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Comment by SimeVidas | Hacker News Reader

Most secure OS, but no lock screen, cloud backup, or “find your Switch” option. If somebody steals your Switch or you lose it, you can forget about it—which is why I protect mine like a newborn child.

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The two have nothing to do with one another. Everything you list as missing are user convenience features. Not OS security features.

There is no (or very little) perception of user sensitive data being stored on the switch itself, so from that perspective you don't need user data security protections.

But you do need protections against code execution that eventually leads to piracy and loss of faith in the system from publishers.

The security of game consoles is developed not for the user, but for the customers of the platform, which are the publishers.

Really great security systems manage to offer a high level of security without sacrificing user experience. For example, how Apple devices sync secrets with end-to-end encryption.

I don't disagree with the statement, but it is still missing the point.

This is still equating user features with fundamental operating system security choices and presenting it as an either/or option.

1. They are two wildly different things. The Core Security design is not for you as a consumer of the device. It is for publishers and developers and Nintendo themselves to have trust in the system. What is being argued here is user features. Nice to have's (and I agree, REALLY nice to haves) but not MUST haves for the consoles success. Publishers aren't walking away from the switch in droves and game sales aren't endanger of being eroded because there isn't "Find my switch."

2. It's not a set in stone decision. The core security design has to be competent and hardened from Day 1. You're running against console homebrewers and hackers who will say things like "Stay on Firmware 3.0.0". Knowing full well that you will never be perfect, you have to be reasonably resistant to a webkit exploit that leads to code execution. The success of the security design is measured in days to code execution. The features that are being talked about in this particular thread can be added (and removed: see Sony and otheros without the legal argument) at any time they want.

We (consumers) may very well get the user-conveinence features being talked about here.. someday.

But the Switch's security model has been defeated as of Firmware 3.0.0 and it is unlikely that it'll ever fully recover. (If a 1st or 2nd stage bootloader exploit is discover, then s/unlikely/never.)

>update to 3.0.0 and stay there

fun fact: the mentioned kernel/trustzone bugs only exist in 1.0.0...

The missing features decrease the overall security, especially the missing lock screen. It may be a different aspect as e.g. application-level security, though.

"We're great at protecting our data, but you're on your own"

This is not about protecting the users from remote attacks via the console, this is about protecting the console from game piracy.

It's more about "protecting" it from unlicensed publishers in general, irrespective of whether they're producing unauthorized copies. Indeed, recent schemes have made it markedly easier to copy games without authorization than to publish original games without authorization. The former only requires subverting a protocol used to decide whether a copy is authorized (e.g. by altering optical drive firmware or outright replacing the drive with an emulator); the latter requires breaking the platform's crypto services.

Nobody has "found" their anything when it was stolen by thieves. You file a lost report and go home. You don't go knocking on the door of a thief and expect them to hand it to you.

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