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Volume 189 of The PCLinuxOS Magazine has an article on Bill Gates' evil prophecy from 40 years ago where he aims for ending general-purpose computing. He achieves that goal a step at a time over the decades, with the help of many a mole and quisling. Lately, the Pluton chip and Restricted Boot play both play key roles towards ending this era of general-purpose computing. The Pluton chip is an extension of the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) used by Vista10 and required by Vista11. Canonical, the maker of Ubuntu, and even its upstream source, Debian, folded years ago in regards to secure boot by using Microsoft's signing key, possibly cementing that as the norm. The article covers that and many other incidents leading up to the current situation.
There is an ever-decreasing amount of time left to keep general-purpose computing alive and the author signs off with how to approach the political maneuvers going on:
The implications are already starting to show
At the beginning of the year, Matthew Garrett, the researcher who created the UEFI bootloader for Linux (which I do not agree with at all, as it sets a precedent for Microsoft to abuse the market, with its position of power, should not be allowed under any circumstances) said that the Pluton chip was not an attack on users' freedom to use whatever operating system they wanted, which was not a threat.
In July 2022, he recanted, when he was unable to install Linux on a high-end Thinkpad Z13, complaining that this was not a legal practice by Lenovo.
But, that's what Microsoft wants. Under the guise of enforcing security, it blocks the machine's access to the user himself, being the gatekeeper of personal computing. In other words, "my" microcomputer is over. From now on, it will be Microsoft's microcomputer, and only what it allows will run...[sic]
It is up to us, the users, to boycott AMD products that contain the Pluton chip, to favor recycled or refurbished computers. And there is still more to do:
- Support the Free Software Foundation's campaigns against Windows 11
- Support the Right to Repair movement, in the person of Louis Rossman, one of the most prominent activists of this movement
- Bomb your congressmen with emails & phone calls, so that Microsoft is legally pressured not to go ahead with the Pluton project.
So folks, things have never been so in jeopardy as they are today. Microsoft wants to be the big brother, and dictate what everyone can run on their computers, under the benevolent guise of ensuring security. We can't afford that, or the future of personal computing and privacy will be ruined.
Finally, let's not forget that anyone who says they don't need privacy because they have nothing to hide is the same thing as not defending freedom of speech, because they have nothing to say...[sic]
Let's fight this! The scenario is ugly, and the battle will be hard!
However, procrastination by using only old or refurbished computers does nothing to address the cause of the problem. There is a finite supply of old equipment, anyway, and eventually they will run out. If there are no new general-purpose laptops, desktops, and servers in the pipeline by then the era of useful computing will have drawn to a close.
Previously:
(2022) Responsible Stewardship of the UEFI Secure Boot Ecosystem
(2020) Red Hat and CentOS Systems Aren't Booting Due to BootHole Patches
(2018) First-ever UEFI Rootkit Spotted in the Wild
(2014) Rootkits Target 64-bit PCs - Secure Boot Is Not Always Secure
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday October 09 2022, @06:19PM (23 children)
The author is outraged at Microsoft's play to take control of personal computers, but probably owns a cellphone that is his, yet is entirely under the control of a creepy giant big data company hell-bent on extracting as much data as possible from everybody on Earth, and has been for a decade and a half now.
Why isn't he outraged about that too uh?
Cuz I sure am. I've been hopping mad since those goddamn devices appeared on the scene. And for some odd reason, nobody seems to bat an eyelid over the astonishingly frightening level of control Google and Apple have over the mobile computer of essentially everybody on the planet, that hold's a goodly portion of everybody most private data, and that is increasingly impossible to live without.
How nobody is scared to death and outraged over this, and why no government seems to be reacting even a little bit is totally beyond me.
Microsoft controlling PCs... Yeah. But please go after Google and Apple first. Because THEY are much more dangerous and they're already completely entrenched.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday October 09 2022, @06:57PM (16 children)
Implication #1 of the current cell phone OS landscape: projects that I could easily develop on cellphone hardware are instead developed on different, more open hardware - or sometimes not developed at all.
Implication #2: my cellphone (and associated cloud services) are the sole repository of exactly zero data of value of mine. If it means anything to me it is backed up on external SSD devices that I can easily access from a variety of hardware and OSs. I do tend to over rely on data storage by PCs I control and fail to backup sufficiently, but the cloud and or my phones: zero trust.
Implication #3: my phone is mostly a dumb terminal, it takes photos, records videos, connects me to voice and video calls, serves as a 4G-WiFi bridge hotspot, shows me news, and I'm tapping this post on it now, but all of these are ephemeral connection activities. It does virtually nothing when it is "away" from my attention, unlike most of my other computing devices and services. The phone is a non exclusive portal for most things, though it is the only thing I use regularly for voice calls on the POTS network.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Sjolfr on Sunday October 09 2022, @07:40PM (5 children)
Just be aware that most people have neither the information nor the technical thought processes to consciously split their processing workload so discretely. The vast majority of people just use what they can afford, which means one device a lot of the times. That means they use their phone for everything.
Regardless, having the ability to work around these problems is not the answer. They shouldn't BE problems to begin with. So many linux distributions are just marketed pieces of junk these days. They do not adhere to open standards like they should. Most don't even adhere to basic standards of practice anymore. I kind of wonder if there will ever be a day when root is no longer directly accessible. Some linux distros are heading in that direction.
The only saving grace in linux is that the kernel is still owned and managed by technical people via opensource licenses instead of bureaucratic agendas.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday October 09 2022, @11:27PM (4 children)
About 15 years ago, Nokia was in the process of mismanaging their Linux based smartphone project, slowly killing all my hopes and dreams of such a useful and self-manageable device. Then Microsoft bought them...
Some years later, the Jolla project put more nails in the coffin...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by canopic jug on Monday October 10 2022, @05:42AM (3 children)
Close but not quite. The mismanagement of their Linux-based smart phone did not start until Microsoft's Elop arrived and then started killing Nokia [blogs.com]. If you dig around enough in articles from 2010, you'll find that Nokia's Linux-based phone was getting better reviews than the iPhone -- up until Elop killed the line. If you're wondering why he sold of the headquarters and did other things to drive the company into the ground post haste, you'll also find some article from a little later exposing the fact that the Nokia board of directors had signed Elop up with a contract containing a $25 million bonus if he sold the company to M$. They did that while lying about it being just another standard contract.
Tomi Ahonen's site [blogs.com] has a real treasure trove of well-documented analysis from that time, 2010 and a few following years. Without Nokia's Linux-based line of phones, the market became stale, uninnovative, and a duopoly between Google and Apple. While M$ Windows-based Lumia failure peaked out at approximately 3% of all sales, activation statistics show that less than half of them actually saw any use at all. They were still outnumbered by non-Nokia Linux-based phones. Lumia quickly went away. Now the market is just Android versus iPhone with Jolla not even being a statistical error and had been for a long while about 85% Android and 14% iPhone. However, now that has shifted greatly especially in some markets like in the US. Currently, in the US over 50% of the smartphones are iPhone [petapixel.com].
Phones are not general-purpose computers even though they are basically portable super computers. Anecdotally, I can say that I no longer know anyone who has written programs (aka "apps") for either iPhone or Android who was not already being paid to do so professionally. Both Apple and Google have made it increasingly difficult to get custom software onto the phone, especially via their "app" stores.
Smartphones are also terribly inefficient to use for any type of computing activity, so you have to wonder about the loss of productivity and output at a global scale, too, when so many try to do a task on a smartphone instead of waiting a few minutes and getting the same task done in a tenth the time and effort on a normal desktop or laptop.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday October 10 2022, @10:39AM
Matter of perspective... Being Nokia, the hardware was in good shape, but the Qt software development had a number of internal to Nokia developers who later said the smartphone project was a smoldering dumpster fire.
A lot of this came out during Jolla development, then Jolla mismanaged their finances and hardware release, and never quite got traction for their OS work...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday October 10 2022, @10:47AM
As for software development on a single smartphone, that's not too hard to do. Where it falls apart is when the OS updates and shifts the landscape sufficiently to require significant rework, particularly of the interesting features which are constantly labeled "security risk" and given new APIs, debatable whether they get any more secure, but clearly they obsolete a lot of applications that would otherwise have continued to work.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday October 10 2022, @11:14AM
As to the inefficiency aspect, that's a matter of perspective. At the moment my mechanical keyboard and 25" monitor are in the same room as my sleeping wife, so while I could type this 3x or more faster on that interface if I could access it, in reality I can type this infinitely faster right now on my phone as compared to later when it won't happen due to higher priority tasks both on and off the computer.
Somehow, quite illogically, it has become socially acceptable to bury your face into a 7" screen and occupy both hands tapping the touch screen in all kinds of settings where "real" computers are rejected due to their physical bulk.
While smartphone interfaces are horribly slow and inefficient compared with the things they are replacing, their killer advantage is the constant availability of those clunky interfaces. Mine is a entertainment center computer remote, both through VNC and ssh, a garage door opener, IOT light switch controller, home thermostat control from anywhere (as in: left on a 7 day vacation and forgot to set the thermostat to economy...) And, it's a really crappy email and message board interface.
For professional work away from my home desk, I carry a laptop (itself not quite as good as my "real" computer with mouse, big screen and better keyboard) and the phone becomes an internet hotspot. But for just being aware of incoming email and maybe tapping out a quick reply, the phone itself is capable... Actually, I carry two laptops (in a backpack) one with the corporate approved IT maintained Windows image that lets me access the company VPN and various "work apps" that don't work without that access, and an Ubuntu laptop that I do the bulk of my work on; no, dual boot is not allowed or possible with the corporate image, because: security, of course.
Every interface has its compromises, it's not surprising that the handheld one available for a low monthly payment is winning the popularity contest, and also is subject to the most intense corporate abuses of privacy.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Touché) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday October 09 2022, @07:48PM (9 children)
Keep telling yourself that.
The traces of you doing all that how when and where is called metada, and given enough of it - actually surprisingly little - Google gets to know more about you than you know yourself.
Your cellphone is constantly at work reporting to various motherships about what's going on around it several times per minute.
Your valueless data is highly prized by Google, Apple and their advertiser clients for monetization. They don't give a shit what value it has to you: it's the money it brings them that matters to them.
You are quite amazingly naive...
(Score: 3, Disagree) by c0lo on Sunday October 09 2022, @11:26PM (5 children)
What a way to miss the point.
Put it this way: (maybe there are other that can't, but) I can stop using a smart mobile anytime or restrict its use so that any tracking it does is meaningless for profiling me.
But I cannot stop from using a computer, as I'm not going to write code or run CAD on a mobile any time soon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Deeo Kain on Monday October 10 2022, @12:30AM (4 children)
Phones are NOT dumb terminals!
They can do and are used to do whatever can be done with a laptop: email, browsing, private messaging, video and audio messaging, banking, crypto transactions, and so on.
You could "stop using a smart mobile anytime or restrict its use" just like you could stop using your workstaion or restrict it's use.
The point is that when you're using your phone the FAGAM tribe gets access to all your activities. The only safe phone is the one you do not use, that you actually NEVER use!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10 2022, @01:59AM (1 child)
False.
As examples, on my laptop, but not on my phone, I can:
- run FreeCAD and the 3d printing slicer
- run kicad
- build a custom Linux kernel
- typeset a PhD thesis in Latex
- build apps that run on (Android) smart phones
And, of course, my laptop is able to do all the "email, browsing, private messaging, video and audio messaging, banking, crypto transactions, and so on".
With a VoIP server at home, I can even arrange to make or receive voice phones using my laptop.
(Score: 2) by Deeo Kain on Tuesday October 11 2022, @09:05PM
True.
You can run a full Linux distro under Android.
Desktop apps have their smartphone's equivalent.
And I never stated or implied you cannot do on a desktop what you can do on a phone, so your point is moot.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday October 10 2022, @02:29AM (1 child)
Indeed. They are reduced intelligence terminals coupled with a range of sensors that spy on you.
This being said, trying to escalate the battle for "my computer should be mine" to all devices will make one lose everywhere.
I can abstain from making use of a smart phone (and replace its functions with dedicated devices + laptop which are "all mine") but I can't abstain from the use of my computer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Deeo Kain on Tuesday October 11 2022, @09:07PM
The "my computer should be mine" principle should be escalated to any device that could potentially have any relevant impact in your life. Failure in doing so is going to be a big loss for everyone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2022, @11:29PM (1 child)
Well, it can try but, without a SIM card and with a restricted firewall on wifi, it's not gonna succeed.
(Score: 2) by Deeo Kain on Monday October 10 2022, @12:34AM
Then it would no longer be a phone and a portable device.
You could perhaps fine-tune your home firewall, but what about when you're in shops, parlors, areas with public WiFi available?
You have no control over those devices and networks.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday October 09 2022, @11:55PM
Oh, it's a dumb terminal that mines all my data including GPS location and ambient speech.
We had a friend visit who mentioned some obscure band she used to follow like a groupie - no searches performed, no Gmail containing the name, nada, but out of the blue I started receiving frequent news articles about the band for a month after that ambient speaking of their name in our house.
I get a reminder every month about my GPS track history which goes back many years now. I'll usually review it, and it remembers where I have gone (or, at least where I took my phone) better than I do. If I ever don't want to be tracked, I'll leave my phone home. Since I work from home now, it would be hard to notice that as unusual. If I need POTS access while out on my secret journey, cash payment for a burner is possible, but that hasn't been a need of mine for a long time now.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday October 09 2022, @08:54PM (3 children)
What's stopping you from installing LineageOS or any of the other 1001 roms without the google play store services and apps? I've run my phone like that for years and it was perfectly fine. Only problem is the baseband rom (and to a lesser extent, their GPU blobs). But that's Qualcomm's; Not Google's.
compiling...
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday October 09 2022, @09:48PM (2 children)
Same difference. They are bookends
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday October 09 2022, @10:03PM
There's some truth in that I'll give you that much.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday October 10 2022, @11:29AM
While Qualcomm isn't much better than Google, at least without the main line Android installed your data is only being mined by law enforcement and the various "anti terrorist" government programs, legal and extra legal. So if you find the commercial data mining and targeted advertising offensive, that will stop, but you would be naive to think that any less data is being collected, stored, analyzed....
Personally, I feel that Google is doing a tremendous social service by defaulting to settings which put the collected data in your face. Getting a reminder that your flight leaves in 2 hours and that, in current traffic, you are a 45 minute drive from the airport, when all you did was receive an email with your flight info in it... that makes, at least some, people think about the implications of all this data mining, and hopefully shapes society a little better for everyone to benefit from it, rather than just the select few who have access to the data streams.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Touché) by Deeo Kain on Monday October 10 2022, @12:40AM
What makes you think he's not outraged about that?
Writing about a different topic does not makes all the other topics irrilevant or acceptable.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday October 10 2022, @02:45AM
The author has ranted about other similar takeovers; IIRC there was one a while back about Google sucking shit out of your phone. This article isn't an isolated observation. But the magazine's purpose is not editorializing, so it' s not an everymonth thing.
Tho the PCLOS philosophy has a strong streak of "Oh yeah? Try and make me."
(Yeah, it's my favorite distro, by a long shot.)
Otherwise... agreed, the Google/Apple datamonster has gone way too far toward being a real-life Skynet. And IMO the Chromebook was conceived to eject Microsoft from the desktop market, and only failed because it wasn't sufficiently fit for purpose to suck up consumers, let alone enterprise business.
And wouldn't THAT have been a digital hell...
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.