Comment by userbinator
3 days ago
In 1999, Intel received an absolutely massive amount of opposition when they decided to include a software-readable serial number in their CPUs, so much that they reversed the decision.
Then the "security" and Trusted Computing authoritarians continued pushing for TPMs and related tech, and contributed to the rise of mobile walled gardens. Windows 11's TPM requirements were another step towards their goal. The amount of propaganda about how that was supposed to be a good thing, both here and elsewhere, was shocking.
It turns out a significant (but hopefully decreasing) number of the population is easily coerced into anything when "security" is given as a justification.
The war on general-purpose computing continues, and we need to keep fighting.
Stallman was right, as always. Time to give his "Right to Read" another read. (If it hasn't been done already, an AI-generated short film of it would be a great idea...)
"Those who give up freedom for security deserve neither."
Weird rant. TPMs are great. The modern computing landscape needs a safe place to put secrets. It's what made the iPhone (Secure Enclave is effectively a TPM) years ahead of Android in terms of security.
The problem isn't the TPM, but attestation. As soon as the TPM is required to not be under your control to get access to Y, bad things happen.
Hell, in actuality, the problem isn't even attestation, its policy. The EU Parliament (the one the people vote for, the Commission are cronies) might eventually force corporations into something more citizen-friendly. Neither Apple, Google or Microsoft is going to drop a market that big.
Requiring "tokens" stored in "trusted modules" and 7-factor-auth for everything is not progress, it's theater. The biggest achievement of the security orthodoxy was locking me out of my email, by requiring me to read a code sent to my email to log into my email.
I -- literally -- do not care about a single "account" in any "service" I use aside from my email and bank account. Most people would add a few social media accounts to that list.
You don't need a "place to put secrets". Your iPhone app does not do anything important enough to require a "trusted chain" of cryptographic bullshit, just use a password and Google/Apple login.
Your accounts are valuable, even if they're not valuable to you.
An old account with typical activity patterns can be extended some level of trust. If you sign up for an email address and immediately send a message with 100 recipients in CC, you're probably a spammer, so you get blocked. If you've used the account for years, ehh it's probably invitations to your high-school reunion or a donation drive for your Church, let's let this one through.
You can only extend this level of trust if you prevent your gullible users from constantly getting hacked; 2FA is one way to do that.
Passkeys are better passwords. They need a TPM.
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What about Apple Wallet?
The reality is that there is software dependent on the user being unable to modify it. This safeguards the server against fraudulent users.
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Attestation isn't even the problem. I'd love to be able to verify that my server's kernel hasn't been tampered with.
The problem lies in companies like Apple/Google/Microsoft rejecting attestation that they do not control.
People confusing big tech's policy choices with tech features have made "I want my laptop's auth token to only be usable on my laptop" a controversial opinion.
>The modern computing landscape needs a safe place to put secrets.
Does it? Why waste time on developing exploits when you can just call up grandma and get her give you the money by her "own" volition - using her secure device - by pretending to be the bank/IRS/her grand daughter using AI voice/etc.
> TPMs are great.
TPMs are a fucking mess. TPM 2 at least, I’ve worked with it for a few months. I love me some hardware security module, but I want to control it. And if it must be a standard, please please to something like the TKey, so it can be both much simpler than current ad-hoc standards and future proof.
https://loup-vaillant.fr/articles/hsm-done-right
TPMs add security against a narrow case of evil maid attacks. They might be useful for corporate computing (for cargo cult compliance purposes more than actual security) but they trojan horse more of "not owning the device you bought" with it to people that don't and shouldn't care about evil maid attacks at all.
Adding brute force resistance to consumer hardware is pretty useful. Now your password can be John1985 without fear of getting brute forced within seconds.
"I don't use a TPM in my computer so it shouldn't exist" has always sounded like a weird argument against the tech in my opinion.
Many Android phones have their secret storage implemented as a virtual machine rather than a TPM. The lack of a TPM doesn't suddenly give me any more freedom, although it does come with security downsides.
TPMs can also be based on free software and our own keys. It works well with Heads and Librem Key.
Agreed. Trying to limit progress because it may be misused is attacking the wrong part of the problem and will not work.
Totally with you until you brought in AI, a completely centralized and proprietary tool.
Local models exist, but there's also irony in using the tools to spread the message of the opposition.
The local models are still centralized and proprietary. They are basically closed source software.
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Especially considering AI bots are the whole reason google is pushing this new recaptcha.
"AI bots" are as stupid an argument as "think of the children". It's just a convenient distraction to restrict freedom and push their narrative.
> (If it hasn't been done already, an AI-generated short film of it would be a great idea...)
Once you have the script, that’s a couple actors in a classroom, a couple e-ink readers for props, the film crew… It can be shot with less than 10 people in a day, then one person for a couple days for cutting and post production. And that’s on the very high end for this scene.
Considering the reach this video would meant to have, avoiding AI would not be that expensive.
On the other hand, the TPM spec is pretty complex, especially because they wanted to address privacy issues: the endorsement key, burned by the manufacturer, is only able to encrypt messages and not able to sign them, because this could have been used to track machines. (and this makes a remote attestation protocol much more complex to implement)
So, it looks like they were aware about such kind of issues and tried hard to mitigate them.
> In 1999, Intel received an absolutely massive amount of opposition when they decided to include a software-readable serial number in their CPUs, so much that they reversed the decision.
> It turns out a significant (but hopefully decreasing) number of the population is easily coerced into anything when "security" is given as a justification.
The people who opposed Intel are now telling each other how hopeless and powerless they are. You can see it on HN, in this thread: No drive, outrage, and self-organizing response to these issues, but despair - 'nobody cares', 'there's nothing we can do', etc. Quitting is a sure way to lose.
The people who opposed Intel are now telling each other how hopeless and powerless they are.
I don't think those are the same people. I, for one, will continue this fight by telling everyone I know about the fact that Google is going for absolute control of the Internet, and by extension, everyone's lives. They have already become an unelected global government.
I'm not talking about individuals - where is the overwhelming pushback that Intel faced?
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