Morten Linderud Has Helped Microsoft Put Locks (and Kill Switches) on the PCs of Arch Linux Users

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Aug 03, 2026

This is not security:

Using Microsoft's proprietary GitHub (CSO from NSA) is the opposite of security:

Some days ago AUR was in the headlines again due to security issues (it's actually not an issue in Arch itself [1, 2]), then Morten Linderud grabbed a few headlines because he was resigning.

From what we can gather, Linderud was boosting TPMs and Microsoft-controlled back doors. That is not security and it is the opposite of users' freedom.

Don't conflate UI ease with freedom or security. They choose between handing you a rope, a revolver, or bottle of cyanide.

"I still intend to continue working on my projects around TPMs, secure boot and platform security stuff," he said upon leaving, so many good packages become orphaned and bad things persist. Maybe elsewhere, too.

So before describing this as a loss for security (in Arch) consider the agenda that Arch is shedding off. █

Last month: "An industry-wide standard Microsoft invented to protect Windows, and later Linux, devices from firmware infections has been trivial to bypass for 13 of its 14 years of existence." (Source: Ars Technica)

Days ago: "Microsoft’s Secure Boot has had a serious vulnerability for most of its existence." (Source: Bruce Schneier)

Psydroid yesterday: "the first rule of "secure boot" is to disable "secure boot""