Technology

81653 readers

4417 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related news or articles.
Be excellent to each other!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

L3s@lemmy.world

enu@lemmy.world

technopagan@lemmy.world

L4s@lemmy.world

L3s@hackingne.ws

141

The creator of systemd wants to bring SecureBoot-enforced hardware attestation to Linux (0pointer.net)

submitted 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) by namingthingsiseasy@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world

54 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The creator of systemd (Lennart Poettering) has recently created a new company dedicated to bringing hardware attestation to open source software.

What might this entail? A previous blog post could provide some clues:

So, let's see how I would build a desktop OS. The trust chain matters, from the boot loader all the way to the apps. This means all code that is run must be cryptographically validated before it is run. This is in fact where big distributions currently fail pretty badly. This is a fault of current Linux distributions though, not of SecureBoot in general.

If this technology is successful, the end result could be that we would see our Linux laptops one day being as locked down as an Iphone or Android device.

There are lots of others who are equally concerned about this possibility: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46784572

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] arcine@jlai.lu 20 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

The option of having a full auth trust chain would be nice for some security applications, but the implication that it could be made compulsory is terrifying.

[–] Azzu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 hour ago

You can already secure boot if you want. But like always, you gotta set it up yourself in a complicated manner :D

[–] sunbeam60@feddit.uk 4 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

It’s Linux. In what world do you imagine there wouldn’t be 87 forks that went in a different direction.

Linux cannot be controlled, at least as it stands today.

When Linux disappears I have some fears. But jerk as he may be, he’s also incredibly effective at keeping it open.

[–] vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

In what world do you imagine there wouldn’t be 87 forks that went in a different direction.

In every world. Linux is not just the codebase, it's all the developer work going into it daily. Hundreds of forks and downstreams can pick whichever direction they want, most of that work will still be directed one way.

[–] sunbeam60@feddit.uk 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

But this proposal for a full auto-chain isn’t a proposal by Linus and many thousands contributors. It’s the proposal of a commercial entity that doesn’t control Linux in any way.

[–] tomalley8342@lemmy.world 2 points 47 minutes ago

Yes, this commercial entity founded by people who have a literal track record of doing exactly that