<story><title>Secure Boot in the Era of the T2</title><url>https://duo.com/labs/research/secure-boot-in-the-era-of-the-t2</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>userbinator</author><text>&lt;i&gt;which is great for data privacy.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;...and absolutely horrible for freedom. It used to be the case, and still widely accepted for a lot of other products, that physical ownership actually meant something beyond just being a consumer. Now companies are turning the security against users, lest they also be attackers. From the point of view of the DRM-advocating media corporations, the user &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; an attacker. Locking down the platform to allow only &amp;quot;trusted&amp;quot; (not by &lt;i&gt;you&lt;/i&gt;, but by &lt;i&gt;them&lt;/i&gt;!) code only benefits when their goals align with yours; you may agree with them on not wanting things like ransomware, but not on things like them not allowing you to share a file between two apps or even run code you wrote yourself.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s scarier than any security attack to see what used to be an open and free platform turned into a walled garden of corporate control and obedience.&lt;p&gt;(Insert famous Benjamin Franklin quote.)</text></item><item><author>Shank</author><text>&amp;gt; Apple should be lauded for trying to bring their laptop and desktop lines into the same defensive posture as their mobile offerings.&lt;p&gt;I think this can&amp;#x27;t be stated enough. The fact of the matter is that pre T2, evil maid attacks were ridiculously easy. Now they&amp;#x27;re at least as secure as iOS -- which also means that shared vulnerabilities can be patched and detected. By no means is it perfect security, but it&amp;#x27;s a heck of a lot better than &amp;quot;stick boot disk in and gain keys to the kingdom.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;For so long we&amp;#x27;ve gone by the mantra that physical access means you have root. Now we&amp;#x27;re a step ahead of that -- which is great for data privacy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>geofft</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;It used to be the case, and still widely accepted for a lot of other products, that physical ownership actually meant something beyond just being a consumer.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;It still does. The only thing is we&amp;#x27;ve distinguished physical ownership and mere physical possession.&lt;p&gt;It is a &lt;i&gt;feature&lt;/i&gt; that if I leave my personal laptop at my desk at work while using the bathroom, my IT department can&amp;#x27;t rootkit it. It is an &lt;i&gt;improvement to my freedom&lt;/i&gt; - both my computing freedom and my physical freedom - if I can leave a laptop in my hotel room while seeing tourist sights. It &lt;i&gt;protects me from the government&lt;/i&gt; if a border control agent looking through my bag, or a cop who&amp;#x27;s seized my laptop, can&amp;#x27;t get in. (The iPhone is an existence proof that such defense against the government is possible, and it&amp;#x27;s weird that the usually pro-personal-liberty free software crowd hasn&amp;#x27;t decided that a free software implementation of the same thing is critically important.)&lt;p&gt;Of course software freedom requires access control. My freedom over my possessions involves other people&amp;#x27;s lack of freedom over my possessions. I can&amp;#x27;t make sure my computer is running the code I want it to if everyone else can make my computer run the code they want it to. This control is essential liberty; pretending that anyone with physical access is an owner because it&amp;#x27;s easier than crypto and key management has been decades of temporary convenience, and I&amp;#x27;m glad it&amp;#x27;s coming to an end.&lt;p&gt;I can turn secure boot on and off with an admin password, which I set when I first booted the machine because that&amp;#x27;s what demonstrates physical ownership and not mere possession. (And systems that don&amp;#x27;t permit me to do so, like Microsoft or Apple ARM devices, are in fact an affront to software freedom.) But nobody else can.</text></comment>
<story><title>Secure Boot in the Era of the T2</title><url>https://duo.com/labs/research/secure-boot-in-the-era-of-the-t2</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>userbinator</author><text>&lt;i&gt;which is great for data privacy.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;...and absolutely horrible for freedom. It used to be the case, and still widely accepted for a lot of other products, that physical ownership actually meant something beyond just being a consumer. Now companies are turning the security against users, lest they also be attackers. From the point of view of the DRM-advocating media corporations, the user &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; an attacker. Locking down the platform to allow only &amp;quot;trusted&amp;quot; (not by &lt;i&gt;you&lt;/i&gt;, but by &lt;i&gt;them&lt;/i&gt;!) code only benefits when their goals align with yours; you may agree with them on not wanting things like ransomware, but not on things like them not allowing you to share a file between two apps or even run code you wrote yourself.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s scarier than any security attack to see what used to be an open and free platform turned into a walled garden of corporate control and obedience.&lt;p&gt;(Insert famous Benjamin Franklin quote.)</text></item><item><author>Shank</author><text>&amp;gt; Apple should be lauded for trying to bring their laptop and desktop lines into the same defensive posture as their mobile offerings.&lt;p&gt;I think this can&amp;#x27;t be stated enough. The fact of the matter is that pre T2, evil maid attacks were ridiculously easy. Now they&amp;#x27;re at least as secure as iOS -- which also means that shared vulnerabilities can be patched and detected. By no means is it perfect security, but it&amp;#x27;s a heck of a lot better than &amp;quot;stick boot disk in and gain keys to the kingdom.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;For so long we&amp;#x27;ve gone by the mantra that physical access means you have root. Now we&amp;#x27;re a step ahead of that -- which is great for data privacy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>xvector</author><text>&amp;gt; Now companies are turning the security against users, lest they also be attackers.&lt;p&gt;This has always been the case, has it not? Modern security practices seem to operate under the assumption that the attacker can do almost anything the user can except sniff the password out of the user&amp;#x27;s head.&lt;p&gt;I think that&amp;#x27;s a reasonable model to work under. Building a platform that makes it a near-guarantee that the only way to unlock a computer is to be in the user&amp;#x27;s brain is a commendable security model, and the fact that Apple is executing it so seamlessly (i.e. with minimal user interaction) is honestly incredible. Gone are the days when you need to jump through hoops for security. It&amp;#x27;s democratized and available to everyone.&lt;p&gt;I would say that this is &lt;i&gt;amazing&lt;/i&gt; for freedom. You could ask for little more than for every citizen to have state-of-the-art security.&lt;p&gt;---&lt;p&gt;Of course, vote with your wallet. If you don&amp;#x27;t like DRM content, don&amp;#x27;t get it. If you like the T2 chip and need a new laptop, get a Mac. No one is depriving you of choice, here.</text></comment>