[Discuss] Fighting UEFI

[Guy Gold]

On Sat, Jul 28, 2012 at 3:50 PM, Chuck Anderson <cra at wpi.edu> wrote:
>
> 1. Disable Secure Boot in the firmware.

The horror stories I've heard, informed, that there will not be such an option
to disable, one the system was purchased with it,  true/false ?

> 2. Load your own keys into the firmware.
>
> 3. Pay $99 to Verisign so you can sign as many binaries as you want
>    and have them automatically be trusted by the default firmware
>    keys.

Is it a one time payment one would need to make, and then - he can
re-purpose any
machine that he comes across, or, is it 99$ - per every  machine he
comes across ?

IMO, Secure-Boot is going to be a big hit (and I hope I'm wrong).

Two examples : let us say any BLU list member gets in to a Best-Buy to
buy a brand new
computer.
Sales guy " Sir/Miss, would you like to buy a system with the
state-of-the art digital
protection on it, it costs you no extra charge
BLU member : "Yeah, sure.... just hand me one without it"

#2, A standard PC user enters the store, and gets the same offer,
their reply would be
"What do you mean If I *want* to , I demand it!, do you expect me not
to buy it ?"

and then, one day, that system drifts into a Linux user, that wants to
dual-boot, or nuke WIN all
together , and...Oops.. NO GO.

Microsoft and OEMs are probably aiming to eliminate that option. Most
systems that clunk while running Windows, still
Fly!! with Linux, and that's bad for all hardware vendors. The only
recent hardware evolution out-there, that
justified buying new, is the hardware assisted virtualization. And
even old systems (4 years, even 5) are able
to do so, just add the max RAM allowed by the system board, and you're
one happy camper.  If they would be able to dim a system useless once
it cannot run the newest  or one-before last Windows OS, oh, that's a
lot of money, every 3 years.
When I see Core I-7 systems (not even the 'slow' and 'weak' I-3 !! )
with 8GB of RAM being sold to users that are going to some
web-browsing and office work, I break inside :) .

--
Guy Gold