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Comment by stacktrust | Hacker News Reader

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stacktrust·

Apple has a robust recovery mechanism on their laptops, via T2 security coprocessor.

https://www.macrumors.com/2020/06/25/apple-silicon-macs-new-...

https://support.apple.com/guide/security/

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Which is still running out of mutable storage. The point isn't whether you can verify the boot, it's whether you can prevent a compromised device (compromised to the point of being able to write to its own storage) from bricking itself.

Now, as it happens Apple (everyone really, but Apple is a leader for sure) has some great protections in place to prevent that. And that's great. But if you feel you can rely on those protections there's no need to demand the ROM recovery demanded upthread.

There's also Apple DFU mode to restore OS with help from immutable ROM and external device, without depending on installed OS or mutable "Recovery OS" partition, https://theapplewiki.com/wiki/DFU_Mode & https://support.apple.com/en-us/108900

> DFU or Device Firmware Upgrade mode allows all devices to be restored from any state. It is essentially a mode where the BootROM can accept iBSS. DFU is part of the SecureROM which is burned into the hardware, so it cannot be removed.

... right, which as mentioned requires physical access and external hardware and doesn't meet the requirements above either. And it's not particularly notable either: every flashable SOC in every market has something like this, at different levels of sophistication. Again it's just not a solvable problem at the level of integration imagined.

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