Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sat 29th Dec 2012 16:37 UTC
It's sad that we need this, but alas - Matthew Garret has made a list of Linux distributions that boot on Windows 8 PCs with Secure Boot enabled. Tellingly enough, the list is short. Very short. Can someone hack this nonsense into oblivion please?
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either by leakage
Possible, though highly unlikely. If MS actually operate their signing infrastructure in any sensible way (e.g. the way a public CA is operated), then the root key is only held on an HSM (Hardware Security Module) - a separate tamper-proof purpose-built machine which will never, ever give the secret key out and only execute signing for you. The recent compromises of CAs (Comodo, Diginotar) you heard about were all done by having the attackers trick the CA into signing certificates for other domains. At no point did the attackers actually get to the secret key of the root CA.
or cracking.
As far as I understand it, UEFI is built on asymmetrical cryptography. Unless it was designed by idiots, the shipped machines only contain the public key portion, so it's impossible to retrieve the secret key.
This system seems to have the potential to make the security of data on an MS system worse not better (most people do not have backups) and open new venues for extortion, and problem creating by the cracker community.
Seeing the exploit landscape of late, and please feel free to correct me, boot viruses and worms are pretty much a thing of the past. Nowadays everybody focuses on phishing and browser exploits, since that's where the real money can be made (credit card fraud, on-line banking connection hijacking, etc.). UEFI is a solution in search of a problem (that is, if you believe the official story, that it's about protecting the customer's machine from viruses, rather than protecting the machine from the customer).
Edited 2012-12-30 01:49 UTC
Features
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/13/13 14:35 UTC
The third and final WWDC product I want to talk about is - of course - OS X 10.9 Mavericks. While iOS 7 was clearly the focus of this year's WWDC, its venerable desktop counterpart certainly wasn't left behind. Apple announced OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the first OS X release not to carry the name of a big cat.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/11/13 17:07 UTC
We already talked about iOS 7 yesterday (after a night of sleep, it's only looking worse and worse - look at this, for Fiona's sake!), so now it's time to talk about the downright stunning and belly flutters-inducing new Mac Pro. As former owner and huge, huge, huge fan of the PowerMac G4 Cube - I haven't been this excited about an Apple product since, well, I would say the iMac G4. This is the Apple I used to love.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/10/13 23:13 UTC
Apple held its big keynote event thing at WWDC earlier this evening, but since I was away with friends I've had to read up on it later in the evening. The company announced iOS 7, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, and they gave a preview of the new Mac Pro. Especially the Mac Pro impressed me, and while iOS 7's new Holo/Metro-inspired theme looks messy and garish to me, I do commend Apple for finally breaking the mold. This news item will focus on iOS 7 - I'll dive into the Mac Pro and OS X 10.9 tomorrow (it's late here now).
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/08/13 14:57 UTC
And yes, the PRISM scandal is far, far from over. More and more information keeps leaking out, and the more gets out, the worse it gets. The companies involved have sent out official statements - often by mouth of their CEOs - and what's interesting is that not only are these official statements eerily similar to each other, using the same terms clearly designed by lawyers, they also directly contradict new reports from The New York Times. So, who is lying?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/07/13 11:40 UTC
This story is getting bigger and bigger. Even though most Americans probably already knew, it is now official: the United States government, through its National Security Agency, is collecting the communications and data of all American citizens, and of non-Americans using American services, through a wide collaboration with the large companies in technology, like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on. Interestingly enough, the NSA itself, as well as the US government, have repeatedly and firmly denied this massive spying on Americans and non-Americans took place at all.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/04/13 12:45 UTC
Ah, patents - the never-ending scourge of the technology industry. Whether wielded by companies who don't actually make any products, or large corporations who abuse them because they can't compete in the market place or because they're simply jerks, they do the industry a huge disservice and are simply plain dangerous. According to The Wall Street Journal (circumvention link), president Obama is about to take several executive actions to address patent trolls - which may seem like a good idea, but I am very worried that all this will do is strengthen the positions of notorious patent system abusers such as Apple and Microsoft.
Linked by nfeske on 05/31/13 10:12 UTC
With version 13.05, the developers of the Genode OS Framework take measures to ensure that Genode continues to scale well with a growing number of users and the steadily broadening platform coverage. Further highlights are the improved SoC support for Exynos 5, OMAP4, Raspberry Pi, i.MX, and new components for realizing headless systems.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/29/13 16:59 UTC
At the D11 conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again took the stage to be interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. While most of the interview can be replicated by picking and reading 10 random Apple fanblog stories - there were still a number of very interesting things that warrant some closer scrutiny.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 17:26 UTC
So, the Xbox One disaster continues. Microsoft's policy for dealing with the used games market has reportedly leaked - and it's a clear and direct attack to destroy the used games market. Prices for used games will be set at the retail value of a new game, and retailers have to hook into Microsoft's computer systems and comply with Microsoft's terms and conditions.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:38 UTC
At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!More Features »
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I apologise in advance if this is stupid a lot of people here know more about this than me but ...
My guess is that MS's secure boot key will become available to the maleware cracker community either by leakage or cracking. This will then make it possible to create a rootkit, bootsector virus etc which will run on a secure / restricted boot system.
If this maleware then randomly changes some part of the Windows kernel and an AV removes the the virus this will leave a secure / restricted boot system unbootable. If we combine this with the fact, that many computers now do not come with installation disks but recovery partitions, which return the PC back to factory specs. You get a virus, if you remove it you loose your data. This doesn't seem to be what MS intended, if they intended to make the system more secure, rather than just be anti competitive.
This system seems to have the potential to make the security of data on an MS system worse not better (most people do not have backups) and open new venues for extortion, and problem creating by the cracker community.