> And yet online services blocking access to non-SecureBoot devices is already the norm for industries ranging from online gaming[0] to fast food![1]
Specific online services doing so is very different from a general ISP ban. A general ISP ban is impossible as long as you have an IO channel of any kind, including projection of text or playing sound. See the end of this comment. SecureBoot in itself also does not in any sense stop general purpose computing of unsigned code.
> Software development would have to be sponsored by approved companies, or at the very least you'd need to apply to the government for a "licence to code", with your ID number baked into every app you create.
... and you've just kneecapped your software industry in favour of companies outside of said authoritarian hellhole. Won't happen. The EU has a long history of crazy demand like this being proposed, and they end up dying or getting watered down to nothing because there's nowhere near sufficient support for going as far as you suggest.
> But which app are you going to use to create those sound or image files? I suppose you could create your "illegal" files on an airgapped non-approved device, and transfer them via USB to the approved device,
Missing the point. If you can play and record sound on an approved device, for example in a call, or transfer text, no matter how filtered, you can use that as a channel for an non-approved device. We used to use heavily filtered low-fidelity audio channels to transfer data, via acoustically coupled modems, after all. Any attempt to filter this just reduces to making it seem more plausibly like acceptable material, e.g. encoding it in speech for example. This is not even a hard problem, though data rates would be low. If a channel can transfer language, it can transfer data.
But we're talking a regime more oppressive than China for this to even be relevant. Even in China today, "normal" VPN tech is sufficient, though a hassle.