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The Framework Laptop Chromebook Edition

frame.work

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Re: The Framework Laptop Chromebook Edition

#341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which means that Google can simply lock you out of your Chromebook, for entirely arbitrary (and not even necessarily disclosed) reasons, at any moment. There's no practical avenue of appeal - Google is vast and even governments have trouble keeping it to heel. Individuals have no chance against these obdurate nation-sized entities. I think any Chromebook purchase, beyond the most cheap and cheerful throwaway, would b…

Not going to comment much on how much of a risk it is to use a Google product in this way. Just going to say that ChromeOS is pretty much designed to work with Google's primary apps: GMail, Drive, Hangouts (or whatever it's called these days), etc. So my point is that if you want to stay out of the Google ecosystem, it wouldn't make sense to use ChromeOS in any case.

A willingness to selectively use the Google ecosystem, versus signing over your bare ability to even use a purchased general-purpose computing device entirely to Google's pleasure, are two distinctly different things though.

I'm not making a 'Google is evil' argument (that would be a different conversation). I just couldn't bear to trust any corporation with that degree of arbitrary power over physical objects in my possession, regardless of whether or not I'd use their webapps. The power imbalance is just too great. Google (or Microsoft or Apple) is, in practise if not in theory, above any law that can be wielded by individuals.

Re: The Framework Laptop Chromebook Edition

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you may have missed what was being asked? I think they assume that an LVM PV is encrypted and could contain the block filesystem and swap volumes as LVs. There is already a boot-time process to unlock such an LVM setup. Why should the swap require a separate encryption key? As a Fedora user, this is how my disks have been setup for many years, and I don't understand why Fedora have disabled hibernation. Durin…

> I think they assume that an LVM PV is encrypted and could contain the block filesystem and swap volumes as LVs. There is already a boot-time process to unlock such an LVM setup. Why should the swap require a separate encryption key? Again, the reason why it's different is the security model for memory is different from the filesystem. This is exactly what I was getting at: the fixed key. Encrypted swap volumes typi…

Maybe we're not talking about the same scenarios/alternatives? If I've set up whole-disk encryption with a security level I trust for my persistent storage, how is that not appropriate for the persisted hibernation state? To me, hibernation state is a subset of persistent storage needs, not some categorically different thing. The coupling between running system and persistent state seems so strong to me that I consider them one equivalence class of data and requiring one consistent protection standard.

I adopted the conveniently offered, software-based whole disk encryption mode when installing Fedora. A luks-encrypted LVM PV is the only luks mapping at runtime, and a naked /boot volume is the only volume not allocated as an LVM LV in that encrypted volume group. Thus, I have selected my storage security posture. I expect the cold or detached storage device to be resistant to inspection. Due to the unencrypted /boot, I have doubts that there is tamper-protection of the future running software, should I temporarily lose control of the physical device. I have no illusion that the running kernel lacks access to the plaintext content.

My swap is an LV in that encrypted volume group. Why is hibernation disabled on Fedora? This is where I feel like there is a poorly communicated threat model or some other unstated assumption that I do not appreciate. (But see my last paragraph below for a possible answer!)

Are people concerned about the written hibernation state using the same key as the filesystem volumes? I.e. that knowing how to unlock the whole-disk encryption means you can reconstruct the hibernated image too? I don't see why I, as a user, should care to protect the hibernation image even more than all my regular data. Similarly, if I have the key I can potentially attack the root volume (while offline) to inject all sorts of malware, such that I could exfiltrate RAM state from the running system in the future. Swap isn't required to open me to that attack.

Are people concerned about regular swap state being available on disk during system operation? I.e. the running Linux luks mappings can be abused to inspect swap state? I am not sure I can appreciate this angle, since I think it is farfetched that the swap mapping can somehow be more resistant to attack than the filesystem mappings in the same running kernel.

Are people concerned about regular swap state being left on disk during a non-hibernated shutdown? If so, I would suggest that the swap crypto should not be conflated with the hibernation crypto. Add an ephemeral cipher to swap if you must, but use framing/metadata to reliably distinguish the ephemeral swap "noise" image from a valid hibernation image. I'm OK saying that hibernate must write an entire image and not assuming that regular swapping can opportunistically prepare any hibernation state prior to a hibernation event actually commencing.

While writing all this, I have thought up another possible angle. Maybe this is the actual Fedora issue? I can see that control of an offline hibernation image means control of a future running system image, and this might violate some secure boot agenda? I.e. I can tinker with the hibernated state to introduce a "hacked kernel" and ask the system to restart with that. I can see why secure boot might prevent return from hibernation. This requires some integrity-protection chain to enable the trusted bootloader and kernel to verify a hibernation image before opting to load and restart it. I can see how a variation on your "sealed state" approach could address this. But note, it only requires integrity protection and does not actually need another layer of confidentiality protection.

Re: The Framework Laptop Chromebook Edition

#343
post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hence > As long as ‘killed by Google’ continues to be a well-known meme

As long as the fire continues to burn, the best firefighters in the world couldn't extinguish it.

But the marketing departement isn’t the firefighters. They’re the marketing of the parks departement. Once the firefighters put the fire out (Google engineering stops haphazardly killing products), marketing can attract people to the parks again (Google marketing attracts people to their services).

Re: The Framework Laptop Chromebook Edition

#344
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the question is, why ChromeOS instead of a Linux?

Biased opinion: I work on ChromeOS at Google Biased but informed opinion: I own a Framework Laptop running Ubuntu 22.04. Linux on a server or a desktop isn't so bad. Linux on a laptop is awful. Hibernation isn't supported. Battery life is mediocre, and battery drain in sleep is significant. If I close the lid on my Framework at 75% and come back the next day, it will be at 25%. If I come back in 3 days, it will be co…

Well, as long as we're sharing personal anecdotes as absolute judgements, then allow me to throw my own hat into the ring.

I have never had a problem with suspend, hibernate, nor excessive battery drain (beyond what the hardware should do) on any of linux laptop setups.

Thats starting from a thinkpad in 1998 (yes), all the way to my current amd 4800 tongfeng (generic chinese oem laptop maker).

Along with quite a few chromebooks thrown in along the way (all of which were developer-mode enabled, WITH secure verified boot turned back on, so had full access to linux apps WITHOUT using crostini vm's).

But, seeing as how chromebooks are essentially machines running GENTOO LINUX with a custom google ebuild overlay, then perhaps their reliability should be another plus checkmark for "linux on laptops", and not somehow a ding against that.

Anyway, take that for what its worth ...

Re: The Framework Laptop Chromebook Edition

#345
post #322

I hesitated posting this, because I don't want to be too negative, but: ugh. ChromeOS is just more Google adware/tracking-ware, locking people into the Google ecosystem, and (by default, at least) creating a more locked-down environment than a general-purpose OS would have (not quite iOS or even Android, but still not with the flexibility of a "mainstream" OS). I feel like Framework could be spending their time doing…

While I share your concerns, the user experience and security of ChromeOS is so much nicer than Windows, or Linux (haven't used a Mac for ages so can't compare), for most tasks for most people. It's what I'd recommend to my grandparents. Also, completely disagree with your point about locking people into Google ecosystem - this is an OS that just runs a web browser. You need a Google account to log in, sure (actually…

I'm a fan of Linux and a fan of ChromeOS. but are the user experience and security better on ChromeOS than Linux? It's a bit simpler than linux but I'd say Linux is a close second.

Re: The Framework Laptop Chromebook Edition

#346
post #2

I'm happy to answer questions anyone has on this product!

Will this support Linux on ChromeOS (Crostini)? The ChromeOS doc page "Set Up Linux on your Chromebook" [0] links to a supported models list [1] which does NOT include Framework. [0] https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/9145439?hl=en [1] https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/chromium-os/chro...

Looks like a yes: "...you can multitask with ease on top of running heavy Chrome workloads. ChromeOS supports downloading Android™ apps from the Google Play Store, developing on Linux with Crostini, playing PC games with Steam on ChromeOS Alpha, and more."

source: https://community.frame.work/t/introducing-the-framework-lap...

Maybe the support sites will get updated to include Frame.Work

Re: The Framework Laptop Chromebook Edition

#347
post #322

I hesitated posting this, because I don't want to be too negative, but: ugh. ChromeOS is just more Google adware/tracking-ware, locking people into the Google ecosystem, and (by default, at least) creating a more locked-down environment than a general-purpose OS would have (not quite iOS or even Android, but still not with the flexibility of a "mainstream" OS). I feel like Framework could be spending their time doing…

While I share your concerns, the user experience and security of ChromeOS is so much nicer than Windows, or Linux (haven't used a Mac for ages so can't compare), for most tasks for most people. It's what I'd recommend to my grandparents. Also, completely disagree with your point about locking people into Google ecosystem - this is an OS that just runs a web browser. You need a Google account to log in, sure (actually…

It all boils down to if what you want is an OS or a browser. If an OS is good enough feature and security wise though, there's no reason to just want the browser for the same price.

> You need a Google account to log in

This is absolutely blatany lock in, let's not sugarcoat or pretend it is not at least.

Re: The Framework Laptop Chromebook Edition

#348
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the question is, why ChromeOS instead of a Linux?

I have a whole bunch of reasons. ChromeOS has a great separation of concerns and isolation of environments. I have my work profile and my personal profile, which are totally separate. I have my browser environment and my dev VM, which are totally separate. Different activities are cleanly partitioned. This has obvious security benefits but also is just a really nice, simple way to manage the system. I can fuck up a d…

I too enjoy ChromeOS but how do you play a DVD? [1]

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/Crostini/comments/b680wa/external_d...

Re: The Framework Laptop Chromebook Edition

#350
Not having the ServoV4 available to anyone but Google employees completely invalidates any praises of this thing being "open". Additionally, the Titan C chip included on the mainboard doesn't appear to be socketed (please correct me if I'm wrong), so you're basically stuck with a proprietary processor hooked into your machine doing god knows what. Note that the Titan C isn't open source like the "OpenTitan" project, which means they're basically privacy-washing chromebooks.

I don't have a problem with them making a chromebook but not releasing Coreboot firmware for the existing boards is giving me bad vibes, really worried Framework's leadership is compromised.

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