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Microsoft terminates VeraCrypt account, halting Windows updates

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Re: Microsoft terminates VeraCrypt account, halting Windows updates

#61

Post by itsdesmond »

samlinnfer wrote: post #36
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tradeoffs. Which is more likely here? 1. A customer wants to run their own firmware, or 2. Someone malicious close to the customer, an angry ex, tampers with their device, and uses the lack of Secure Boot to modify the OS to hide all trace of a tracker's existence, or 3. A malicious piece of firmware uses the lack of Secure Boot to modify the boot partition to ensure the malware loads before the OS, thereby permanent…

1. P(someone wants to run their own firmware) 2. P(someone wants to run their own firmware) * P(this person is malicious) * P(this person implants this firmware on someone else’s computer) 3. The firmware doesn’t install itself Yeah I think 2 and 3 is vastly less likely and strictly lower than 1.

This guy thinks that if you rephrase an argument but put some symbols around it you’ve refuted it statistically.

P(robably not)

Re: Microsoft terminates VeraCrypt account, halting Windows updates

#63

Post by samlinnfer »

itsdesmond wrote: post #61
samlinnfer wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. P(someone wants to run their own firmware) 2. P(someone wants to run their own firmware) * P(this person is malicious) * P(this person implants this firmware on someone else’s computer) 3. The firmware doesn’t install itself Yeah I think 2 and 3 is vastly less likely and strictly lower than 1.

This guy thinks that if you rephrase an argument but put some symbols around it you’ve refuted it statistically. P(robably not)

The argument is that P(customer wants to run their own firmware) cancels out and 2,3 are just the raw probability of you on the receiving end of an evil maid attack. If you think this is a high probability, a locked bootloader won’t save you.

Re: Microsoft terminates VeraCrypt account, halting Windows updates

#64

Post by lazide »

samlinnfer wrote: post #36
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tradeoffs. Which is more likely here? 1. A customer wants to run their own firmware, or 2. Someone malicious close to the customer, an angry ex, tampers with their device, and uses the lack of Secure Boot to modify the OS to hide all trace of a tracker's existence, or 3. A malicious piece of firmware uses the lack of Secure Boot to modify the boot partition to ensure the malware loads before the OS, thereby permanent…

1. P(someone wants to run their own firmware) 2. P(someone wants to run their own firmware) * P(this person is malicious) * P(this person implants this firmware on someone else’s computer) 3. The firmware doesn’t install itself Yeah I think 2 and 3 is vastly less likely and strictly lower than 1.

Clearly you’ve never met my ex’s (or a past employer). Not even being sarcastic this time.

Re: Microsoft terminates VeraCrypt account, halting Windows updates

#65

Post by wat10000 »

tosti wrote: post #43
astrobe_ wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about executable signing, but in the embedded world SecureBoot is also used to serve the customer; id est provide guarantees to the customer that the firmware of the device they receive has not been tampered with at some point in the supply chain.

Computers should abide by their owners. Any computer not doing that is broken.

This gets tricky. If I click on a link intending to view a picture of a cat, but instead it installs ransomware, is that abiding by its owner or not? It did what I told it to do, but not at all what I wanted.

Re: Microsoft terminates VeraCrypt account, halting Windows updates

#66

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

shevy-java wrote: post #47
trueno wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i remember years and years ago learning some posix/shell syntax and working in terminal. felt like my love for windows unraveled in real time. these days using windows... feel like i gotta take a shower after. like many i was just raised on windows it was the household operating system i had like 20 years of general computer usage under my belt on windows before i finally felt a mac trackpad for the first time. that…

Yeah. I felt in a similar manner when I moved to Linux. Microsoft seemed to make people dumber. I do actually use both Linux and Windows (Win10 only), largely for testing various things, including java-related software. But every time I use Windows, I am annoyed at how slow everything is compared to Linux. (I should mention that I compile almost everything from source on Linux, so most of the default Linux stack I do…

Microsoft has spent most of its life as a corporate bureaucracy that produces sales-and-marketing content, some of which happens to moonlight as software.

Re: Microsoft terminates VeraCrypt account, halting Windows updates

#67

Post by ghighi7878 »

tosti wrote: post #43
astrobe_ wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about executable signing, but in the embedded world SecureBoot is also used to serve the customer; id est provide guarantees to the customer that the firmware of the device they receive has not been tampered with at some point in the supply chain.

Computers should abide by their owners. Any computer not doing that is broken.

Its a simple solution in law to enable. Force manufacturers to allow owners of computer to put any signing key in the BIOS.

We need this law. Once we have this law, consumers csn get maximum benefit of secure boot withiut losing contorl

Re: Microsoft terminates VeraCrypt account, halting Windows updates

#68

Post by red-iron-pine »

leptons wrote: post #60
20k wrote: post #15

There's a good reason everyone calls them microslop these days. The sooner we're all able to ditch this crappy company, the better - they're actively holding back the tech industry at this point

Apple also holds back the tech industry in many ways. All companies seem willing to put profits before progress.

active directory and excel runs the world.

what is apple doing that is similar?

Re: Microsoft terminates VeraCrypt account, halting Windows updates

#69

Post by mort96 »

astrobe_ wrote: post #25
romaniv wrote: post #22

I still hope that one of these days people in general will realize that executable signing and SecureBoot are specifically designed for controlling what a normal person can run, rather than for anything resembling real security. The premises of either of those "mitigations" make absolutely no sense for personal computers.

I don't know about executable signing, but in the embedded world SecureBoot is also used to serve the customer; id est provide guarantees to the customer that the firmware of the device they receive has not been tampered with at some point in the supply chain.

It's to serve the regulators. The Radio Equipment Directive essentially requires the use of secure boot fir new devices.

Re: Microsoft terminates VeraCrypt account, halting Windows updates

#70

Post by [deleted] »

201984 wrote: post #30
astrobe_ wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about executable signing, but in the embedded world SecureBoot is also used to serve the customer; id est provide guarantees to the customer that the firmware of the device they receive has not been tampered with at some point in the supply chain.

And what if that customer wants to run their own firmware, ie after the manufacturer goes out of business? "Security" in this case conveniently prevente that.

[deleted]
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