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The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

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Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#31

Post by intelVISA »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #3
metadat wrote: post #2

Ew. Why are all the chip manufacturers going along with this stupid plan? I want to buy a processor and then own it and have it work in my best interests, not consume electricity and generatie heat enforcing draconian 3rd party DRM policies.

It's tragic (especially if you care about general-purpose computing and the future of open platforms), and a sign that Microsoft's Palladium project was never really canceled. Boil the frog... Of course, Microsoft would say it's not about DRM (at least right now), it's for "security." Which... its secure as Microsoft's servers are, to be sure.

Next-Generation Secure Computing my ass.

Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#32

Post by enriquto »

SQueeeeeL wrote: post #24
userbinator wrote: post #11

What is to prevent school WiFi from one day requiring a Pluton assertion that your Windows PC hasn’t been tampered with before you can join the network? Remote attestation is the true enemy of your freedom. The power of the authoritarian corporatocracy to force you to use only the (entire) systems they control. It's worth reading https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html again just to see how prescient Sta…

Damn, now I'm nostalgic for the older days of hacker news where RMS was quoted every other post. The community is forgetting it's roots.

But it's still the case... Stallman is quoted every day around here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&query=Stallman&sort=by...

Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#33

Post by sillysaurusx »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #16
jhanschoo wrote: post #15

While I disagree with the author's opinion, it was very informative for me.

Not mentioned in the article - but it begs the question, could this have something to do with Microsoft's insistence that everyone, even Pro users in the next update, use a Microsoft Account with Windows 11? If Pluton (or Pluton 2, someday) could be tied to a Microsoft Account, wouldn't that be something.

Is it okay to talk about language as a meta-topic? I try not to stray too far into that, since it’s usually boring for readers. But one thing I was surprised to learn is that “begs the question” is only correct when you’re describing a chain of circular logic. “Raises the question” is apparently the right term for the general case. I felt a little duped, since I’d been using “begs the question” for years without looking into its origins.

But of course, that begs the question of whether language is defined by how people use it. :)

Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#34

Post by intelVISA »

Analemma_ wrote: post #14
metadat wrote: post #2

Ew. Why are all the chip manufacturers going along with this stupid plan? I want to buy a processor and then own it and have it work in my best interests, not consume electricity and generatie heat enforcing draconian 3rd party DRM policies.

The conspiratorial answers here are emotionally satisfying, but ultimately wrong. The reason chip makers and OS vendors are adding this is customer demand, by which I mean enterprises. Companies want remote attestation and guaranteed-immutable OS images on their networks, and I honestly can't say I blame them. In a perfect world they could have it and we could somehow firewall it away from the consumer space entirely…

I don't really care for the reason, why can't we as consumers opt out if it's consumer oriented then? For me it's not even about the egregious security and privacy implications -- I just simply want the (illusion of) choice w/r/t silicon rootkit 'features' that I'll never use.

Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#35

Post by LtWorf »

pmontra wrote: post #26
wmf wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same enterprises asking for this stuff are also asking for it to be taken out of their hands because they don't trust themselves to operate it securely or reliably.

So this turns into security theater because ultimately they can't trust those third parties too.

They don't care about security, they just want proof that they did what they could when disaster happens.

Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#37

Post by UberFly »

I've always thought that at some point the only "stomachable" version of windows is going to be some hacked offering, by god-knows-who or from where, but it'll still end up being preferable to what MS is requiring.

Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#38

Post by uw_rob »

pmontra wrote: post #26
wmf wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same enterprises asking for this stuff are also asking for it to be taken out of their hands because they don't trust themselves to operate it securely or reliably.

So this turns into security theater because ultimately they can't trust those third parties too.

When it comes to security someone must always sleep with one eye open - co-owning this responsibility is totally reasonable. Microsoft takes security seriously and is investing heavily in it; if they are already in your orgs trust boundaries I see no reason why they wouldn't be considered good stewards for this as well.

Besides, at enterprise scale, how do you trust internal teams? It could all be security theater and they aren't delivering on their promises as well.

Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#39

Post by selfhoster11 »

Analemma_ wrote: post #14
metadat wrote: post #2

Ew. Why are all the chip manufacturers going along with this stupid plan? I want to buy a processor and then own it and have it work in my best interests, not consume electricity and generatie heat enforcing draconian 3rd party DRM policies.

The conspiratorial answers here are emotionally satisfying, but ultimately wrong. The reason chip makers and OS vendors are adding this is customer demand, by which I mean enterprises. Companies want remote attestation and guaranteed-immutable OS images on their networks, and I honestly can't say I blame them. In a perfect world they could have it and we could somehow firewall it away from the consumer space entirely…

Good, if companies want those features, then they can be the ones to pay the price in privacy. Otherwise, let me set an OTP bit to disable all Management Engine kinds of functionality on the CPU permanently.

Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#40

Post by metadat »

pmontra wrote: post #29
throwaway14356 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is much worse than he thinks. If I was to write out the worse case scenario the MS employee would have no choice but to consider it. Therefore win 13 will be a theme for ubuntu packaged with a FOSS version of office. MS will award large weekly prizes for the most useful FOSS app extending the eco system. It will be sold on multi TB external drives that work like live USB only daisy chained. Weekly new releases cra…

Reminds me of computer magazines bundled first with cassettes, then floppy disks then CDROMS, 80s to 90s. Occasionally some other gadgets too. Everybody like us was buying them.

I'm so confused... What are you two getting on about?

Is it just me or is it like two GPT-3 bots having a conversation?

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