Update. Also, it leaves out the question, why couldn't Microsoft have required that AMD and Intel just implement a TPM outside of the PSP/ME with similar hardware protections? Intel would have vastly preferred that, as then they could have just marketed it as part of their vPro solution.
2. For RIoT, it was reported by IEEE in their report that the Pluton does implement RIoT, and this report was endorsed by the Vice President of OS Security at Microsoft as the best write-up so far just yesterday (see https://twitter.com/dwizzzleMSFT/status/1551594590087438336). So there is more to the story than you believe on this subject. Unless the Vice President of OS Security at Microsoft who actually worked on Pluton is incorrect, Pluton does have RIoT.
I will dare quote a fair-use bit of the paywalled report:
"Pluton also implements the device identifier composition engine (DICE) specification, as defined by the TCG, along with the Robust Internet of Things (RIoT) specification, as defined by Microsoft, to achieve DICE+RIoT. Using this technology, a device cannot masquerade its boot path; more simply, it provides a strong method for attesting to a device’s current state and status (e.g., patch version, firmware version, etc.). It is important that this is implemented in hardware, rather than firmware, because the hardware which performs the initial measurements and checks on power-on cannot be modified by an attacker. Relying on device attestation rooted in firmware or software is dangerous because if the initial stages of the boot process are compromised then the entire boot process can be falsified and a bogus attestation can be produced. While Microsoft intends for this technology to be compatible with their Azure Attestation service, since it is built using open standards it can be leveraged by any attestation service, which supports DICE+RIoT."
Edit: On that note, I have added an update to the blog post noting this conversation and that while I am not fully convinced of your points, it is also worth reading.
Edit 2: On a third note, I doubt that Microsoft intends "Secured Core" to be a thing that just sticks around forever. Even though this is just speculation, I find it hard to believe Microsoft would not one day make Secured Core or parts thereof (say, everything except the Thunderbolt protection) mandatory. That is yet another possibility, that "Secured Core" become more and more similar to mainline Windows over time. They may have already to OEMs, but I will admit there is no way to prove one way or the other.
The usual rebuttal is "Well, yeah, things are fine NOW, but they're moving the chess pieces into place to do these things LATER". Yawn. I have heard this for 20+ years. See you in another 20...
everything that the article is worried about being enabled by Pluton is already possible, and has been for years.
There's a HUGE difference between "possible" and "very easy to deploy". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29859106
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/613941/tpm-20-is-m...