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The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

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Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#351

Post by tenebrisalietum »

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…

It's a big value add for you, as a corporate IT deployer.

Outside of corporate IT, what if Microsoft uses this remote attestation to enforce binding non-corporate PCs to a Microsoft account. Some don't have a problem exposing everything to Microsoft's cloud, but Pluto sounds like it could be used to enforce this on a hardware level.

If computing devices without bondage to a cloud service are impossible, Windows has no more value proposition for me for personal computing. I'm going to stick with Apple, because at least Apple allows me to turn it all off, off seems to mean off on at least Apple iPhones/iPads (I don't have to check hundreds of weirdly named services, policy settings, scheduled tasks that are all on for some reason), and settings don't seem to randomly sneak on between updates.

Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#352

Post by tlb »

Authoritarian tech has two problems: the obvious one, and the fact that good hackers don’t want to work on such things, so it’s all built by consultants and stooges and is probably 10x clunkier than the clunkiest Bluetooth - X.25 gateway.

Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#353

Post by londons_explore »

VoodooJuJu wrote: post #274
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…

It's so true, but I'm trying to imagine a normie's reaction to reading this, and all I'm coming up with is, "This guy is a paranoid schizo, back to TikTok for me...", and so unfortunately, I don't see us steering away from this fate anytime soon. These people won't respect you until you start taking their money. Become one of their techno-corporate overloads. Demonstrate how you're controlling/profiting off them, why…

You can take their money and still they won't care.

Think about how many devices in a typical users home are incompatible for business reasons - for example that Chromecast that refuses to play Amazon prime movies. Or the iPhone charger cable that won't fit into an android. Users just live with it.

"My weird laptop doesn't support the school WiFi" is the same.

Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#354

Post by oofbey »

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…

A lot of this rant reminds me of the justification for crypto. The techno-anarchists are terrified of authority they can’t hack around. The fact that some governments abuse their power implies no authority should ever have any power. If we can’t break the rules then the world will end. It’s a slippery slope from content providers getting paid to complete big brother 1984.

Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#356

Post by the_af »

underclocked wrote: post #348
acdha wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's worth reading https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html again just to see how prescient Stallman was. I think it’s also worth asking why he didn’t have more impact despite pretty clearly seeing this problem. Part of the answer has to be resource disparities but I don’t think it’s just that - Linux didn’t really capitalize at all on Microsoft’s lost decade, and much of the innovation in security has…

[dead]

That's character assassination and it has nothing to do with Stallman's prescient warnings, which have proven more or less true. Also, Stallman != Linux.

Also also, his "rape" remarks have been mischaracterized but also came pretty late in the game, and had nothing to with with Linux's alleged lack of impact. Linux existed and was successfully deployed decades before any of these remarks.

I really expect better from comments on HN. This is tabloid level.

Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#357

Post by the_af »

api wrote: post #291
acdha wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's worth reading https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html again just to see how prescient Stallman was. I think it’s also worth asking why he didn’t have more impact despite pretty clearly seeing this problem. Part of the answer has to be resource disparities but I don’t think it’s just that - Linux didn’t really capitalize at all on Microsoft’s lost decade, and much of the innovation in security has…

The reason the OSS community has had no impact is that it's never managed to produce software that regular non-tech-geeks want to use. The reason it's never managed to do that is lack of an economic model to finance the incredible amount of work required to make software usable by normal people. I've been saying this ad nauseum forever and I'm not the only one. A related problem is that the OSS world is mostly tech e…

The OSS community had a huge impact. Chances are a big chunk of the software you use daily is OSS.

Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#358

Post by q-big »

ori_b wrote: post #342
mavhc wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, so the user should not buy a computer where they're not in control of the TPM, if you can't disable it/add your own keys, then don't buy that computer

That rapidly converges on "you can't buy a computer and use it", because economic interests favor trusted computing devices.

> That rapidly converges on "you can't buy a computer and use it", because economic interests favor trusted computing devices.

I would rather argue that it converges to "you become more and more morally obliged to learn about hacking (and perhaps become a less and less law-abiding citizen) if you buy a computer and use it".

Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#359

Post by mwint »

nibbleshifter wrote: post #313
vanderZwan wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically, Cory Doctorow's "The Upcoming War Against General Computation" ? https://boingboing.net/2011/12/27/the-coming-war-on-general-... https://github.com/jwise/28c3-doctorow/blob/master/transcrip... Don't know enough about the subject to tell if his "attempts to control general computation will converge on rootkits" prediction has held up.

> "attempts to control general computation will converge on rootkits" prediction has held up. If you play video games, you probably have a couple of neat kernel rootkits installed as "anti cheat". A lot of remote proctoring stuff for exams are looking a lot like rootkits too. EDR/XDR is also just rootkits. For security. The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a rootkit is a good guy with a rootkit, after all.

The remote proctoring stuff is downright dystopian. I bought an extra laptop to do tests; most people can’t do that and have to install this garbage on their daily driver.

Of course, I guess most people don’t care.

Re: The Dangers of Microsoft Pluton

#360

Post by drpixie »

autoexec wrote: post #231
drpixie wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes ... I certainly look for chips WITHOUT certain "security features" when I'm building a system - makes it more difficult for the "bad guys" (really, just the greedy guys) to force me to do things the way they want.

What chips are left? When they've got Intel and AMD that's the vast majority right there. We really need some kind of open and transparent chip manufacturer who is unwilling to infest their product with user hostile code at Microsoft's demand.

Hmmm, yes. The Core-X seem helpfully lacking in undesirable features, but the standard range is certainly heavily encumbered. If I can get a half descent RISC-V chip and motherboard, that might be the go...
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