No Windows 8 Plot To Lock Out Linux

First time accepted submitter Bucky24 writes "ZDNet's Ed Bott decided to contact major PC makers to find out the truth about Windows 8 SecureBoot. The responses are encouraging for those of us who run third party operating systems. Dell plans to have a BIOS switch to allow SecureBoot to be disabled, and HP assures us that they will allow consumers to make their own choice as to what operating system to run, though they have not given details as to how."

Comments

Wow, quite the article...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

While nice, if true, to hear that OEMs will be doing (part of) what people would like to see(specifically, having an option to disable 'secure boot' is better than nothing; but what you really want is the option to do a keyfill with trusted keys of your choice: signed boot components make good sense, it's just not being able to choose who is trusted to sign them that is an issue); this article could hardly be any smarmier or less informative.

"In response to the FUD campaign of the freetards, I asked some PR people. Dell said 'yes', HP emitted word salad, AMI said that they would do whatever their customers felt like. Case Solved!" If it weren't for the smirking invective, the whole thing could have been boiled down to a single paragraph(or, heaven forfend, bulked out with technical information...)

Re:Wow, quite the article...

[hedwards]

At that point, you might as well ditch it completely and just have a special boot chip that can be made writable via jumper and most of the time set to read only.
It would solve the problem without the need for such a scary possibility as the vendor being able to lock you out of your OS of choice.

Re:Wow, quite the article...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

As best I can tell, EFI was what happened when somebody looked upon the BIOS, saw that it sucked compared to the OS, and decided that(rather than building a new firmware aimed at getting into the OS as simply and quickly as possible) they would build a BIOS large enough to possess every vice of an operating system and leave implementation to the capable hands of the PC OEMs, whose dedication to software quality is legendar...

Load your own keys?

[tchuladdiass]

I want to leave secure boot enabled, but put me in charge of the keys. That is, I want to load my own public keys into the system (through a secure channel, such as a bios screen or flipping a physical switch, for example).

I doubt that Microsoft would try this

[MrKevvy]

They were successfully sued (albeit more of a slap on the wrist) for antitrust violations simply for bundling a browser with an operating system.

Colluding with hardware manufacturers to actually lock out rival operating systems making them an enforced monopoly is several orders of magnitude more severe. Why would they risk that when other operating systems have such a tiny market share anyways? The possible penalties are not worth it for a small increase.

Re:I doubt that Microsoft would try this

[walterbyrd]

MS would just say that the hw makers decided to do it. Besides, MS never gets more than a slap on the wrist.

Why would MS do this? The same reasons that MS funded the scox-scam, and bribed officials in the OOXML scam.

Re:Ed Bott

[hedwards]

He's probably technically correct that it isn't a plot to lock out Linux. In practice though, I'd be surprised if it didn't end up like ACPI early on, where MS' implementation was the only one that many vendors bothered with, opting not to fix bugs that MS had a workaround for.

Re:Duh

[Sasayaki]

For now.

Features like this tend to creep their way in slowly.

- It's something you can turn on.
- It's on by default, but you can turn it off easily.
- It's on by default and you need a CS degree to turn it off.
- It can only be turned off by hacking your system.
- It can only be turned off by hacking your system, and this is illegal to do.

Re:Not really that surprising

[betterunixthanunix]

even normal people will look for "just in case" they want to try out this Linux thing or whatever

The last time I dealt with a "normal person" buying a computer, the conversation went like this:

Me: "...this has 2 gigabytes of ram, which should last you a few years."
Her: "It's so ugly! What about that one, that one looks prettier!"
Me: "That one has a lower end processor and less memory. Are you sure you want something that is less capable?"
Her: "Look they are letting me pick the color!"

Non-technical people are just that: non-technical. Computer makers and especially Apple know exactly how to take advantage of such people, which is what "secure boot" is all about. This is about ensuring that customers can be locked into DRM-laden platforms, plain and simple. Dell will probably have the option described in TFA...in their high end workstations, that are prohibitively priced, with the option disabled for "consumer" systems. My guess is that this will not happen in the first generation of systems with "secure boot," but more likely in the second or third generation, when more "strategic" platforms are deployed out of the box for which DRM is a key part of the control.

Re:Careful there...

[Rogerborg]

Uh... it's not ad hominem to point out that the listed "experts" have a track record of being wrong, wrong and wrong again, and have been repeatedly caught with their hands in Microsoft's pockets.

Groklaw (under Pamela Jones) has called things correctly far more often than not.

Full Disclosure: On a personal note, I detest that whiny martyr PJ and her horde of White Knight sycophants, but I do have admit that it's hard to find examples of her getting things wrong.