Torvalds clarifies Linux's Windows 8 Secure Boot position

What was needed was for a trusted neutral party(or two) to be the owner of the root key, and for that organisation to hand out child keys (e.g. Microsoft, Open Source Initiative, Apple, etc) who could in turn generate child keys (all of which could be revoked). Essentially we need the "internet model" of key exchanges for this too.

I cannot understand who thought it was a good idea for Microsoft to be the only authorised party to generate keys. Even from Microsoft's perspective it is just asking to get anti-trust-ed again.

The main issue with the internet model is how uncompetitive the whole thing is. You have just a few companies handing out keys and they charge upwards of $50 a year just for the "pleasure" of having secured communications.

Secure boot would likely suffer from the same problem. But yet I'd still take that over this...

I guess we need to hide all those forensic distributions that can modify and access data on a windows machine. To name a few: backtrack, CAINE, and DEFT. If technology can modify and access data, it can also be used in an exploit. Some might even argue that running a forensic on a computer without the owners permissions is an exploit in itself.

Edit: How could such technology be used you say. Package a usb drive that once plugged in, will reboot the machine and load a Linux distribution. Once loaded, it automatically modify the windows system and transfer any interesting data it find. Afterward, it erase itself and reboots, thus looking like any empty usb drive once windows boots up. If that is not an plausible exploit which an ordinary Windows users could trigger and become compromised, then I would like to hear the definition of an "plausible exploit".

"This 'plausible exploit' has to be some way of getting ordinary Windows users to run the code and become compromised, it's not an experienced Linux user becoming root and subverting Windows on their local box."