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Torvalds Opposes Tying UEFI Secure Boot to Kernel Lockdown Mode (phoronix.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Phoronix:
The kernel lockdown feature further restricts access to the kernel by user-space with what can be accessed or modified... Pairing that with UEFI SecureBoot unconditionally is meeting some resistance by Linus Torvalds. The goal of kernel lockdown, which Linus Torvalds doesn't have a problem with at all, comes down to "prevent both direct and indirect access to a running kernel image, attempting to protect against unauthorised modification of the kernel image and to prevent access to security and cryptographic data located in kernel memory, whilst still permitting driver modules to be loaded." But what has the Linux kernel creator upset with are developers trying to pair this unconditionally with UEFI SecureBoot. Linus describes Secure Boot as being "pushed in your face by people with an agenda." But his real problem is that Secure Boot would then imply Kernel Lockdown mode... "Tying these things magically together IS A BAD IDEA."
Essentially what the corporations want is for people to only user the Internet via locked down ("approved" or "secure" devices). These devices will only have cloud based storage available and everything will be streamed from servers and the consumer will only need to pay a monthly fee for all this goodness. If you don't think this will happen, think of the children, or the terrorists, or the terrorist children, or security, or whatever the problem is this week.
OK, so how DO you keep the bad people out? Ideology certainly isn't working. Saying pretty-please isn't either.
What does any of this mean?
You are in the wrong article..
Try again.
I bet you dream of being his toilet.
In your fantasy, he's going to prison FOREVER? Where? Azkaban? You're clearly in a paranoid delusional leftist fantasy, so I guess Azkaban makes senseS
uefi secure boot won't "keep the bad people out" either. In fact, uefi secure boot is a vehicle to take control away from you-the-computer-owner, and as such is the vehicle of bad people looking out for themselves using your hardware.
that unlike sir tim berners-lee, linus is not a complete sell-out and actually does put his foot down when it seems called for.
First, kernel lockdown in no way restricts which drivers you might have running. If you want to *change* which drivers you have running without rebooting, you'll need to *sign* the new module. Absolutely nothing prevents you from signing an open-source module. The command is:
scripts/sign-file sha512 kernel-signkey.priv kernel-signkey.x509 module.ko
(Or just set check the box to sign all modules in make menuconfig).
Sign-file signatures work for both secure boot and the kernel restriction. For the kernel, the first time you ever sign a module you enroll your public key with keyctl.
How stupid can this be? You put everything on ROM. No time wasted 'loading' this and that. Who thought that shit up to begin with? A computer should always be in a ready to run state, just apply power.
The key only needs to be available while installing a new kernel (not all the time), and only on one system in your organization.
Without the protection:
At any time, any system on your network can have kernel-level code changed, from userspace.
With the protection:
Before you deploy a new kernel across your network, plug your USB stick with key into your build system in order to allow dkms to build and sign the module. Then unplug the stick so that your kernel can't be changed without you doing it.
It gives you control of when and where your kernel can be changed, by dkms or any other program.
just integrate it with SystemD already!
It seems to Tivoization
The corporate mindset is diametrically opposed to the concept of ownership. This applies to computers, phones, game consoles, books, John Deere Tractors, and cars. Hey corporations, I bought this thing and can do anything that I damn well please with it.
If you shove a some contract in front of me that tries to strip my rights, I walk. You just lost yourself a customer and sale for life.
If you sue your customers for restoring functionality to their game consoles, you can expect a boycott of your products for life.
If you tell your customers that they have to have their oil changed at the dealership or else violate the DMCA, screw you. May everyone who learns of your crap stop doing business with you.
We're not just talking about the corporate nameplates. We are talking about the executives behind this treachery. It's time to start making a list.
Well now Microsoft is investing more and more into open source and putting out linux updates like a champ, we might say they really care about what will happen. In this regard I can suggest the outcome that if L.T. does not bend (and he usually does not) they might even fork to ensure they have their version of linux the way they want it.
Using tons of evidence Thomas Piketty points out in his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century that capital will naturally always grow at a higher rate than the rate of economic growth (read: wages).
From Wkipedia: "The book's central thesis is that when the rate of return on capital (r) is greater than the rate of economic growth (g) over the long term, the result is concentration of wealth, and this unequal distribution of wealth causes social and economic instability."
The rentier capitalist state is pretty much a done deal IMHO. The software subscription model being but a single case in point -- not to mention the cloud.
Remember the property grab during the last bubble burst? For those who are prepared with lots of cash these deflationary episodes are a peak opportunity. Market makers do their best to engineer them periodically (but not too often) to get equity at fire-sale prices as well as to scoop up real property, which can be rented, mined, developed, farmed, resold etc. Real estate is especially attractive in the long run because in the end there really is only land -- as any aristocrat will tell you. Control the land and you control.... everything. A few more bubble bursts and voila! Eighteenth Century France.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
Why should Trump be tied to a prison toilet? He isn't under investigation for criminal activity.