And for those of us who simply do not trust Big Brother MS to forgo giving us an
Atomic Wedgie... My next system upgrade will have Coreboot if that is even
remotely possible. I prefer OPEN to Closed pretty much every time.

So far so good. What kind of system do you prefer? Is there any particular system you want to see supported? I work on Asus F2A85-M or check the wiki pages for other possibilites.

Thanks
Rudolf



Gary


On Sat, Jan 5, 2013 at 6:52 AM, Patrick Georgi <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:

    Am 2013-01-05 15:03, schrieb Andrew Goodbody:

        Ahh, sorry I missed that detail didn't I? That's really good to know.

    It's not as obvious, since that's a payload feature, not coreboot itself.


        And here is the crux of the issue. Distribution and management of
        keys is a major problem be it coreboot or Secure Boot.

    The major issue is the (lack of) willingness of vendors to hand over control
    over devices to their customers (who _bought_ the devices) like they used 
to.

    Key management is a minor technical detail - chrome devices have the proper
    implementation (hardware switch to indicate user override), Shim provides
    the best possible solution within the UEFI secureboot framework, as long as
    key enrollment is at all possible.


        Agree 100%. I do not understand why people are lumping Intel in with
        Microsoft on this one.

    Probably because UEFI is considered Intel's brainchild, even though it's a
    huge committee these days.


        I actually find the fact that Microsoft bowed to the public outcry
        and added the requirement for key enrolment to be an encouraging
        thing. If there is a single message that is not fuelled by paranoia
        and FUD then changes can actually be made.

    The other reason for allowing secure boot to be disabled is Windows 7. And
    if they allow it to be disabled, it doesn't hurt to allow key enrollment.

    We don't know _what_ pressure made them change their mind. It's possible
    that PC vendors would have refused Windows 8 Logo for 2013/2014 devices to
    keep Windows 7 (or even XP) compatibility around for their business 
customers.

    If you want to discern Microsoft's actual intentions, it's best to look at
    the platforms that aren't bogged down by compatibility requirements: Win64
    introduced mandantory driver signatures (since old 32bit drivers didn't run
    anyway), Windows on ARM introduced mandantory Secure Boot (with no custom
    key enrollment in sight).


        Just FYI MS have been controlling PC hardware since they released the
        PC98 specification so this is not a new move on their part but it is
        an escalation.

    Sure, but it shows that pointing to the UEFI spec (and its siblings, PI and
    so on) isn't enough. What actually happens on devices out there is defined
    by Windows Logo requirements (and they're generally good ideas even, and
    forced BIOS vendors to fix their code for a while now. For example,
    Windows7+ explicitely tests that BIOS doesn't mess up the <1MB RAM area on
    suspend/wakeup, because BIOS commonly did so).

    Summary:
    - Verified boot processes work with coreboot and UEFI alike (within their
    respective world views)
    - UEFI Secure Boot is driven by Microsoft, not (as much) by Intel
    - Microsoft's motivation is partly to provide a secure environment (after
    their embarassing history of Windows (in)security)
    - Microsoft won't shed a tear if they get away with killing competition via
    "security" initiatives
    - UEFI Secure Boot key management is done by the old Microsoft/Verisign
    team. Probably out of convenience (they have some history of managing driver
    signatures), but politically unwise any maybe malign.

    So while Secure Boot is a nice idea if kept user-overrideable, it's in the
    wrong hands with no existing process to resolve that (UEFI Forum is the only
    semi public instance in that ecosystemen, it's paid-membership based, and
    they're also not responsible for the implementation of key management we 
have).

    The remaining theoretical option within the UEFI ecosystem is to pressure
    the UEFI Forum members to define secure boot overrides mandantory on all
    device classes in all future versions of UEFI. That way control over this
    dangerous feature is taken away from Microsoft and brought into the forum,
    which has a broader interest base than just Microsoft's.
    I doubt that could happen, but I'll be truly happy to be proven wrong here.

    The other option is to keep coreboot viable. Since I'm more technically
    inclined, that what I'll aim for.


    Patrick


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