TPM provides zero practical security

I prefer to require entering a master password on boot manually and then configuring the OS to auto login to my non root user (with a different password than the disk). The longer and more complex your dependency chain for security, the more opportunity for it to be compromised. The encrypted “password on boot” partition then contains the keys to mount the other disks.

I’d really like Apple’s model on my machine where the root image is just the stock OS image unencrypted and the co-processor owns the responsibility of managing IO (and done efficiently) using my master key. TPM seems like it misses the mark from that perspective.

The threat model is "corporation wants hardware attestation so they can implement zero-trust models" but these articles always ignore that, because they don't have any alternatives to suggest.

> This sounds like the rant of a typical Linux fanboy

Hi, it's me the Linux fanboy whose entire personality is making Hackintosh and VM apps for iOS. Just a friendly reminder that attacks on the author's credentials have no baring on the weight of the arguments.

> The reason there is no explicit threat model defined in the TPM specs is because it defines a general-purpose hardware security module

It sounds like you have zero experience in security :)

> it defines a general-purpose hardware security module

No it doesn't. I think you're hinting at HSM which is another beast I may write another fanboy FUD piece about at some point. But no, HSMs are not the same as TPMs. And TPMs are not HSMs. For one thing, and HSM defines something called a trust boundary where keys should never leave. TPMs will happily hand you the keys when you meet a certain condition. HSMs support key migration and provides a secure way to transfer keys from one HSM to another without leaving the trust boundary. I can go on and on...

> TPM's security properties also depend on the rest of the system

The argument isn't TPM versus no security. The argument is TPM versus the existing security you have on Windows. (Passwords, FDE, etc). Of course all this depends on the system. TPM doesn't add anything (* with the exception already listed in the article).

> it at least opens the possibility of making it secure in the future once those vulnerabilities are discovered & fixed

Nope. Architecturally flawed. But I'd just be repeating the argument from the article.

> means a casual attacker can't just pull a drive or reboot the machine and run chntpw or steal sensitive data from discarded drives that haven't been properly wiped

They can with a $80 FPGA. Read the appendix.

> I like the fact that a rogue datacenter employee or intruder can't just pull one of my servers' drives out and get sensitive data.

They can with a $80 FPGA. (Unless your datacenter uses Intel TXT and tboot and other prerequisites that were talked about in the article)

> I like not having to worry about having sensitive keys on the filesystem somewhere

If you use BitLocker, they are always in kernel memory

> derived from the TPM doing remote attestation at boot

That's not what "remote attestation" means :)

> I like not having to worry about unattended reboots or entering LUKS passphrases remotely

If you like that, just disable your password and you'll get the same result

The exact argument was made in the article

> There are a plethora of attacks on TPM in the past but we need to be clear that a system that is widely attacked does not necessarily mean it is fundamentally insecure but only that there are many implementation issues. Most of these implementation issues do not touch upon the points raised in this article (it doesn't matter if the gate to your garden is strong or weak if there is no fence around the garden). Nevertheless, many of the attacks demonstrate the lack of care and consideration in the TPM ecosystem.

The issue is that TPM is being heavily pushed while it provides no security value. When you have Secure Boot (no additional hardware required), you get everything that Microsoft promises. The entire idea of TPM is that it gives you an extra level of security and I argue that it doesn't.

Using a decryption password on boot is less secure than TPM + measured boot/secure boot. Specifically, it’s vulnerable to a two-touch attack. In the first touch, the attacker replaces your bootloader with one that looks identical but steals your password. On the second touch, they now use the password to steal your data.