Popular misconceptions about UEFI Secure Boot

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14 pointsmjg592 comments

A very good article. I have to disagree with the part about the DRM though:

>Untrue. The argument here is that Secure Boot can be used to restrict the software that a machine can run, and so can limit a system to running code that implements effective copy protection mechanisms.

An operating system is software, too. Secure boot, if it's impossible to disable (which isn't mandatory, but possible) can be used to restrict what software you can run (boot) on your computer. That's pretty much the textbook definition of Digital Restrictions Mismanagement.

In order for it to be any sort of copy protection mechanism it needs to be possible for the OS to guarantee that secure boot was used. It's not. That means the OS can't rely on the hardware being in any known-good state.

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