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posted by janrinok on Sunday October 09 2022, @05:54PM   Printer-friendly
from the pentagon-says-no dept.

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


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Rich on Monday October 10 2022, @11:57PM (1 child)

    by Rich (945) on Monday October 10 2022, @11:57PM (#1275947) Journal

    I have no idea because I'm not a Windows guy. It definitely was past the date where they introduced signed bootloaders. I wouldn't have looked in the BIOS for a switch to disable it, or to enter keys, if that hadn't been an issue by then. It flat out refused to start a Mint DVD I brought, which works on any of the ThinkPads, LifeBooks, or whatever went through my own hands.

    I think I made sure the drive could access the CD from when it had working Windows again, and tried again, so it hasn't been the drive not liking my burner. Or maybe it even threw up an error message mentioning boot logic. But really, I try to waste as little time as possible on Windows, even more so on Windows running on discount store laptops, and also on any technical discussion with people incompetent enough to run that stuff. I forgot the details, and I'm glad I did. I just didn't forget that the incident reinforced my view of all that.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday October 11 2022, @02:12AM

    by ElizabethGreene (6748) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 11 2022, @02:12AM (#1275960) Journal

    I think you're right about the root problem being it's a grocery store laptop. I love our Aldi, but I'd be hesitant to buy any electronics smarter than a toaster from them. Corner-cutting is the bread-and-butter of low-end machines, and corner-cutting in desktops and laptops rarely works out well for the consumer.