[leoedin]

There must be 10s of millions of x86 PCs with unlocked bioses in the UK. The issue won't be running an open device. The problem is software - what does someone running Linux do if the government mandates online services require proprietary attestation APIs?

It's scary how quickly the banning is moving. The problem is what happens next. When they realise that banning things doesn't really work. The next logical step is severely limiting internet traffic.

[lifty]

The first wave will be to mandate ID verification for online services. Some people will then start using p2p services, so the next step is to ban devices that can run non-approved software. Probably having your own VPS running your own software will also not be allowed. And like that, all the avenues for escaping control will be closed… for your safety, of course.

[jasonvorhe]

Don't use those services. You're not gonna miss most of the crap after a few weeks anyways. Everything else is consent.

[rjsw]

Am currently trying to open a business bank account in the UK, several banks require running a proprietary ID validation app.

[BLKNSLVR]

I want to downvote your comment to register my displeasure with the banks' actions.

[torginus]

I think a lot of them already do, considering you can do things like digitally sign legally binding contracts.

[altairprime]

> what does someone running Linux do if the government mandates online services require proprietary attestation APIs?

One dual-boots to a reputable Linux vendor’s signed/sealed OS image with secure boot enabled in BIOS, so that the attestations are valid; financially supports said vendor; contacts them quarterly with check-ins on the status of their lockdown+attestation roadmap and uses professional journalism approaches to highlight their (in/)action; and, contacts one’s relevant governing body to petition for the addition of that vendor’s signed/sealed product line to be added to the authorized signatures list by both government-sponsored apps and to the verification platforms of the competing vendors (in order to balance the necessities of attestations with an appropriate degree of anti-monopolistic protections for consumers).

> It's scary how quickly the banning is moving. The problem is what happens next. When they realise that banning things doesn't really work

This confidence that ‘attestation doesn’t really work’ is the same sort of confidence that lead the Linux user community to largely scoff at, and ignore, attestation’s threat from when it was ballistically launched three decades ago towards the future. Options are now very limited for stopping it, and largely reduced to ‘getting some Linux into the approval list’. Severe compromises in user freedom will be required for the signed+sealed distro images to receive government approvals.

Imagine if Linux were an app on a video game console and you start to see the outcome: it’s a perfectly great working environment into which all of /usr/local and /opt and /home are writable, but the lockdown prevents you from modifying the OS in any way that could defeat the attestation protections. Apps you install into /opt can only access their own /opt/prefix, apps you install into /usr/local can access $HOME. The apps you install can choose to write session data (such as digital age verification certificates) to a system-protected /data store keyed first by the kernel’s signature, and second by the vendor signature the kernel reads from the app; with the understanding that an attestation latch-forward after an exploit patch will wipe that store, and that dual-booting to a different vendor will suspend access to sessions stored by that vendor.

This is, to climb on my hobby horse for a moment, why I continue to believe that Valve will be the first Linux vendor to receive government attestation approval alongside Apple / Google / Microsoft have previously across the desktop and mobile spaces. I’d really prefer that to be Graphene, Ubuntu, and Valve — but Graphene’s customer base is hostile to this, Ubuntu doesn’t have any incentive to care, and of the Linux vendors out there, Valve has a decade-long head start on the need for a locked-down and attested platform for business reasons. All of the above falls out naturally from considering how to defend one app from another on Android, iOS, Steam Deck, and Xbox. So far as I can tell today, though, Linux intends to be left out in the cold on all this. Oh well.

[m3galinux]

Linux intends to be left out of all this attestation garbage because it completely undermines the point of fully owning and controlling your own devices. I don't want or need to ask permission before I run a program - not from random megacorporations, and ESPECIALLY not from any of the various governments. If some third party service wants to make sure I'm not doing anything nefarious, they should do it at the border of their servers and the services they offer.

[altairprime]

> what does someone running Linux do if the government mandates online services require proprietary attestation APIs?

So, in the scenario posed (quoted above again for context) that I’m responding to, where the government has mandated attestation online, it seems like you’re arguing that Linux should continue to opt-out of attestation, and thus be forced into non-internet uses only. Do I misunderstand your intended outcome to the scenario here? I took for granted that Linux users would want to retain access to the internet as a critical priority, given how strongly they’re objecting to attestation of internet apps (and eventually internet access), but if I’m mistaken then I’m happy to reverse course!

[m3galinux]

The idea is that enough users insist on non-attestation devices and platforms that governments and mega corps aren't able to require them for critical services. And loudly protest, switch to different services, etc when they DO attempt to be required. Example: already personally switched banks when they tried to require a validated Android device, and let them know directly and in reviews all over the place.

Don't fall for the trap that all of this is inevitable, you have to try and resist it first.

[altairprime]

> Don't fall for the trap that all of this is inevitable, you have to try and resist it first.

Been resisting for years, since I learned of that first Intel presentation, as best as I knew how at each of the various life phases. At least for the last few years people started to pay attention as it starts to affect them personally, rather than just dismissing it as an implausible scenario back when it could have been stopped by regulations for the first twenty-five. Note that protesting through boycott requires not buying any big-three mobile phone or big-three video game console (each of these is a beachfront for widespread attestation), which is essentially a dealbreaker right out of the gate for most theoretical objectors. I remain hopeful that my cynical outlook will be disproven in outcome, but I also continue honing this high-level plan for any Linux that would ship sealed/signed OS images with gov't approval. One need not simply bet on red or black, after all!

[doublerabbit]

I would never ever trust Linux from a vendor. If it's not installed by myself, I refuse to use it.

When you accept government gift in approval consider it tapped. At any point they can return to the vendor and go "install this". No? Okay bye to your certification.

Call me paranoid.

[altairprime]

> I would never ever trust Linux from a vendor. If it's not installed by myself, I refuse to use it.

I bet you would, though, if the built OS image were 100% reproducible except for the signature. Once you have a fully reproducible Linux OS build, you can literally copy paste the cryptosig from the vendor and it will work with the image you built yourself from source that you inspected yourself. Then it’s impossible for the government to tap it without breaking the reproducible image checksum and thus the published cryptosig. It’s a better defense than any warrant canary would be, and it satisfies your concerns fully.

Arch shows only 15 packages left for their core OS to be built reproducibly; what I don’t see at their dashboard is the state of their ISO build reproducibility, but I imagine that’s the same as the core, so maybe it’s just unstated for obviousness. https://reproducible.archlinux.org/

Does GrapheneOS publish their repro build efforts as a dashboard anywhere?

[doublerabbit]

> I bet you would, though, if the built OS image were 100% reproducible except for the signature.

CryptoSecure, depends how it's done but again neither can be trusted. Especially when you have no control over the silicon running the OS.

I don't trust Linux now. Microsoft got its mits with WSL. RedHat sold-out to IBM and Debian got in bed with Canonical. Arch & Valve I might trust slightly more. They've got to make money somehow /shrug.

I use FreeBSD and I don't trust that either unless I can do make install world, even then I have my suspicions.

[akimbostrawman]

>They've got to make money somehow /shrug

They do with enterprise but not the way they do with consumers. There is no point selling data for ads on couple thousand servers for pennies when they make millions with licensing and support.

All the code microsoft, redhat and canonical contribute to linux is open source anyways.

[fph]

> Does GrapheneOS publish their repro build efforts as a dashboard anywhere?

Instructions to fully reproduce a build are here: https://grapheneos.org/build#reproducible-builds (disclaimer: I never tried using them).

[dmantis]

>signed/sealed OS image

This way we will just have unremovable age verification, spyware, online accounts to use the os, name another bs from other vendors. What's the point of Linux then? The moment big corps and the state can seal spyware into your computer, they'll happily do it.

I'd rather have a separate burn device with whatever os for state services which lives in a faraday cage most of the time and have a proper OS I control on the main device than give somebody control over it.

[altairprime]

I’m with you in spirit, but the ship is sinking, man. Your arguments were already made in the 90s when the first puff of smoke from all this was on the horizon. Thirty years of chicken little later, I’ve moved past being upset about this and am trying instead to persuade the Linux community to step up before the window of opportunity closes on GP computing altogether. Do something, act, if you want a better future; or do nothing if you don’t. What actions do you suggest people take in support of your viewpoint?

[doublerabbit]

Make the installer KISS. Linux installation still host the realm of complex verbose jargon.

"Starting anaconda", "Enable Kdump", on anything RedHat.

Debian spews an ancient terminal window of options upon options and who knows how to install Arch.

Linux installations has never been click, click go. Installation wizards are still designed for the tech enabled and not the common user.

We have a helicopter on Mars yet they still can't master a installation wizard.

[altairprime]

> We have a helicopter on Mars yet they still can't master a installation wizard.

Unexpectedly, the 'bootable thumb drive' models are actually pretty great — not the installers, but the ones that boot straight into a GUI that works and is usable. I haven't used one as my personal Linux uses predated thumb drives, but I have always (mistakenly?) assumed that once you're booted into a liveCD, you can click 'Install on a drive partition' and it will actually do something coherent and GUI and reasonable. Have I been too optimistic? Probably, yeah :(

[1bpp]

Not really, that is essentially the experience I've always had installing different distros from a live USB; it's mostly just seamless if you're not doing anything weird.

[Magnusmaster]

I'm not sure that is even possible with Secure Boot