[Arm-netbook] Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices

[lkcl luke]

On Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 11:49 PM, Alain Williams <addw at phcomp.co.uk> wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 07:50:37PM +0000, Luke Leighton wrote:
>> On Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 6:22 PM, Alain Williams <addw at phcomp.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> > That is roughtly what it did all those years ago. I'm not sure if there was
>> > the ability to refuse to boot if signatures were not verified, but that would
>> > have been a trivial addition:
>>
>>
>>
>> well, this time, it's unbreakable.  the boot loader's internal to the CPU,
>> in a small amount of internal NAND.  there's no access to that; there's
>> no way to replace it: nothing.
>
> Oh -- I didn't see that bit.
>
> But if it is internal to the CPU then it will be quite hard to change if/when
> someone creates a signed versions of grub (or something) that will then
> happily load anything.... this only will need to be done once.

 yes, but you can't _do_ that.

 look up the situation with the toshiba ac100.  you can't even choose
to boot up an alternative to the linux-android kernel because toshiba
doesn't allow anything other than That Which They Have Dictated Heil
Toshiba

 however on the early toshiba ac100s somehow the key has been obtained
(i don't know the details) so you can actually do something.

 but for the newer ac100s, you're f*****d.  you have to do stupid
things like stick with that stupid stupid version of the linux kernel
that The Gods That Are Toshiba have Dictated from On High and you have
to run replacement OSes as a chroot environment.  it might even be
possible to use kexec but it's a bitch-awful way to have to run
alternative OSes.


 ... luckily there's a provision in the GPLv3 which requires that all
DRM keys be published, eh?

 oh wait - oh dear whoops-a-daisy, the f*****g arseholes on LKML
refuse to even begin the process of converting the linux kernel from
GPLv2 to GPLV3+ because there are so many people to contact that they
consider it to be a lost cause even to try.


> Maybe we ought to mention something to DVD John.

 whoever he might be, yes that's probably a good idea.

l.