e4f546765ee91f39ec73c54d22592984
Self-Described Social Justice Imposters Help Microsoft
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0
"Vendor lock-in moves further up the stack," an associate warned the other day, citing Microsoft operatives such as Paul Thurrott (he wasn't alone).
"People know too little about this "Pluton" nonsense."The associate noted the steps: "UEFI, TPM 2, Pluton..."
People know too little about this "Pluton" nonsense. "That's been kept out of the daylight for a reason," the associate noted. "The XBox served only as a testbed for DRM which gradually makes its way into the mainstream wintel market."
"I have to say that it's been obvious from the beginning what the XBox is about," the associate continued, having warned about this for a very long time. More than a decade in fact...
"Notice that it is Ars Techica and ZDNet which are among the very few announcing Pluton," the associate said, taking note of Microsoft-connected (and Microsoft-briefed) publications. Looking outside Microsoft's "copypasta kitchen", one finds actual details rather than marketing fluff, pretending it's about "security" rather than vendor lock-in. "So it only allows the execution of programs signed by Microsoft itself for the console," this one says. So first they try to be the authority responsible for signing Linux kernels and now they move to the application layer. It's worse than the TLS/CA monopoly/oligopoly, which is little/barely different/better than a diploma mill or a pyramid scheme with a chain of trust or accreditation.
"In the video above I focus on one particularly malicious actor, who has been pushing this agenda for a decade while threatening to sue his critics."The so-called 'Linux' Foundation is moving in a similar direction with applications, UEFI 'secure' boot, and even certificates (Let’s Encrypt). They're centralising everything, so Pentagon contractors get to control the whole stack. Or so they hope...
In the video above I focus on one particularly malicious actor, who has been pushing this agenda for a decade while threatening to sue his critics.
While our criticism was technical and legal, this person makes it personal. It's a tactic with casualties. Yes, it's Matthew Garrett, whom we called a "Microsoft Apologist" almost exactly 10 years ago (in the headline). His misuse of the term "Social Justice" is an insult to people who actually pursue social justice rather than 6-figure salaries from a company like Gulag (Google).
Our associate noted that "maybe a good topic [to cover] would be avoiding vendor lock-in through open standards if not also free and open source software."
"While our criticism was technical and legal, this person makes it personal."We'll write a lot more about it later this year.
"Microsoft is using Pluton for its "Linux" servers in Azure too," psydroid noted in IRC, "as a kind of counterpart to Google's Titan, which is an "open" technology, however the biggest risk is that other companies outside of Intel, AMD and Qualcomm also jump on the Pluton bandwagon. I've read about Mediatek potentially being onboard."
"Work back from the data towards the hardware," the associate noted. "Microsoft and Apple are working that direction towards lock-in while at the same time working from the system firmware on up towards lock-in. So far much of it is mandatorily present but disabled by default, for now. When that crap meets in the middle, they will start making it active by default. Also, that looks like the main reasons for the push to "cloud" storage for data. That way they have control of the data without quibbling over file formats: there are no files, at least none the public can get at."
Tell that to the EPO, which is outsourcing almost everything to Microsoft while Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos plunder Europe... ⬆