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The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

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Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#241

Post by dx034 »

ftyhbhyjnjk wrote: post #50
Gh0stRAT wrote: post #46

I'm completely missing how his example of a Word document that can only be opened by approved users on approved hardware within the corporation is supposed to be a bad thing. Honestly, that sounds pretty fantastic. I've been using 3rd party tools/extensions to do this sort of thing in corporate and government environments for years, but having the attestation go all the way down to the hardware level is a big value-a…

What you can install on YOUR pc will be at the sole mercy of microsoft/or maybe someone else.... That's the cusp of it. Not that it can be used for good, but that it sets the way for heavy misuse by large corporations. Wait a few years. Smaller companies won't even be allowed to order high end cpu's. You'll be at 100% mercy of these corporations. If after 2 years they decide to brick your pc, they'll just do it. You…

Secure chips like this are already in all devices but PCs. And in none of these areas has any of that happened. Quite the opposite, Apple got a fine when they slowed down older devices to save battery (at least what they said).

So the government will clearly help out here. And none of these companies has an incentives to stop sales to smaller companies, they make a lot of money with those.

Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#242

Post by npteljes »

29athrowaway wrote: post #146
npteljes wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep! Basically, it's safer if you don't own your PC. Think about users with a million toolbars and Bonzi Buddy installed. Of course, the system for it is rudimentary, and puts a disproportionate amount of control in the hands of providers. And that works very well for them too.

Quoted post unavailable.

I feel like it's flawed. Voters and politicians abuse it left and right - pun intended. I don't think we ever came up with anything more humane though, and I don't wish to change it for anything other - to be honest, for the simple reason of not wanting the responsibility that goes along with it.

Choosing a party is not like choosing an OS for your PC, though. Choosing the OS would be like choosing the political system - and recognizing the incredible privilege I have by being born into a democracy, I very much wouldn't like other people to change it.

Going further into democracy, while you might put an X on a paper sometimes, still forbids a very high number of actions. I'd liken it to having the power of choosing between Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store for your phone. Which, getting back to the point, is safer for the users than installing any third party software. Like how in a well functioning democracy, I'm forbidden to do a great many things, but also I can feel safe in the thought that others have the same restrictions too.

Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#243

Post by autoexec »

nobody9999 wrote: post #158
geysersam wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pornographic examples in it I can't fathom a math textbook with pornographic examples. Is this a thing in the US?

>> pornographic examples in it >I can't fathom a math textbook with pornographic examples. Is this a thing in the US? I've been out of school for quite a while, but AFAIK while there is plenty of porn out there, it's not in our math books. No, it's just Florida politicos pandering to their base[0]. I'm guessing that what GP is going on about (please do correct me if I'm wrong) is probably some word problems that incl…

according to an article linked elsewhere (https://www.baynews9.com/fl/tampa/news/2022/05/06/florida-ba...) it was because they had too many black people depicted as athletes and they had word problems that treated scientific facts as if they were scientific facts.

The one example that I thought might have been somewhat improper was "Multiple exercises related to a debate between Al Gore and Rush Limbaugh, where the publisher was in favor of Al Gore's arguments based on the questions in the exercises."

If the debate in question was fictional, I'd be tempted to agree it would have been better to avoid using the names of real people although I'd disagree that is enough to ban the use of the textbooks. If the debate was actual and the textbook pointed out very real flaws with Rush Limbaugh's logic (especially if they were a real world example of bad math) I'd say that it makes perfect sense to include it in a math text book.

Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#244

Post by xjay »

raxxorraxor wrote: post #171
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…

Same with TPM and why it had so many critics. Some people still seem adamant to say that boot viruses are the greatest threat in the 21st century, but the economic interest are far more dangerous for general computing in my opinion. And it isn't even close.

2013: German Federal Government Warns on the Security Dangers of Windows 8 https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/german-federal-go...

2015: Governments recognize the importance of TPM 2.0 through ISO adoption https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2015/06/29/governmen...

2022: Microsoft Can Kiss My A* | Do You Own Your PC? [Smart App Control] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv5xHfZnk4s&t=163s

The Trojan Platform Module (TPM)

Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#245

Post by pessimizer »

pjmlp wrote: post #98
selfhoster11 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an invalid argument for multiple reasons, not the least of which is that some people can afford just one device. That device is likely to be a smartphone because everything is slowly moving in the direction of requiring one. If I need to spend extra money to get an additional "freedom device" and can't afford it, I just won't have one and will miss out on the good stuff.

Welcome to the 8 and 16 bit home computer days when OSes were written in ROMs.

Or back to books where the OSes were written in ink. What's the point of this comparison?

Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#246

Post by fsflover »

dx034 wrote: post #241
ftyhbhyjnjk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you can install on YOUR pc will be at the sole mercy of microsoft/or maybe someone else.... That's the cusp of it. Not that it can be used for good, but that it sets the way for heavy misuse by large corporations. Wait a few years. Smaller companies won't even be allowed to order high end cpu's. You'll be at 100% mercy of these corporations. If after 2 years they decide to brick your pc, they'll just do it. You…

Secure chips like this are already in all devices but PCs. And in none of these areas has any of that happened. Quite the opposite, Apple got a fine when they slowed down older devices to save battery (at least what they said). So the government will clearly help out here. And none of these companies has an incentives to stop sales to smaller companies, they make a lot of money with those.

> Quite the opposite, Apple got a fine when they slowed down older devices to save battery

But the devices were actually slowed down, so the danger is real.

Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#247

Post by dane-pgp »

qweqwerwerwerwr wrote: post #213
Gh0stRAT wrote: post #46

I'm completely missing how his example of a Word document that can only be opened by approved users on approved hardware within the corporation is supposed to be a bad thing. Honestly, that sounds pretty fantastic. I've been using 3rd party tools/extensions to do this sort of thing in corporate and government environments for years, but having the attestation go all the way down to the hardware level is a big value-a…

what's stopping someone from taking photos of your precious document and posting them on 4chan? nothing. there's nothing you can do to stop that.

In corporate and government environments, I imagine that they'll ban employees / civil servants from bringing camera(phone)s to work, and necessarily forbid them working from home.

The only question is whether they will trust metal detectors to prevent whistleblowers from bringing in these devices, or if they will rely on strip searches and CCTV.

Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#248

Post by intelVISA »

sofixa wrote: post #67
intelVISA wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can, it even says in the article that Lenovo and Dell are shipping with the Pluton chips disabled by default. If they can do it, a user can disable it to (for now at least).

the same Lenovo that put a MITM attack in people's BIOS?

Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#249

Post by fsflover »

qweqwerwerwerwr wrote: post #213
Gh0stRAT wrote: post #46

I'm completely missing how his example of a Word document that can only be opened by approved users on approved hardware within the corporation is supposed to be a bad thing. Honestly, that sounds pretty fantastic. I've been using 3rd party tools/extensions to do this sort of thing in corporate and government environments for years, but having the attestation go all the way down to the hardware level is a big value-a…

what's stopping someone from taking photos of your precious document and posting them on 4chan? nothing. there's nothing you can do to stop that.

Try to scan banknotes with a scanner and you will see.

Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#250

Post by autoexec »

Someone wrote: post #136
ajvs wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mein Kampf is a banned book which I don't think many would disagree with. There are many other such books filled with propaganda that are rightly banned. I don't see why other propaganda-filled books that are being pushed on unsuspecting children shouldn't be banned too, unless the only reason is that you dislike the direction of the propaganda.

> Mein Kampf is a banned book Not everywhere in the world ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mein_Kampf#Current_availabilit... ) In the USA, freedom of speech is in very high regard, and that’s in conflict with the idea of banning any publication.

I don't even think it's banned in Germany anymore. If I remember correctly it was banned for a while, but the ban was lifted and people bought it up like crazy. Not because they were Secret Nazis all along, but because people really hate being told they aren't allowed to access certain ideas. It's human nature to want to know the things you're forbidden from learning about.
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