Linus Torvalds: I will not change Linux to “****-****** Microsoft”

[prodigy_]

Computers are manufactured specifically to use Windows

O'rly? Last time I checked I had to pay for my hardware. And I want to be free to do whatever I please with it.

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Back to topic: a Linus post from lkml.org:

> Our users want to be able to boot Linux. If Microsoft blacklist
> a distribution's bootloader, that user isn't going to be able to
>boot Linux any more. How does that benefit our users?


How does bringing up an unlikely and bogus scenario - and when people call you on it, just double down on it - help users?

Stop the fear mongering already.

So here's what I would suggest, and it is based on REAL SECURITY and on PUTTING THE USER FIRST instead of your continual "let's please microsoft by doing idiotic crap" approach.

So instead of pleasing microsoft, try to see how we can add real security:

- a distro should sign its own modules AND NOTHING ELSE by default. And it damn well shouldn't allow any other modules to be loaded at all by default, because why the f*ck should it? And what the hell should a microsoft signature have to do with *anything*?

- before loading any third-party module, you'd better make sure you ask the user for permission. On the console. Not using keys. Nothing like that. Keys will be compromised. Try to limit the damage, but more importantly, let the user be in control.

- encourage things like per-host random keys - with the stupid UEFI checks disabled entirely if required. They are almost certainly going to be *more* secure than depending on some crazy root of trust based on a big company, with key signing authorities that trust anybody with a credit card. Try to teach people about things like that instead. Encourage people to do their own (random) keys, and adding those to their UEFI setups (or not: the whole UEFI thing is more about control than security), and strive to do things like one-time signing with the private key thrown out entirely. IOW try to encourage *that* kind of "we made sure to ask the user very explicitly with big warnings and create his own key for that particular module" security. Real security, not "we control the user" security.

Sure, users will screw that up too. They'll want to load crazy nvidia binary modules etc crap. But make it *their* decision, and under *their* control, instead of trying to tell the world about how this should be blessed by Microsoft.

Because it really shouldn't be about MS blessings, it should be about the *user* blessing kernel modules.

Quite frankly, *you* are what he key-hating crazies were afraid of. You peddle the "control, not security" crap-ware. The whole "MS owns your machine" is *exactly* the wrong way to use keys.