06.11.12
Gemini version available ♊︎Linus Torvalds Disputes Security of UEFI
Summary: PR/spin and a game of words is all UEFI is really about
“Torvalds doesn’t think Microsoft’s spin on Windows 8 UEFI secure boot is really going to do for security,” writes Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols about the subject we last covered over the weekend (as did others). The “security” that matters here is the financial security of some shareholders who back a criminal company. Nobody really asked for this antifeature to be added to PCs; it won’t add anything of value.
In a similar vein, writes a prominent blogger, Vista 8 is also a “design disaster” with changes that nobody really asked for. Quoting the summary:
The biggest problem with Windows 8 is that it wasn’t born out of a need or demand. Its design failures, particularly with ‘Metro UI’ will likely be its downfall
These radical changes have no need other than to give people the illusion that they need to buy something new to replace the “old” (like the fashion industry is always doing). It’s like rebranding, which Microsoft applies to other parts of their business right now. Quoting my co-host from TechBytes:
Every so often when the moon is full and perspiring Ballmer is in its third phase, Microsoft takes one of it’s products and
changes its namere-brands it.
Microsoft relies on vocabulary selling rather than service or quality selling. So much for “secure” boot, too… █
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mcinsand said,
June 11, 2012 at 1:43 pm
UEFI reminds me of the groups in the US that want a southern border fence or voter ID cards. All will give a kneejerk to the ignorant that something is done about security and/or fraud, but believing in either shows a lack of understanding of computer security, how shovels work, or the ease of faking documents, respectively.
I don’t think even MS believes that getting past UEFI would be a significant effort. However, if FOSS did require a hack/crack to get around it, then MS could spin that into PR to delegitimize FOSS. They have done so previously by using the confusion the public has with respect to blurring the difference between hacking and cracking, and having to use something to get past UEFI could be presented as something shady, when it’s the UEFI that’s shady.