On the GNU/Linux side, secure boot will introduce confusion, and a set of two very bad choices. Choice A: secure boot is good technology from a security standpoint, but if I want to use GNU/Linux without being dependent on a Microsoft-signed key, I have to disable it.-40hz
...or enroll your own key in the firmware.
-f0dder
@f0dder - Sure. But lets forget for a moment that the vast majority of PC users must
easily know as much about computer systems and programming as you do.
Lets think for a minute about the the tiny minority who just know enough to boot the thing and use it...(
kidding!)
See what I'm saying? I'm still confused about some of this and I'm not exactly an amateur when it comes to either Linux or Windows. And
you would probably blow my doors off on most of this when it comes to the real hardcore tech - yet
even you still have questions.
No big deal? We can work around it? Yeah. We can - and probably will - so all's well and fine.
But that's
us.
Microsoft and all the other participants in the "fence in the platform" crowd don't care about
us. They're targeting
the millions with their new vision. They don't need to worry about the likes of us because we can only use what they make. And if they get to make things the way they want, there will no longer be a platform you can truly make your own.
In many respects it will become much like the old phone systems.
One legal provider.
One type of service.
One manufacturer. With the customer free to do anything they want - provided it's sanctioned by
and purchased from those who have been authorized to provide it.
And once that happens, innovation will die because they'll use paranoia and ignorance to have governments outlaw anything that deviates from their model. All in the name of "security," "anti-terrorism" and "legal use."
It used to be a
criminal offense in the US to plug any device into the phone system that wasn't manufactured by the phone system. And the US phone system remained a study in archaic 30s technology until that ban was lifted. In very short order we got touch tone dialing, a huge number of telephone styles with all sorts of features, lower costs, direct long distance service, and all the rest when 'Ma Bell' no longer had a stranglehold on US telecommunications.
But that never would have happened if the Bell System continued to be allowed to
hold back technology and innovation in order to milk as much revenue as possible out of what they already had. You see it today with data caps on bandwidth. A few entrenched suppliers with monopolies continue to prop up an old revenue model that makes no sense with what we have today.
I once heard a phone company person admit that it probably cost his company more to monitor telephone use and bill for it than it would for them to just charge everybody a flat monthly fee per
demarc point and allow unlimited use.
When I asked him why they didn't, he said it was because the government would prefer that they didn't. Apparently my government relies very heavily on the surveillance and monitoring possibilities that a detailed phone bill can provide. And in the USA, they don't need a warrant to look at one.
So there are bigger factors at play behind some of this direction the new PC design is going in... And it's not mere paranoia or "FUD swallowing" should you start noticing it...
Recent Posts
