[ubuntu-in] Red Hat engineer renews attack on Windows 8-certified secure boot

[Ramnarayan.K]

Hi

See the troubling article, linked and pasted below.

Am sure that in time there will be a work around, but meanwhile it is
troublesome,

What do you think ?

Does Ubuntu have any comments / responses to this ?

ram

PS - the first mail with the entire article bounced, so am reposting with
only some of the article, the rest will have to be read online

Red Hat engineer renews attack on Windows 8-certified secure boot
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/26/uefi_linux_lock_out_row_latest/

 A senior Red Hat engineer has lashed back at Microsoft's attempt to
downplay concerns<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/23/ms_denies_uefi_lock_in/>that
upcoming secure boot features will make it impossible to install Linux
on Windows 8 certified systems.

Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI <http://www.uefi.org/home>)
specifications are designed to offer faster boot times and improved security
over current BIOS ROM systems. The secure boot feature of the specification
is designed so that only digitally signed OS loaders will load, a security
feature that would prevent the installation of generic copies of Linux or
FreeBSD as well as preventing rootkits and other boot-time malware from
running.

A digitally signed build of Linux would work, but that would mean persuading
OEMs to include the keys. Disabling the feature would allow unsigned code to
run. However, it is unclear how many OEMs and firmware vendors will follow
this route, which isn't required for Windows 8 certification.

The forthcoming secure boot feature has created a huge row with computer
scientists, such as Ross Anderson of Cambridge University
(here<http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2011/09/20/trusted-computing-2-0>),
and open-source developers who accuse Microsoft of pushing lock-in and
decreasing consumer choice. Microsoft
responded<http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/22/protecting-the-pre-os-environment-with-uefi.aspx>by
saying consumers would continue to control their PC and cited the
example
of one OEM, Samsung, which is including a "disable secure boot" feature on
prototype versions of its tablet PC.
<Article Snipped here>

-- 
Ram
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