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by xg15 3558 days ago
True - but as the other HN thread (that I can't seem to find anymore ><) pointed out, if Microsoft's requirements were planned as an attack against free software, it would be an unnecessarily complicated and ineffective one: There is nothing stopping anyone from writing Linux drivers for the new RAID mode - and I guess if more models with this setup show up, eventually someone will write one.

On the other hand, Microsoft could have easily gotten a much more "robust" lockdown - by simply demanding mandatory, unchangeable Secure Boot like on the ARM tablets. But they didn't do that.
3 comments
josteink 3558 days ago
> - but as the other HN thread (that I can't seem to find anymore ><) pointed out,

Flagged as a dupe. It's here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12545966

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makaronin 3558 days ago
One guy has done a nice work decompiling the BIOS and found that skipping over the hidden BIOS pages is hard-coded into the firmware. See this https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Linux-Discussion/Installing-Ubu...
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brokenmachine 3558 days ago
Can they not modify that BIOS code to not skip those pages?

I'm sure anyone with enough knowledge to decompile a BIOS would have obviously thought of that idea though. I'm guessing the BIOS images are signed or something?

Regardless, this smells evil to me...

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slipstream- 3558 days ago
>On the other hand, Microsoft could have easily gotten a much more "robust" lockdown - by simply demanding mandatory, unchangeable Secure Boot like on the ARM tablets. But they didn't do that.

Didn't you hear that Secure Boot is basically broken?

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Natanael_L 3558 days ago
Those leaked provisioning certs can be blacklisted on new hardware
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