You'll take my general purpose computer from my cold dead hands!
Hopefully RISC-V will be enough.
RISC-V is a BSD license, so expect lot's of proprietary bits bolted on.
Lockdown: The coming war on general-purpose computing (2011)
41–50 of 63 posts
Re: Lockdown: The coming war on general-purpose computing (2011)
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple is already doing this. They've recently required that ALL software run on Mac is signed by them, even apps from outside of the App Store. https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=04102019a Not much longer until we can't run software Apple doesn't like at all. Because I shouldn't get a say in what I run on my four thousand dollar computer, of course.
All it takes to disable Gatekeeper is a single Terminal command. All it takes to disable System Integrity Protection is a single Terminal command run from recovery mode. By my count, that is ten minutes of work at most to allow not just unsigned software but unsigned drivers that run at a super low level. Add in a few more Terminal commands and you can even disable really arcane things like amfi [1]. I don't know why…
>Microsoft, by contrast, does not let you permanently disable driver signing on 64 bit Windows
Have you tried the next? (I haven't tried it because I don't have access to a Windows box on which I have admin privs.)
https://windowsreport.com/driver-signature-enforcement-windo...
Re: Lockdown: The coming war on general-purpose computing (2011)
#43I like the essay but it fails to realize the goal posts are not fixed on the field. General purpose computing is alive and well and cheaper than ever, you can build the equivalent of a PC/AT for about $50 in parts. What Cory misses is that when we were building CP/M machines and IBM PC clones, there already was a big pile of computers that were locked down so that somebody else could make money off of you using them.…
It is still possible that large companies apply vertical integration to the extent that general purpose components become difficult to obtain.
Re: Lockdown: The coming war on general-purpose computing (2011)
#44My fear for the future is that any computing device must have a government provided co-processor, and it will not be able to connect to a network without it. Any citizen found with an illegal device would be punished.
Government-provided? Not likely. The state has long since lost (well, more like willingly let slip) control to corporations. You already have those black-box coprocessors, like the Intel Management Engine.
Re: Lockdown: The coming war on general-purpose computing (2011)
#45I like the essay but it fails to realize the goal posts are not fixed on the field. General purpose computing is alive and well and cheaper than ever, you can build the equivalent of a PC/AT for about $50 in parts. What Cory misses is that when we were building CP/M machines and IBM PC clones, there already was a big pile of computers that were locked down so that somebody else could make money off of you using them.…
Even most people interested in computers don't want just some barebones chip on a piece of PCB anymore. They want programmable pocket-carriable device with peripherals, too. That without relying on opaque blobs, without obsolescence plans of the manufacturer, without having to share memory with opaque and dangerous modem. There is NO such thing for $35 and $50, or for any price.
With FPGAs too you can't do anything more involved, like interface DDR memory, without reliquishing control to proprietary blobs on proprietary toolchain, subject to manufacturer obsolescence plans. This isn't something I can call "general purpose computing" with clear conscience.
Re: Lockdown: The coming war on general-purpose computing (2011)
#46When AI gets smart enough to do bad things there will definitely be a lockdown. What happens when you can program your robot to commit crimes for you? You won't be able to load certain types of programs by law. They are already doing this with geofencing for drones.
I disagree. It may be a convenient narrative for those who want to lock down computers, even on the desktop, but remember that our desktop computers have had intelligent agents capable of committing crimes for decades, and it hasn't been a big problem all things considered. Of course, by "intelligent agent" I'm referring to the animal that operates the computer by pushing buttons. If machine learning and other advanc…
You neglect the scale of the damage done in the various crimes. Yes, the person giving the command is tesponsibke, but law enforcement also includes crime prevention. This means keeping the most terrible crime supporting stuff out of the hands of the people (guns, anyone?) and dissuading people from doing bad things.
A network commected computer rarely leads to more than deleted files and leaked data elsewhere. In the hands of capable, well funded hackers, devastating damage could be done to infrastructure these days, but few actors are interested in that and they mostly exist in a space where conventional law enforcement is powerless.
An autonomous roving robot that could be patched to turn into a murderbot is facilitating crimes of a completely different magnitude. There will be political will to rein that in as soon as the possibility becomes real.
This will have an effect on self driving cars as well: these will be locked down completely, mostly by political mandate. And the cause will be reckless hackers building uncertified firmware that is either of low/unproven quality or capable of breaking the law on request in some reckless form or other.
Re: Lockdown: The coming war on general-purpose computing (2011)
#47My fear for the future is that any computing device must have a government provided co-processor, and it will not be able to connect to a network without it. Any citizen found with an illegal device would be punished.
Government-provided? Not likely. The state has long since lost (well, more like willingly let slip) control to corporations. You already have those black-box coprocessors, like the Intel Management Engine.
Pretty sure the NSA can access the IME if they want to. Remote surveillance is build into mobile communication standards as well.
Re: Lockdown: The coming war on general-purpose computing (2011)
#48I like the essay but it fails to realize the goal posts are not fixed on the field. General purpose computing is alive and well and cheaper than ever, you can build the equivalent of a PC/AT for about $50 in parts. What Cory misses is that when we were building CP/M machines and IBM PC clones, there already was a big pile of computers that were locked down so that somebody else could make money off of you using them.…
Great post!
I think it's interesting that some of the distinguishing features of a "real" computer in the 80s (I/O, realtime capability) have become the features of a "toy" computer (Arduino etc.)
Re: Lockdown: The coming war on general-purpose computing (2011)
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Too much fud. Can you download code from github and type ‘make’? Then you can run anything
As long as your build toolchain is available, that is, signed. Signing software is a good idea. Which signatures to trust should be a user's decision, though, with sane defaults.
That is the case. The defaults are 'developers who were vetted by apple', it is up to the user to trust or distrust individual applications and running non-signed ones is trivial.
Re: Lockdown: The coming war on general-purpose computing (2011)
#50I like the essay but it fails to realize the goal posts are not fixed on the field. General purpose computing is alive and well and cheaper than ever, you can build the equivalent of a PC/AT for about $50 in parts. What Cory misses is that when we were building CP/M machines and IBM PC clones, there already was a big pile of computers that were locked down so that somebody else could make money off of you using them.…
"kilocoreseconds"
I read that while taking a break from trying to estimate how many gigabyte-seconds an Azure Function was likely to take :-)