Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

borncity.com

261–270 of 543 posts

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#261
post #25

In related news - ever wondered why Windows 11 can't be installed on "older computers"? You know, the ones that don't have a TPM chip? Now you know. Windows 11 completes the lock-up of the OS. That's why Windows 11 exists in the first place. All other changes are secondary. Microsoft knows they would've not been able to pull shit like this as a Windows 10 update, so they were effectively forced to do a version increa…

People always say this sort of stuff, but I feel like never really ask, is there any reason why Microsoft would do this? Desktop revenue from apps is small and will get smaller. MS gets that the web will continue to grow larger. I just don’t believe the App Store angle. I don’t think Satya does either. The cloud runs the company now. They did this for a different reason. I just feel like people aren’t even trying to…

My 2 cents, if MS control the app and store, it means no pirated office / sql server running on both servers and development machines.

Open source solutions may also meet a hindrance when they somehow collides with MS's line of business (postgres).

Theoretically Microsoft can get a cut from adobe subscription (no longer puchase, screw them too). They can also potentially force valve or epic for a fee or shared revenue, which is why steamOs are there. Netflix and spotify are also potential targets.

Then no telemetry can be published if MS said so, forcing third parties to deal somehow with MS.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apathetic — no. I’m aware of the control creep in the industry, but I do think that it seems unnecessarily alarmist to think that Apple just can’t wait to lock down macOS. There is nothing to gain by them doing so and I would be incredibly surprised if they didn’t already know that. iOS is and has always been a closed platform. We knew that the day they announced the first iPhone and they have been consistent in thei…

> They would walk away from Macs in an instant if the platform stops being useful to them. Only if there was a better alternative. That is the point, both Microsoft and Apple works towards there not being any better alternatives out there. It wont happen in 5 years, but almost surely in 20, as they have to do it slowly enough for all major programs to get into the appstores. Just have to slowly make it more and more…

>Just have to slowly make it more and more difficult shipping software that isn't in their appstores.

Valve established their Linux presence because they thought MS might force developers ship only through appstore. What is stping others to make the same move if they sense the same danger? Big software companies won't be dilighted to be forced to use the app store. Nor would smaller companies.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The fight is not about which programs the user can run, but who controls the user data But the user data is mostly in the cloud, owned by Apple, MS, Google, Amazon, Facebook. In the future we will be lucky to have apps that work offline with local data.

"In the future we will be lucky to have apps that work offline with local data. " Are you from the past? This here is 2021. And right here, the expensive, professional apps still lets you grudgingly do it, but small/casual apps that work really offline? That became rare. Usually it is mainly server and some local cache, you better take care of, if you are in an area with bad connection. But more and more of my peers…

Office, creative suite, and your flavor of pdf viewer still all work primarily off local files since cloud storage vendors all compete and don’t interconnect except at integration for the endpoint.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a future where laws mandate signed software, the only way out is to somehow make our own hardware. We'll never be truly free unless we can manufacture free computers at home just like we can write free software at home. There is no software freedom if the processor refuses to run our code. Right now the chip fabs require billions of dollars in investments in order to make our processors. They are single points of…

But even if you can somehow make your own hardware, how long until governments start requiring interaction with certain services (health, banking, taxes, etc) be signed by an _approved_ OS/processor combo? Imagine tax software (comercial or gov provided) refusing to work unless you use an OS with TPM support for "security reasons". Or even worse, what would happen if gov regulations started requiring ISPs to stop wor…

That would be oppressive but at least the unfree activities are restricted to the parts of our life where we must deal with authorities. We are still free to do whatever we want with our free computers in all other cases.

> Or even worse, what would happen if gov regulations started requiring ISPs to stop working with non-compliant hardware? I.e. something like requiring network devices to attest they are "oficially" approved before allowing to connect?

Looks like we're going to need a concept of networking freedom as well. Ideally, this will be solved by ubiquitous mesh networks that the government can't possibly hope to ever regulate or outlaw. Practically... We'll probably end up living in some dystopian cyberpunk hell since the vast majority of the population is too apathetic to join this cause and help run this decentralized infrastructure.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#265
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ofcourse they don’t force anything because of the competing windows platform which is more open up to now. Apple assumed market dominance and locked everything down on mobile. What I infer from your observation is that closing down Windows could also adversely affect Mac users, since Apple would not miss this opportunity.

> Apple assumed market dominance and locked everything down on mobile. Apple has about 26% market share on mobile globally, that's not exactly market dominance. Them locking down the platform limits piracy, which is one reason why developing for iOS is much more profitable for many kinds of apps, which causes better apps that drive consumers to the iPhone. That's the reason they put so much energy into locking down t…

Locking things down and snooping are always presented as an advantage. Stoping piracy, stoping CP, stoping drug dealers and so on.

Maybe we should have some company lock us in our houses for safety? You know, if you wander outside you might get robbed.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#266
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But on the other hand people also use Windows because its the default that comes with their new computer. True, but if Windows cannot run the application regular Joe wants, people will just switch to Chrome OS or Apple or Linux (wine?). Sometimes regular Joe's uses more exotic Software we can imagine, and they choose windows because it runs on it since 25 years. Just some examples i have seen: -VisualBasic 6 (for mo…

I've ran a lot of these weird 90s-looking "The OEM did a thing" applications on wine, most work pretty flawlessly. Even a few that talked to hardware (over serial, though). However I don't think you can expect to run e.g. a machine controller on another OS.

Wine is pretty bad for any serious creative software. Tablet pressure support has been broken for an eternity. Alt+mouse combos don't work correctly. There's patches, but they keep getting ignored and broken by whatever else is supposedly more important. I went back to Windows, because Wine's broken contribution process was a waste of time.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a future where laws mandate signed software, the only way out is to somehow make our own hardware. We'll never be truly free unless we can manufacture free computers at home just like we can write free software at home. There is no software freedom if the processor refuses to run our code. Right now the chip fabs require billions of dollars in investments in order to make our processors. They are single points of…

But even if you can somehow make your own hardware, how long until governments start requiring interaction with certain services (health, banking, taxes, etc) be signed by an _approved_ OS/processor combo? Imagine tax software (comercial or gov provided) refusing to work unless you use an OS with TPM support for "security reasons". Or even worse, what would happen if gov regulations started requiring ISPs to stop wor…

I think to do your taxes online in Japan you need an NFC card reader and software b that only works in Windows.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But even if you can somehow make your own hardware, how long until governments start requiring interaction with certain services (health, banking, taxes, etc) be signed by an _approved_ OS/processor combo? Imagine tax software (comercial or gov provided) refusing to work unless you use an OS with TPM support for "security reasons". Or even worse, what would happen if gov regulations started requiring ISPs to stop wor…

I think to do your taxes online in Japan you need an NFC card reader and software b that only works in Windows.

In Brazil, we have a Java application that works on any system with a JVM. It's pretty nice. Why exclude citizens based on their choice of operating systems?

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#269
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stallman was ALMOST right. The fight is not about which programs the user can run, but who controls the user data

Are you aware of the enormous amounts of blood, sweat, and tears expended by people on XDA Developers just to unlock bootloader to use functions as simple as custom gesture controls?

Are you aware of how often they fail?

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have to disagree here. The threat models where the security that TPM offers are mostly applicable to the enterprise and business sectors where all devices on the network/AD/VPN have to be trusted and their storage encrypted. There TPM makes perfect sense. You average consumer/home user does not benefit at all from the features of TPM since they're not subject to the same threat model. Here TPM, and also stuff of t…

To give an example harm caused by the TPM / disk encryption feature in the consumer space: A recently-deceased friend's wife contacted me about getting personal data off from her late husband's computers. I ended up being able to get nothing for her. My friend, no doubt influenced by dementia and paranoia he was feeling, changed the passwords, made no note of them, and subsequently died. The computers in question run…

That has nothing to do with TPM. It's the opposite, in fact. That's software that obeyed user commmands.
Post reply on HN