this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
897 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
40192 readers
307 users here now
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
THIS IS NOT (just) ABOUT GOOGLE
Currently, attestation and "trusted computing" are already a thing, the main "sources of trust" are:
This is already going on, you need a Microsoft signed stub to boot anything other than Windows on a PC, you need Apple's blessing to boot anything on a Mac, your smartphone manufacturer decides whether you can unlock it and lose attestation, all of Microsoft, Apple and Google run app attestation through their app stores, several governments and companies run attestation software on their company hardware, and so on.
This is the next logical step, to add "web app" attestation, since the previous ones had barely any pushback, and even fanboys of walled gardens cheering them up.
PS: Somewhat ironically, Google's Play Store attestation is one of the weaker ones, just look at Apple's and the list of stuff they collect from the user's device to "attest" it for any app.
Can you expand on this? Maybe I'm just misunderstanding you, but a "pc" is not a Windows made machine. It is a collection of disparate computer parts made by different companies with no requirement to run Windows as the exclusive OS once put together.
Even on a Windows OS, I can run any program I want (that's made to operate with Windows). I may get a warning if it's not a "known" developer, but I can still run it. Did I miss a big update to how 11 works with unknown software or something?
PCs have been switching to UEFI instead of legacy BIOS startups, one of the features of UEFI is Secure Boot, which ensures all code being run during the boot process is signed with a valid key, which most PC manufacturers have been choosing to be a Microsoft key by default because Windows requires Secure Boot and most PC users want to run Windows. Depending on the manufacturer, you may be able to switch to "legacy BIOS" boot, add your own keys, disable the check, or use a Microsoft signed stub for your alternative OS. Only the last one is guaranteed to work, though.
Windows 10/11 Home in S mode only allows running programs from the Microsoft Store, you need to upgrade the license if you want to "sideload" stuff.
If i recall you can toggle s mode off inside the Microsoft store and use it normally, you just cant turn it back on without a reboot.