Comment by youarentrightjr

Comment by youarentrightjr 5 days ago

4 replies

> Secure boot and attestation both generally require a form of DRM.

They literally don't.

For a decade, I worked on secure boot & attestation for a device that was both:

- firmware updatable - had zero concept or hardware that connected it to anything that could remotely be called a network

warkdarrior 5 days ago

Interesting. So what did the attestation say once I (random Internet user) updated the firmware to something I wrote or compiled from another source?

  • youarentrightjr 5 days ago

    > Interesting. So what did the attestation say once I (random Internet user) updated the firmware to something I wrote or compiled from another source?

    The update is predicated on a valid signature.

    • direwolf20 5 days ago

      So your device had no user freedom. You're not doing much to refute the notion that these technologies are only useful to severely restrict user freedom for money.

      • youarentrightjr 5 days ago

        > So your device had no user freedom. You're not doing much to refute the notion that these technologies are only useful to severely restrict user freedom for money.

        Would love to hear more of your thoughts on how the users of the device I worked on had their freedom restricted!

        I guess my company, the user of the device that I worked on, was being harmed by my company, the creator of the device that I worked on. It's too bad that my company chose to restrict the user's freedom in this way.

        Who cares if the application of the device was an industrial control scenario where errors are practically guaranteed to result in the loss of human life, and as a result are incredibly high value targets ala Stuxnet.

        No, the users rights to run any code trumps everything! Commercial device or not, ever sold outside of the company or not, terrorist firmware update or not - this right shall not be infringed.

        I now recognize I have committed a great sin, and hope you will forgive me.