Bonum Certa Men Certa

Bill Gates' Evil Prophecy: Blocking GNU/Linux From New PCs

Reprinted with permission from Alessandro Ebersol (Agent Smith). First published PCLOS Magazine.

Bill Gates Ad

In the 70's, the motto that propelled the then young company Microsoft was the one in the picture above: A computer on every desk, in every house, and running Microsoft software.

Well, after more than 40 years, this sad prophecy is about to come true, thanks to the Pluton chip, yet another attack on user freedom, perpetrated by one of the most abusive companies in existence.


But, what is the Pluton chip?

The Pluton chip was announced on November 17, 2020, on the Microsoft blog. The Pluton chip acts as an extension of the TPM (trusted platform module) platform. The trusted module platform, TPM, acts as a verifier on what the operating system can run, remote attestation, and other restrictions. The TPM module is usually a separate circuit, mounted on the computer's motherboard (although, over the years, several TPM implementations have emerged).

As the TPM module needs to communicate with the computer's CPU, the information that travels between the module and the CPU can be accessed, analyzed and reverse engineered with the information collected. Thus, it is possible to hack a TPM module. Then comes the Pluton chip.

According to Microsoft's blog post: "The Pluton project removes the potential for this communication channel (between the CPU and the TPM module) to be attacked by building security directly into the CPU." That is, the TPM module, with the Pluton chip, is inside the microprocessor. That is, it is a SOC inside the CPU, eliminating the external module entirely.


The Pluton chip is not new, in fact it has been used before

The Pluton project was introduced as part of the integrated hardware and security capabilities of the operating system in the Xbox One console released in 2013 by Microsoft in partnership with AMD and also within Azure sphere. In fact, what Microsoft intended with this project was to prevent modded Xboxes from entering the Xbox network blocking their access to Microsoft's network. The project worked so well that they decided to expand to microcomputers.


Pluton Chip Block diagram of the Pluton chip

The concept of a security module that restricts the use of a computer is not unique to Microsoft. Apple also implements a similar technology, Secure Enclave, and Google, with Android, also implements SecureNet.


The reason behind Pluton is legit...

All the reasoning behind Pluton is legit. It is to ensure security in the internet of things (IoT), and it is correct to look for it. Because they are extremely frugal devices with no real processing power, they cannot afford to have sophisticated encryption and protection schemes.

To better understand the Pluton chip, it is necessary to know how Microsoft's cloud security scheme for IoT devices, Microsoft Azure Sphere, works.

The Microsoft Azure Sphere concept is based on the fact that the SOC processors that power the IoT devices that exist today can no longer be trusted. Because they are based on old technologies, they are not prepared for the security demands of a connected world. Microsoft has released a solution to address this problem, Azure Sphere. This Microsoft solution is now ready to go into production. Azure Sphere is a secure, high-end application platform with built-in communication and security capabilities for cross-industry IoT devices. The idea of Azure Sphere is to have a line of trust, from the IoT device to the Azure servers in the cloud.

This would be achieved through the integration of 3 elements, which work as one: a brand new security silicon chip (a microcontroller with Pluton technology already built in), the Azure Sphere OS operating system and the Azure Security Service. sphere. These components come together to create a chain of trust between the cloud and the devices.


Azure Sphere

The operating system Azure OS is Linux-like, and the microcontrollers are already starting to be produced by the Taiwanese company MediaTek.


Azure Sphere Chip Arch MT3620 Azure Sphere Chip Architecture

The road to hell...

As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and despite a legitimate concern for internet security, in the age of connected devices, this "security" opens up an avenue of possibilities for Microsoft to abuse again, the market, users and laws (let's face it, the laws are not yet ready for our new digital age).

Now, what could go wrong? All, let's recall an interesting case in which Microsoft, even indirectly, abused its customers.


Stuxnet, or How Windows Helped Bring Down Iranian Nuclear Power Plants

Stuxnet is a computer worm specifically designed to attack the SCADA operating system developed by Siemens and used to control Iranian uranium enrichment centrifuges. It was discovered in June 2010 by the Belarusian antivirus company VirusBlokAda. It is the first worm discovered that spies on and reprograms industrial systems. It was specifically written to attack the SCADA industrial control system, used to control and monitor industrial processes. Stuxnet is able to reprogram PLCs and hide the changes.

Stuxnet's design and architecture are not domain specific and could be adapted as a platform to attack modern SCADA and PLC systems (e.g. in factory assembly lines or power plants).




Snowden

Later, and with the help of Edward Snowden's revelations, it emerged that Stuxnet was part of an espionage and cyber warfare program called Operation Olympic Games (Operation Olympic Games was a covert and still unrecognized campaign of sabotage through of cyber nuisances, directed at Iranian nuclear facilities, likely by the United States and Israel. As reported, it is one of the first known uses of offensive cyber weapons. Initiated under the George W. Bush administration in 2006, the Olympic Games were accelerated under the Obama presidency, which heeded Bush's advice to continue cyberattacks on Iranian nuclear facilities at Natanz. Bush believed the strategy was the only way to prevent a conventional Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities).

David Emm, a senior security researcher at Kaspersky Labs, told the Guardian: "We think the sophistication, purpose and intelligence of Stuxnet suggest the involvement of a state.

"This is a very sophisticated attack - the first of its kind - and was clearly developed by a group of highly qualified people with the intention of gaining access to SCADA [Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition] systems - industrial control systems to monitor and manage industrial infrastructure or facility-based processes. In contrast to most indiscriminate cybercrime threats on the Internet, this one has been targeted at very specific targets. It is also different because there is no obvious financial motivation behind the attack - the objective appears to be sabotage of systems." What is known is that Stuxnet was created to exploit zero-day flaws that had not been made public. Windows flaws. And given Microsoft's promiscuity with government agencies, it is not impossible that the entire map to be able to launch this attack has been provided by Microsoft itself. Of course, the company was never connected to this act of digital vandalism, but the last time I checked, 2+2 was 4...

Well, you reader, you might be thinking: F@#$! the Iranians. They're a bunch of crazy fanatics, they better be sabotaged anyway. But once you open Pandora's box, everyone can be affected.


The legacy of Stuxnet

As I wrote above, once you open the door to malware, it gets loose and will damage the systems it encounters, no matter if they are allies or enemies. After all, as everyone remembers, both Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden were CIA assets, trained and funded by the US government. But Stuxnet left us a legacy, its code continues to be studied, and, of course, it had heirs...


Duqu

In 2011, threat analysts discovered a new worm and named it Duqu. The striking similarities between Duqu and Stuxnet led experts to believe that the two malware strains were closely related. In fact, they were almost identical: the only difference is that Duqu was not designed to sabotage machines, but to act like spyware by capturing keystrokes and collecting system data.


Flame

An even more suspected Stuxnet-linked malware that emerged in 2012. Dubbing the new threat Flame, researchers found that the virus shared much of its code with Stuxnet, in particular the way it was designed to target the same vulnerabilities of Windows and propagate through USB storage devices.

But, why did I bring this case? Well, now, let the imagination fly, and see how, with the help of Microsoft, a tyrannical government can control its entire population, through its digital devices...


Brave New World

In the not too distant future, the following could be possible with Pluton (with some custom application development to streamline everything together):

Now, in our imagination exercise, visualize a hypothetical scenario. A user in Legal creates a document. When the user uploads it, Azure checks it against Pluton to verify that the document is likely clean and also to firmly establish who created it. When another user wants to download the document, Azure only provides a version that was encrypted with the user's Pluton public key if that user belonged to the correct department and therefore can only be read by that user.

Now, multiply this hypothetical scenario all over the world, and everyone who uses Windows applications will never have any secrets. It would be the end for privacy and anonymity. Everything you do will have to be validated by a server in the Azure cloud, and, of course, big brother will watch. Ever. Using computers will be something like being a Linux user from North Korea.

Other than that, with a dedicated chip running inside the microprocessor, what else won't it do? Will it not send my activities in forums, to some government agency? Or my emails? Or my comments on Facebook? The possibilities are endless, for evil, unfortunately.


The implications are already starting to show

At the beginning of the year, Matthew Garrett, the researcher who created the UEFI bootloader for Linux (which I do not agree with at all, as it sets a precedent for Microsoft to abuse the market, with its position of power, should not be allowed under any circumstances) said that the Pluton chip was not an attack on users' freedom to use whatever operating system they wanted, which was not a threat.

In July 2022, he recanted, when he was unable to install Linux on a high-end Thinkpad Z13, complaining that this was not a legal practice by Lenovo.

But, that's what Microsoft wants. Under the guise of enforcing security, it blocks the machine's access to the user himself, being the gatekeeper of personal computing. In other words, "my" microcomputer is over. From now on, it will be Microsoft's microcomputer, and only what it allows will run...


How to prevent that from happening?

It is up to us, the users, to boycott AMD products that contain the Pluton chip, to favor recycled or refurbished computers. And there is still more to do:

So folks, things have never been so in jeopardy as they are today. Microsoft wants to be the big brother, and dictate what everyone can run on their computers, under the benevolent guise of ensuring security. We can't afford that, or the future of personal computing and privacy will be ruined.

Finally, let's not forget that anyone who says they don't need privacy because they have nothing to hide is the same thing as not defending freedom of speech, because they have nothing to say...

Let's fight this! The scenario is ugly, and the battle will be hard!



Recent Techrights' Posts

IBM Layoff Rumours, Large-Scale Implementations Weeks Ahead (in March 2025)
There are some people corroborating
Microsoft Blasted for Adding Insult to Injury: Workers Laid Off Without Prior Notice, Without Severance Payment and Basic Coverage (Like Health), Then Stigmatised as Bad Performers So They Cannot Find a Job Elsewhere
Such stereotypes end entire careers
BetaNews is Still Publishing LLM Slop/SPAM About "Linux"
Assuming it is indeed LLM slop, it seems clear BetaNews has no intention of improving or is simply unable/unwilling to improve
 
Links 11/02/2025: Current state of the Internet and Smallnet Information Services (SIS)
Links for the day
Conservative Estimate: Over 10,000 IBM Workers to Be Laid Off in the Next Two Waves
The morale is low and layoffs are expected soon, with mass layoffs likely happening next month and then again later
Links 11/02/2025: Trade Wars and "Crisis for American Universities"
Links for the day
Parasitic LLM Slop Sites Destroy the Ability to Find "Linux" News in Google News
Remember that Google News laid off lots of its workers
Richard Stallman's English Talk in Italy Less Than 24 Hours Away (Torino) and Then Another Talk in Italy Scheduled (University of Bozen-Bolzano)
He's active and he travels a lot in spite of his medical condition
Links 11/02/2025: Nutritional Poverty, Closure of USAID, More Fictional 'Valuations' Around Buzzwords
Links for the day
Perl Programming Leftovers
recently in perl.org
Microsoft in Africa: From 98% to Less Than 10% in Just 16 Years
Microsoft being on less than 1 in 10 Web-connected devices in Africa is a very big deal
Almost as If MElon Reads Techrights
The joke we started appears to be spreading
Gemini Links 11/02/2025: NeoVim and Deploying Other People's Code
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, February 10, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, February 10, 2025
Scheduled Maintenance Tomorrow and on Valentines
If the site (or Gemini capsule) is offline for a bit, the maintenance windows are likely the root cause
If Matthias Kirschner Loves Free Software, He'll Change the Name of the Microsoft-Sponsored Organisation He Governs (in Order to Avoid Confusion)
The FSF-EEE does not really like Software Freedom, it just loves money (including Microsoft's)
Soylent News Lessens the Scope of Discussion Due to Persistent Trolling and Online Abuse
if they make it a lot harder for new people to participate, then they limit the "general appeal" and reach
EPO's Local Occupational Health, Safety and Ergonomics Committee (LOHSEC) in The Hague: Workers Are Getting Sicker, Conditions in Which to Assess Patent Applications Deteriorate
"According to the Office statistics the total number of days of absence has gone up from 12.4 to 13.1 total number of sick days per Full Time Equivalent (FTE) from 2023 to 2024."
The Standard Needs to Improve Its Standards for Fact-Checking, Aaron Swartz Had Nothing to Do With Reddit and He Detested the Company That Created It
The Web is already bad enough as it is
When the Livestream of Richard Stallman is Apparently Bury-Brigaded Offline You Finally Learn to Avoid Google/YouTube for Streaming
Please, people, stop uploading to Google/YouTube
New Paper From the EPO Highlights Large-Scale Discrimination at the Office, Where People Are Rewarded for Granting More and More Illegal Patents
Even the Kremlin is probably more competent than this
Links 10/02/2025: Ban on D.E.I. Language, Listeria Risk/Outbreak
Links for the day
Links 10/02/2025: Announcing "Stringless" and Mental Health Improvement
Links for the day
Links 10/02/2025: Facebook Mass Layoffs, "Meta" Did What Aaron Swartz Had Done But to the Tune of 81.7 Terabytes
Links for the day
Microsoft Tarnishing the Brand of Arch
Of course Arch can do whatever it wants, but being associated with Microsoft is a badge of shame
The Ultimate and Inevitable Fall of OpenAI (Even Brave is 'Bigger' Now)
"When you advertise at the Super Bowl, you’ve reached just about every consumer in America. It’s the last stop. If you’re not profitable yet, you never will be."
Adding Slop to Your Blog Only Makes One Assume All the Text is LLM Slop
Simon Coter from Oracle has turned to slop
Macao is Leaving Microsoft Behind
Windows is falling to new all-time lows
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, February 09, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, February 09, 2025
Microsoft's WSL (LSW) Shows That It Can Never Love Linux, Only Windows
that's just how Microsoft rolls
Activism in Times of War and a Coup
'Linux' Foundation works for fascism
What the Silencing of Neatnik Tells Us About Linus Torvalds Inside a Microsoft-Dominated 'Linux' Foundation
Is Linus Torvalds free to express his mind as he wishes about every topic, even just any technical topic?
Windows Down to 11.35% in Senegal, as Measured by statCounter
Another all-time low (Windows was at 99% in 2009)
"Latest Technology News" in BetaNews is LLM Slop Promoting OOXML and Proprietary Software at the Expense of LibreOffice and OpenDocument Format (ODF)
Remember that "open-source" and Open Source aren't the same; the former is fake
Links 09/02/2025: Coffee, Toxic Productivity, and Programming
Links for the day
Debian's Human Rights violations & Swiss women Nazi symbolism
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 09/02/2025: Software Patents on MP3 and Another Scam Dressed Up as "Crypto"
Links for the day
Links 09/02/2025: Russian Energy Cut Off, LLM Pushers Show Signs of Desperation
Links for the day
Richard Stallman (RMS) Does Not Have Media Companies and Lobbyists on His Side, But His Message Spreads Regardless
The message of RMS is spreading in spite of all the smears
GNU/Linux Rises to All-Time High in Chile
sharp rise for GNU/Linux in Chile
Links 09/02/2025: Hottest January on Record, Panama Blackmailed
Links for the day
Why We Still Love Gemini Protocol
Gemini Protocol may seem like something "old" (it's actually very new) and something "nobody would use", but many people use it
Gemini Links 09/02/2025: "Died as a Mineral" and Game Interface for a Non-Game
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 08, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, February 08, 2025