[Nottingham] Microsoft's restricted boot

Jason Irwin jasonirwin73 at gmail.com
Fri May 18 09:48:56 UTC 2012


On 18/05/12 10:25, T.J long thing wrote:
> You realise this will breach anti competition laws so won't last long
Thing is, it probably will as there are a few facets to the requirement.
1) It only applies if an OEM wants a "Designed for Windows 8" type sticker;
2) On Intel, the UEFI *must* allow for a custom mode (i.e. you can boot
what you want)
3) On ARM, the UEFI must *not* allow for a custom mode and must only
boot Win8.

The argument goes that ARM is only used on tablets and mobile devices
where MS has no real market share, thus it is not an abuse of a monopoly
position.  MS will probably use this to give themselves wiggle-room to
keep the restriction in place.

Of course MS could leverage their desktop monopoly and to get OEMs to
apply the restriction on all their ARM lines, and ARM is starting to
appear on netbook class devices (I think ASUS has one) the restriction
will certainly start to spill-over to the desktop.  Whether or not such
coercion will actually happen and can then be proved in a court of law
is a question, certainly rumours have abounded over the years about such
tactics, but to my knowledge nothing has been ever proven in a court of
law; which is all that counts.

Secure boot is actually a nice idea when it is under user control,
allowing them to say "only this or that may boot my device" and
effectively locking-out rootkits.  What the MS restriction will do is
unite white-hats and black-hats in a common goal to break secure boot,
meaning it will fall faster that it would otherwise.  So in an attempt
to lock people out and make PCs more secure, the restriction will
probably have the opposite effect.

When it comes to GNU/Linux and secure boot various issues abound and
Matthew Garrett seems to be the go-to guy for information:
http://mjg59.livejournal.com/138973.html

What is probably going to get regulatory attention is the blocking of
all other browsers on Windows 8 ARM due to the use of restricted APIs:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/14/us_politicos_mozilla_windows_arm/

-- 
Jason Irwin



More information about the Nottingham mailing list