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Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

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Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#71

Post by d3Xt3r »

trinsic2 wrote: post #31
Loughla wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Choose the right distro and automate updates of possible. Mint is the softest landing for Windows users. But they never ever ever ever update anything on their own. Ever. Forever.

Yea I need to think of a good way to automate updates..

Get a distro with atomic updates, preferably an immutable one like Aurora[1]. Updates are automated and can't break your system. And in the rare event something does happen, you can easily boot the previous version right from the boot menu, no need for any scary commands or technical intervention.

[1] https://getaurora.dev/

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#72

Post by heavyset_go »

repiret wrote: post #41

I agree with all of the articles points except for the first one: TPM and Secure Boot do not reduce user choice or promote state or corporate surveillance. If you want to be able to prevent root kits you need secure boot, and if you want to store secrets that don't need a user password to unlock and can't be stolen by taking apart the computer, you need a TPM; or you need substantially similar alternatives. I would s…

> I would say that specifically with Secure Boot, Microsoft actually promoted user choice: A Windows Logo compliant PC needs to have Microsoft's root of trust installed by default. Microsoft could have stopped there, but they didn't.

This was not the case with the initial rollout of Secure Boot, it was combined with locked BIOS to lock PCs so that they could only boot Windows 8 on some devices. This was the case on Windows RT ARM machines from that era.

All that has to be done today for machines to be locked down again is to flip a bit or blow an e-fuse. It's already the case on phones and tablets.

There is also a real potential for abusing TPMs or cryptographic co-processors to enforce remote attestation.

I say this as someone who agrees with your first paragraph and uses Secure Boot + TPMs on all of my machines.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#73

Post by scheeseman486 »

repiret wrote: post #41

I agree with all of the articles points except for the first one: TPM and Secure Boot do not reduce user choice or promote state or corporate surveillance. If you want to be able to prevent root kits you need secure boot, and if you want to store secrets that don't need a user password to unlock and can't be stolen by taking apart the computer, you need a TPM; or you need substantially similar alternatives. I would s…

On the face of it they're just security features, and I don't deny they are, but the industry as a whole are using those features to implement device verification systems that are being used to lock down their platforms and centralize control over their software ecosystems.

Being able to install another OS isn't much good if critical applications and websites refuse to run on it.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#74

Post by treesknees »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #63

I may recommended the same for my parents. 20 years ago Ubuntu was the go-to for baby's first Linux. Is that still the case?

I wouldn't rule out a distro like Rocky Linux or AlmaLinux (or anything else based on RHEL) with Gnome or KDE installed. They will receive 10 years of kernel and OS security updates, and you can either use Firefox from their repos or use something like Flatpak or Snap to get newer software packages if necessary.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#75

Post by d3Xt3r »

pizlonator wrote: post #35

I've been living on an Unbuntu variant (Pop_OS) for over a year now and it's surprisingly good. Note that I had been a Mac-and-some-Windows user as far as desktops go for about 10 years prior to that, and had lots of Linux experience before that - so I'm experiencing a 10 year before-and-after. Things that intrigue me: - For photos, darktable is surprisingly good. I think this was my biggest single surprise, being a…

- For diagrams, draw.io is a decent alternative

- Similarly for Photoshop users, Photopea might suit them better than GIMP. And there's also Photoshop Express/Online if they really want to stay in the Adobe ecosystem.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#77

Post by d3Xt3r »

apple4ever wrote: post #9

I think it's a good plan, though there might be some pain. I have a bog standard AMD graphics card that does not work in Linux. I've tried multiple distributions and version in those distributions and both the Linux and AMD drivers. It just randomly flashes. Where do I go to get help? Who knows?

Try the forums or Discord chat for the distro you're trying. LinuxQuestions.org and the "Linux for All" discord are good places to ask distro-agnostic questions.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#78

Post by bee_rider »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #61
PostOnce wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make sure libreoffice is included, and ublock origin. Show them how much faster it is, with fewer ads, and no subscription to Microsoft required just to write a document. The business customers might want to know that databases are a lot cheaper on Linux, especially for small business. Literally spoke to an automation company the other week that told me "we have to delete a bunch of stuff every time the database gets…

I can't imagine trying to replace MS word with libreoffice for businesses. I respect the project and the complexity of the task, but it's just not there for even light professional use. As an example, I recently submitted a manuscript following standard format [0] with libreoffice. Nothing difficult, just basic professional functionality. The only way to do it involved editing global default page styles (because cust…

Programmers use markdown or LaTeX anyway; there’s approximately nobody excited about working on an office suite. It is a completely unrewarding task.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#79

Post by gruez »

scheeseman486 wrote: post #73
repiret wrote: post #41

I agree with all of the articles points except for the first one: TPM and Secure Boot do not reduce user choice or promote state or corporate surveillance. If you want to be able to prevent root kits you need secure boot, and if you want to store secrets that don't need a user password to unlock and can't be stolen by taking apart the computer, you need a TPM; or you need substantially similar alternatives. I would s…

On the face of it they're just security features, and I don't deny they are, but the industry as a whole are using those features to implement device verification systems that are being used to lock down their platforms and centralize control over their software ecosystems. Being able to install another OS isn't much good if critical applications and websites refuse to run on it.

>Being able to install another OS isn't much good if critical applications and websites refuse to run on it.

The battle has already been lost on this. Just look at all the companies that are app-only and don't offer a web version.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#80

Post by firefax »

zrobotics wrote: post #52
PostOnce wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make sure libreoffice is included, and ublock origin. Show them how much faster it is, with fewer ads, and no subscription to Microsoft required just to write a document. The business customers might want to know that databases are a lot cheaper on Linux, especially for small business. Literally spoke to an automation company the other week that told me "we have to delete a bunch of stuff every time the database gets…

I wouldn't recommend deploying ublock on customer machines. Or at least ask what their workflow is first. There are a ton of SaaS sites that break with ad locking enabled. I run firefox+UBO+privacy badger on my machines, and the only sites I've had to disable my privacy extensions in the last few years for were work related, B2B SaaS apps. A few years ago I pushed UBO to user machines (Chrome on win10) at work, and h…

I rarely have issues with uBlock, it's NoScript that gums up the works usually
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