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

Ed Bott

[bmo]

Ed Bott is nothing more than a Microsoft mouthpiece. Not going to RTFA and almost didn't RTFS because of his name. His hobbies are trolling and shilling for Microsoft.

The only difference between him and Robert Enderle is that Robert is a more honest whore.

--
BMO

Re:Ed Bott

[izomiac]

I read the article and regret it. The author called Dell and HP "spokespersons" and asked about their company's plans. One non-decision-making employee says Dell is currently planning to provide an option, and a similar HP employee has no idea what SecureBoot is, but can confirm that HP is not participating in a conspiracy (the stated question apparently).

So, after two phone calls and an e-mail, the author's fact-checking work is done, so the article moves on to mocking selected quotes by open source advocates. I'll try to remember Ed Bott's name, as he obviously has such high journalistic standards.

Re:Ed Bott

[Zancarius]

Okay, I'll bite. Let's take this article as a fine example of his work:

Allow me to illustrate by turning the argument around in an equally cynical way, with an equally inflammatory rhetorical flourish:

People who make their living in the Linux ecosystem are demanding that Microsoft disable a key security feature planned for Windows 8 so that malware authors can continue to infect those PCs and drive their owners to alternate operating systems.

Oh, wait. Now that I think about it, thatâ(TM)s actually pretty close to the truth.

Bott takes a provocative approach by claiming to "turn the argument around" using "equally inflammatory rhetorical flourish"--then implicitly claims it's "close to the truth." In other words, he's essentially linking malware authors with people who are attempting to drive users toward alternative OSes like Linux. Is it a joke? Maybe, but his last statement leaves one wondering if he really does believe it.

He claims that UEFI will magically prevent rootkits from working simply because the BIOS will then be able to detect mangled files. I'm not sure Bott fully understands the purpose of a rootkit, but if one were well designed, UEFI will achieve nothing toward this goal. Indeed, unless UEFI contained signatures for all Windows system files, I'm quite certain that it would be fairly easy for an interested party to circumvent. After all, the objective of a rootkit is to hide the rootkit from examination, and running one under UEFI would simply require hooking into the OS at points that the UEFI does not check. But no, Bott seems to espouse this technology as magical!

Let's not stop there.

In this article, Bott's original post immediately presumes that the reports of MSE incorrectly flagging Chrome as malware were the fault of the users downloading compromised versions or installing on a compromised Windows install. It seems that it never occurred to him that it could have been a false positive in MSE until after it was confirmed with MS.

Now, before you tell me that I'm nitpicking, consider this: False positives are not at all unheard of with antivirus software. Avira, Avast, AVG, et al, have been known to flag valid, clean software as potentially dangerous, and most sensible people installing something from a known-good source that claims the source file is not compromised will immediately assume it's a false positive and submit it to the AV company. While Bott did the correct thing in submitting it, he dismissed it as the fault of users simply because he couldn't recreate the problem. Ah yes, not a chance that MS could do anything wrong...

Oh, and then there's this wonderful masterpiece in which Bott proudly declares Microsoft's victory. While this may be true--Linux on the desktop is unlikely to become a reality--you have to dig a bit to find that he concedes, quote, "On the server side, of course, Microsoft continues to acknowledge that Unix and Linux are strong competitors." You can tell he was salivating over the prospect, though, never mind that Android is, essentially, Linux under the hood.

And what about his article The Hidden Costs of Running Windows on a Mac? Not only does he go out of his way to point out that you have to buy licenses (hint to you, Mr Bott: you're still buying OEM Windows licenses when you buy a Dell), but he points out possible performance issues and the likes. Honestly, I think this is a true shill piece; if someone has decided that they want to run Windows on their

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: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...

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.