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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, 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]