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Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

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Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really good news and I'm glad they decided to do that.

All this does make Microsoft sound very reasonable, actually. People have been painting dystopian pictures of an ultra-locked down hardware future, complete with evil corporate overlordship etc for many years. Really as long as I've been using computers. Yet, here we are in 2021 and not only old hardware is still open but newly designed hardware too, and Microsoft has even been ensuring that platforms which didn't ge…

Given Microsoft's losses with eg Windows mobile, their late entry into the cloud space, giving up on making their own web browser (engine), Microsoft's forced to play nice in order to compete.

I don't understand your second part though. What is the "step up" available to Linux vendors that they didn't do?

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#502
post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will personally pay you twenty thousand US dollars (in the cryptocurrency of your choice, bank transfer, western union, whatever) if you can prove beyond reasonable doubt that Microsoft has ever secretly shipped a backdoor in their OS so government agencies could spy on their users. Perhaps you will be the first person to actually prove the existence of the NSAKEY backdoor? (I doubt it.)

Who needs a backdoor when you can just exploit the print spooler from 1999???

Exactly!

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will personally pay you twenty thousand US dollars (in the cryptocurrency of your choice, bank transfer, western union, whatever) if you can prove beyond reasonable doubt that Microsoft has ever secretly shipped a backdoor in their OS so government agencies could spy on their users. Perhaps you will be the first person to actually prove the existence of the NSAKEY backdoor? (I doubt it.)

What about this old NSA backdoor? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_EC_DRBG If MS or Apple or Google or some hardware makers or some communication equipment makers have some backdoors for NSA, why would you think they would do such a poor job that anyone can pay $20k to prove it?

I feel like convincing the world to use your backdoored encryption algorithms is a bit more interesting than planting yet another RCE bug in Windows.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Platforms like deliveroo have lost tens of millions to fraud, I don’t blame them for enforcing safetynet. Perhaps “food delivery” means pizza to you, but there are many places where it also includes thousand dollar bottles of wine.

Could you explain how the locked-down phone is protection against fraud here?

This way they can permanently ban your device. Fraud detection stuff works better too, but it’s mostly about the first.

Fraud becomes significantly less profitable and more of a pain in the ass if you need to set up a new phone for each account.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#505
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that secureboot does have a minor advantage for encryption at rest. Making much weaker passwords acceptable. I am happy my work laptop has secureboot. And I get why they lock down their device for me to use. For devices I own, I gotta control the secure boot, or I simply don't own it.

In theory, yes. In practice, what control do you have over the hardware? Can't basically anyone with a few million dollars to throw at the problem compromise any form of Secure Boot? If you're NSA, no need to go so far... they've probably got access to the Microsoft root signing key. If the schematics and code to the TPM were free and there were "tamper evidence" mechanisms in place, we could argue secure boot had so…

> Can't basically anyone with a few million dollars to throw at the problem compromise any form of Secure Boot?

Probably. But if my laptop gets stolen I would rather have the thief needing to spend a few million dollars in order to defeat Secure Boot.

Now if I were to worry about state level espionage I would combine the secure boot with a strong password for device theft, and not bring the device anywhere a long-term evil maid attack might occur. But in that case I am still happy if my stolen laptop requires a few million dollars, and that an evil maid also needs to somehow defeat secure boot before being able to do anything to some of my device.

Secure boot isn't perfect. But no practical security measure is. Secure boot is effective at making attacks more difficult, and that means it has value.

It just so happens that such value is most relevant for company-based security. And sadly it seems to be pushed on private devices for other reasons. But the move towards abuse of secure boot does not mean we should ignore the security benefits it gives to company-issued laptops.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The drives are encrypted without a boot PIN. If I could exploit a vulnerability in the OS I could get the data. There will probably be a vulnerability discovered, at some point, that will allow access. I'd advised my friend's widow to hold onto the computers for the time being.

Please also advise her to power it on every 2 or 3 months or so (and leave it running for a bit), so that SSDs continue keeping the data, and HDDs don't get "stuck".

Just as long as she can keep it from connecting to the internet.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#507

Keep in mind this has happened because people agreed that they can't (normally) run code not singed by someone else (Microsoft) on their own system for “security” reasons. Well, it was not security, it actually was a way to keep keys to themselves, and hold the user system as a hostage. And it has been explained many times by many people. If you care about software freedoms, even just a tiny bit, you wouldn't touch “…

The user wants convenience, and then, under the premise of convenience, corporations create systems that give them the convenience they want in exchange for their privacy and freedom. Being spied on, having forced updates, a remote kill switch on your computer, "telemetry", advertisement, and the best of all: your government being bullied and lobbied on with the money you paid... it is all worth it because you can ru…

You can run the game at 60fps instead of 600spf though.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's simple. Money.

I had a highschool history teacher who said that money/power is the answer to everything. If you don't know the answer, just say money; it's usually right.

What a great teacher. Surprised they let them teach history (national indoctrination) of all things.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All this does make Microsoft sound very reasonable, actually. People have been painting dystopian pictures of an ultra-locked down hardware future, complete with evil corporate overlordship etc for many years. Really as long as I've been using computers. Yet, here we are in 2021 and not only old hardware is still open but newly designed hardware too, and Microsoft has even been ensuring that platforms which didn't ge…

Given Microsoft's losses with eg Windows mobile, their late entry into the cloud space, giving up on making their own web browser (engine), Microsoft's forced to play nice in order to compete. I don't understand your second part though. What is the "step up" available to Linux vendors that they didn't do?

Take part in the UEFI secure boot process to get a key whitelisted that'd be shipped in hardware out of the box (e.g. one managed by the Linux Foundation).

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#510
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use VSCodium every day, and recommend it over VSCode to everyone, however, due to microsoft's locked down plugins, particulary the ones related to remote development and debug, there are certain things which can be done with VSCode and not VSCodium. It's worth bearing in mind for those considering switching.

SSH FS, a third-party extension seems to work well with VSCodium: https://github.com/SchoofsKelvin/vscode-sshfs

Yes, but unfortunately if you want to use something like Okteto[0] it requires the microsoft plugin. There are other third party plugins and tools tightly bound to the Microsoft ones making them unfortunately unusable.

[0]https://okteto.com/

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