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: 4, Informative) by Deeo Kain on Monday October 10 2022, @12:19AM (4 children)
And support Open Hardware.
Buy from https://www.thinkpenguin.com/, [thinkpenguin.com] https://system76.com/, [system76.com] https://puri.sm/, [puri.sm] https://www.starlabs.systems/, [www.starlabs.systems] any shop that produces and sells hardware with Linux preinstalled.
Failure in making Linux-friendly hardware economically viable and sustainable would cost our digital freedom, so put your money where your tongue is.
(Score: 4, Informative) by maxwell demon on Monday October 10 2022, @05:25PM
To add one more option: My computer is from https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/ [tuxedocomputers.com]
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by HammeredGlass on Monday October 10 2022, @07:28PM
You didn't manage to link a single page correctly and each one of those 404ed
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday October 11 2022, @06:08PM (1 child)
Should do more than buy hardware, and use a free OS.
Right now, independent authors, musicians, and other artists favor copyright by something like 99%. They really believe copyright is the basis on which a career in art must be built. Offer them viable alternatives, and they'll change their opinions. What we have now is a very patchy crowdfunding system.
Another thing I've seen many a time is the employment contract that says anything you invent belongs to the company. Writers who "work for hire" get a raw deal. Many have been victims of Hollywood Accounting.
Worse is the deal the researchers get. In exchange for the very limited fame of being selected for publication, the researcher gets to keep the job. There's an ongoing revolt against that system known as Plan S.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday October 12 2022, @04:21AM
Copyright as such is not bad. The problem with copyright is that it lasts obscenely long, and that it covers also derivative works.
Also don't confuse copyright with “copyright protection” technology.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.