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“Microsoft Pluton Hardware Security Coming to Our CPUs”: AMD, Intel, Qualcomm

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Re: “Microsoft Pluton Hardware Security Coming to Our CPUs”: AMD, Intel, Qualcomm

#141

Post by dathinab »

canada_dry wrote: post #104
gruez wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It'll be built into the CPU, instead of having a separate chip so are the trusted execution environments used by fTPMs? >seems to have secret-management functionality for user-specified keys AFAIK TPMs already have that functionality. random search: https://github.com/tpm2-software/tpm2-tools/blob/master/man/... >biometrics, etc. AFAIK some fingerprint readers already use trusted execution environments to handle aut…

The huge difference, and most tin-foil-hat worthy , is that all this functionality is extended to reach the cloud . What's frightening is that - by design - the user will have little/no control or even awareness of what data is being sent or received.

That's most likely based on attestation.

Which means the OS still have full control over what it does send but the "thing" can attest that what the OS sends is valid and not made up.

Re: “Microsoft Pluton Hardware Security Coming to Our CPUs”: AMD, Intel, Qualcomm

#142

Post by floatboth »

gruez wrote: post #47
warkdarrior wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll be built into the CPU, instead of having a separate chip, and seems to have secret-management functionality for user-specified keys, biometrics, etc.

>It'll be built into the CPU, instead of having a separate chip so are the trusted execution environments used by fTPMs? >seems to have secret-management functionality for user-specified keys AFAIK TPMs already have that functionality. random search: https://github.com/tpm2-software/tpm2-tools/blob/master/man/... >biometrics, etc. AFAIK some fingerprint readers already use trusted execution environments to handle aut…

> so are the trusted execution environments used by fTPMs?

AMD PSP for sure is. I think I might have heard something about Intel ME being on the PCH in some cases???

Anyway seems like the point is to make it a "more hardware" TPM rather than a firmware one – i.e. the key memory would only be accessible from fixed function crypto hardware blocks.

Coincidentally, this might mean that the embedded TPM would still work after me_cleaner destroys most of the ME firmware :)

Re: “Microsoft Pluton Hardware Security Coming to Our CPUs”: AMD, Intel, Qualcomm

#143

Post by core-questions »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #134
core-questions wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Virtually every technology that can be used to create a walled garden with moderation can be bent to limit people's ability to speak freely. How long until someone has a device which can go to Netflix, social networking, etc. but doesn't have a web browser on it that can load arbitrary pages, and it's impossible to jailbreak? Since we have no freedom of speech within FAANG properties, that would be a considerable res…

> How long until someone has a device which can go to Netflix, social networking, etc. but doesn't have a web browser on it that can load arbitrary pages, and it's impossible to jailbreak? Such a locked-down device wouldn't really be anything new, we already have Roku, Chromecast, Chromebook, and games consoles. They don't threaten the 'ordinary' PC market.

It's been an incremental war. For context, I've been posting about this for 20 years; during that time all the devices you say "we already have" were invented.

This has eaten away at the average person's computing freedom, ironically while providing them a ton more computing power and capability.

> They don't threaten the 'ordinary' PC market.

Not directly, but think about this:

* I know people who do not own a PC anymore, they just have tablet, phone, and TV. No need, apparently, but...

* This results in a ton of kids growing up without early exposure to general purpose computing

* This has been an increasing trend for quite some time now, and Pluton is just the next incarnation of Palladium, which tells us that Microsoft really does still see a completely captured market in their future. Linux plays a role, but in the embrace-and-extend sense; while WSL helps squeeze Linux out as a desktop OS down on the ground, Microsoft's ownership of Github cements it in the cloud.

I know, I know, old man yells at cloud, I don't expect this train to stop, I just want people to stop and think once in a while about where it might be going. It's OK to dream up worst-case scenarios and then strategize for how you might fend off that eventuality even if it's unlikely.

Re: “Microsoft Pluton Hardware Security Coming to Our CPUs”: AMD, Intel, Qualcomm

#144

Post by core-questions »

fwip wrote: post #103
core-questions wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Virtually every technology that can be used to create a walled garden with moderation can be bent to limit people's ability to speak freely. How long until someone has a device which can go to Netflix, social networking, etc. but doesn't have a web browser on it that can load arbitrary pages, and it's impossible to jailbreak? Since we have no freedom of speech within FAANG properties, that would be a considerable res…

I can't use my shoe to post on Hacker News. Why is it a free speech issue for a device to exist that can go to Twitter but doesn't host your blog for you?

The issue is that the device may not be able to go to blogs hosted outside of the Trusted Ecosystem of Fact-Check Verified Not-Fake-News Websites, one day. Who knows?

Re: “Microsoft Pluton Hardware Security Coming to Our CPUs”: AMD, Intel, Qualcomm

#145

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #27
qayxc wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> will this allow hardware vendors additional means to prevent me from installing Linux? No. Pluton serves as an on-chip secure enclave for encryption keys and the like. This is unrelated to installing operating systems.

Will the final purchaser of the computer chip, i.e., the consumer, have r/w access to the contents of the enclave? EDIT: s/access/r\/w & to the contents of/

Oh silly you, of course not.

Re: “Microsoft Pluton Hardware Security Coming to Our CPUs”: AMD, Intel, Qualcomm

#146

Post by mkup »

pyuser583 wrote: post #108
kmeisthax wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, the Trusted Platform Module itself isn't a DRM solution. It's a chip that hangs off the LPC/ISA bus and holds a crypto key generated from boot stage hashes that your BIOS, bootloader, and operating system provide to it. The idea is that all of those hashes together form a key that would change if any stage were tampered with, and that by encrypting things with the key you can prove that those particular things ha…

Why does MS full disk encryption require TPM?

To solve chicken and egg problem. In order to enter password, you need to boot full OS (with keyboard and display drivers, for example); but to decrypt OS boot drive you need a password (or more precisely, some key material derived from the password). So a copy of that key material is stored in a TPM, and provided to software only if measured boot goes as usual (i.e. this is not a Linux booting from USB thumbdrive).

Re: “Microsoft Pluton Hardware Security Coming to Our CPUs”: AMD, Intel, Qualcomm

#147

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

xvilka wrote: post #78

I wonder if it will be one of the inferior technologies that were forced by Microsoft even outside of their Windows world. Like it happened with UEFI (that has no multithreading, uses PE as a format, Microsoft C ugly coding convention, bloated), SecureBoot (that was designed to stop anything non-Windows instead of real security), UTF-16 (everyone except them and JavaScript uses UTF-8), and so on. The list is long.

Well, it could be worse. Python did the whole Py3k own-goal purely for the purpose of forcing everyone onto UTF-16. (Facepalm, yes.)

Re: “Microsoft Pluton Hardware Security Coming to Our CPUs”: AMD, Intel, Qualcomm

#148

Post by 29athrowaway »

darzu wrote: post #17

I worked extensively with Pluton when I was employed on Azure Sphere (an IoT platform marketed as highly secure and composed of a linux-based OS, ARM SoC, and cloud service). I might be able to answer questions about this. Here’s a blog by the engineer lead on Azure Sphere that discusses Pluton: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/anatomy-of-a-secured-... Disclaimer: I still work at MSFT but in a different org.

Can you explain why an end-user would need this in practice?

Re: “Microsoft Pluton Hardware Security Coming to Our CPUs”: AMD, Intel, Qualcomm

#149

Post by als0 »

floatboth wrote: post #137
cm2187 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A TPM integrated into the CPU makes sense (and I am puzzled why TPMs aren't a standard feature of all MB given the modest cost). But what about that diagram in the article with a link to the cloud? Will this thing phone home outside of the control of the OS?

fTPMs have been standard for a few years now. As I understand it, this Pluton thing is mostly about having a fully "hardware" TPM inside the SoC instead of a "firmware" one.

It's a mix. The keystore is apparently in hardware but there is Pluton firmware to manage it.

Re: “Microsoft Pluton Hardware Security Coming to Our CPUs”: AMD, Intel, Qualcomm

#150

Post by rand49an »

blackearl wrote: post #80
azalemeth wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He says in pretty much literally the opening sentence that it's for DRM: "we want to prevent the piracy of games", and then goes on to justify that their business model involves making a loss on each xbox sold, and wants to ensure that the CPU only runs Microsoft code against the wishes of the Xbox owner. A later direct quote is "the fundamental difference between Windows security and Xbox security is that the owner…

Is that on the newest Xbox? Saw articles earlier that you can simply switch to dev mode and run retroarch emulators already.

All apps on Xbox run in as VMs in a modified HyperV environment so that should be pretty straightforward.
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