Microsoft Taking Aggressive Steps Against Linux On ARM

New submitter Microlith writes "Microsoft has updated their WHQL certification requirements for Windows 8, and placed specific restrictions on ARM platforms that will make it impossible to install non-Microsoft operating systems on ARM devices, and make it impossible to turn off or customize such security. Choice quotes from the certification include from page 116, section 20: 'On an ARM system, it is forbidden to enable Custom Mode. Only Standard Mode may be enabled' — which prevents users from customizing their security, and in section 21: 'Disabling Secure MUST NOT be possible on ARM systems' to prevent you from booting any other OSes."

Comments

Re:MS Taking Aggressive Steps Against MALWARE On A

[Anonymous Coward]

The trick to being a good shill is to not have your diatribe prewritten to post as soon as the story goes from red to green.

It's a little too blatant otherwise.

Re:MS Taking Aggressive Steps Against MALWARE On A

[Anonymous Coward]

And why not bitch at Apple for locking down OS X and iPhone's too?

But... WE DO BITCH AT APPLE FOR LOCKING DOWN OS X AND IPHONE TOO.

Time for another slapdown

[gweihir]

Seems these criminals have forgotten the last lesson in not behaving anti-competitively already. Time to fine them a few billions to make them remember.

Re:MS Taking Aggressive Steps Against MALWARE On A

[TheBlackMan]

Sir, you are either paid propagandist, or you have no idea what you are talking about.
The security we (Linux users) always wanted was supposed to be on software level, not on hardware level.

Doing anything like this on hardware level is definately anti-competitive.

Re:Sounds anti-competitve to me

[Demonoid-Penguin]

As much as i hate to say it, time to get the Feds involved, again.

Forget piddly sanctions, or even a "breakup". Shut them down once and for all.

If true....

1. They don't care - they happily paid the fines for not separating IE.
2. There's US jobs on the line. (amongst all those work visas)

I haven't had a chance to check the story fully yet - I read the MS pdf - but it doesn't actually say those measure will be applied to all devices. Being able to lock it, and locking it by default are not the same thing.

I suspect the story is true, and that MS will pull a security excuse - they've already managed to convince a lot of people that the internet is the OS, and that Google has the monopoly. And I've never seen any changes in the traditional MS approach to doing business - still no set price for their products and underhand incentives (and disincentives). Maybe if they pull the Sony/Apple appliance excuse the regulators (many of whom MS have hired since their last slap on the wrist) will look the other way.

As the Chinese would say "we live in interesting times".

Re:MS Taking Aggressive Steps Against MALWARE On A

[CrazyDuke]

You are forgetting one of the 10 commandments of propaganda: If you repeat it enough times, people will believe it is true.

And, as a bonus, you'll slowly drive anyone that actually has some grasp of the truth slowly bat-shit crazy thanks to the gas lighting effect; which makes them, and therefor their position, unattractive.

Re:Entirely predictable

[JustNiz]

>> if you buy a Windows device

What is a windows device exactly? Microsoft marketing dept have invented this concept that Windows is somehow hardware. Its not. Windows is an OS. No more.

I buy computers (not Windows devices, or apple devices). I need them to do the things I want. Its my property. I can and should be able to do what I like with it.

Re:Short Corporate Memory

[Pecisk]

They are in despair. They are too late in mobile market. They start to understand that, but they still have this strong hand mentality. They tried it with Windows Mobile - nope, didn't worked. They are tried with lot of different concepts - also wasted. Now the same with ARM notebooks/tablets.

They don't understand that it is too late. People has seen tomorrow without Microsoft. Tablet competition is very strong out there. What is your killer feature? Office? Who needs that? Email, web - it's all there, it's everywhere.

It's bullshit

[Junta]

Plain and simple, bullshit. It's a smoke screen. When malware manages to infect boot sector or equivalent, the attack comes from within the OS. Microsoft has every capability of treating writes to the boot area and EFI configuration as special and performing their own security checks to prevent 'unauthorized' writes to that area (going even beyond their permissions to also require signed code). It still regretably break things like Ubuntu's in-windows installer, but I would accept that wasn't their goal and I think the tradeoff is more defensible. Malware because the computer boots off removeable media 'accidentally' is pretty unlikely in EFI case (where OS forces the firmware to skip all that and go straight to boot loader unless user takes action). Attacks where someone maliciously mangles a system they have complete control of is not even a blip on the radar of malware (it may happen, but certainly nothing worth breaking an entire industry over). Incidentally, 'boot sector' type infections are relatively rare in the scheme of MS malware, most malware doesn't bother to infect the boot area, and still they are all over MS platforms.

Also keep in mind, MS is the *only* party who gets to control those keys. The users are not allowed to add new trusted keys. The hardware vendors are not allowed to put another vendor's keys instead of Microsoft's. The vendor *must* use MS key or no one's at all, they are forbidden from using the facility to the benefit of someone like Red Hat for example. The vendor gets in trouble with MS if they use the facility in a way that would prevent MS code from running. How the *hell* is that possibly considered right in the context of 'just improving their security'?

Re:MS Taking Aggressive Steps Against MALWARE On A

[gweihir]

Ah, the argumentation flowchart is revealed:

1. This is necessary for security
    --> direct lie
2. MS does not have a monopoly on ARM
    --> not relevant
3. Everybody else is doing it.
    --> not relevant and not true

What next? MS really should have paid for some professionals here, not you clowns.

Re:MS Taking Aggressive Steps Against MALWARE On A

[dmesg0]

They do. As do many (probably even the majority) of Android devices. And Symbian devices. And bloody well anything that runs on ARM! The number of locked ARM devices vastly outnumbers the number that are unlocked, or even have the ability to be officially unlocked. Should unlocked ARM devices be the norm? Yes. Is Microsoft's position the norm among every device and OS manufacturer? Also yes.
 

Number one Android devices manufacturer is Samsung, which didn't ever bother to lock their bootloaders. Quite the opposite, they contribute to CyanogenMod and ever hired its top developer. Maybe it's one of the reasons they are number one?

Re:MS Taking Aggressive Steps Against MALWARE On A

[gweihir]

Your argument is bogus. We are talking UEFI here. Why would something be acceptable or even desired on x86, yet on ARM it suddenly is necessary to do the same thing differently? Right, for business reasons, i.e. locking out the competition! And that is exactly what MS is trying to do here. Again.

Face it, you prepared "argumentation" strategy for spinning this is not working.