And once you remove the friction for requiring cryptographic verification of each component, all it takes is one well-resourced lobby to pass a law either banning user-controlled signing keys outright or relegating them to second-class status. All governments share broadly similar tendencies; the EU and UK govts have always coveted central control over user devices.
There are genuine positive applications for remote attestation. E.g., if you maintain a set of servers, you can verify that it runs the software it should be running (the software is not compromised). Or if you are running something similar to Apple's Private Compute Cloud to run models, users can verify that it is running the privacy-preserving image that it is claiming to be running.
There are also bad forms of remote attestation (like Google's variant that helps them let banks block you if you are running an alt-os). Those suck and should be rejected.
Hacker News has recently been dominated by conspiracy theorists who believe that all applications of cryptography are evil attempts by shadowy corporate overlords to dominate their use of computing.
Buddy, if I want encryption of my own I've got secure boot, LUKS, GPG, etc. With all of those, why would I need or even want remote attestation? The purpose of that is to assure corporations that their code is running on my computer without me being able to modify it. It's for DRM.
It's probably built on systemd's Secure Boot + immutability support.
As said above, it's about who controls the keys. It's either building your own castle or having to live with the Ultimate TiVo.
We'll see.
We all know who controls the keys. It's the first party who puts their hands on the device.
And once you remove the friction for requiring cryptographic verification of each component, all it takes is one well-resourced lobby to pass a law either banning user-controlled signing keys outright or relegating them to second-class status. All governments share broadly similar tendencies; the EU and UK govts have always coveted central control over user devices.
Doesn't have to be. While I'm not a fan of systemd (my comment history is there), I want to start from a neutral PoV, and see what it does.
I have my reservations, ideas, and what it's supposed to do, but this is not a place to make speculations and to break spirits.
I'll put my criticism out politely when it's time.
Just to make it clear - on Android you don't have the keys. Even with avb_custom_key you can't modify many partitions.
None of the consumer mobile devices give you all the keys. There are many reasons for that, but 99.9% of them are monetary reasons.
> Sounds like kernel mode DRM or some similarly unwanted bullshit.
Look, I hate systemd just as much as the next guy - but how are you getting "DRM" out of this?
Remote attestation is literally a form of DRM
There are genuine positive applications for remote attestation. E.g., if you maintain a set of servers, you can verify that it runs the software it should be running (the software is not compromised). Or if you are running something similar to Apple's Private Compute Cloud to run models, users can verify that it is running the privacy-preserving image that it is claiming to be running.
There are also bad forms of remote attestation (like Google's variant that helps them let banks block you if you are running an alt-os). Those suck and should be rejected.
Edit: bri3d described what I mean better here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46785123
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> Remote attestation is literally a form of DRM
Let's say I accept this statement.
What makes you think trusted boot == remote attestation?
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As the immediate responder to this comment, I claim to be the next guy. I love systemd.
"cryptographically verifiable integrity" is a euphemism for tivoization/Treacherous Computing. See, e.g., https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.en.html
Secure boot and attestation both generally require a form of DRM. It’s a boon for security, but also for control.
> 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
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I don't mind SystemD.
Hacker News has recently been dominated by conspiracy theorists who believe that all applications of cryptography are evil attempts by shadowy corporate overlords to dominate their use of computing.
No, it's not "all applications of cryptography". It's only remote attestation.
Buddy, if I want encryption of my own I've got secure boot, LUKS, GPG, etc. With all of those, why would I need or even want remote attestation? The purpose of that is to assure corporations that their code is running on my computer without me being able to modify it. It's for DRM.
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