[HN Gopher] faulTPM: Exposing AMD fTPMs' Deepest Secrets
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       faulTPM: Exposing AMD fTPMs' Deepest Secrets
        
       Author : kerm1t
       Score  : 268 points
       Date   : 2023-05-02 13:35 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (arxiv.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (arxiv.org)
        
       | anthk wrote:
       | And now I remember people telling me Windows is more secure than
       | Unix because of TPM, foo... bar...
       | 
       | No, thanks, bioctl(4) works well under OpenBSD for disk
       | encryption and so will do under HyperbolaBSD.
        
         | shitter wrote:
         | Windows, Linux, OpenBSD - it doesn't matter. Without a TPM
         | you're vulnerable to trivial attacks (Evil Maid), far easier
         | than the one in this article.
        
           | anthk wrote:
           | Did you try OpenBSD with bioctl? You can tamper with the
           | bootloader, but not the rest. And you can always set the
           | bootloader in another media and always boot from that.
        
             | shitter wrote:
             | Tampering with the bootloader is game over. And what, are
             | you keeping this other bootloader medium on your person and
             | in your sight at all times? It's never ever unattended?
        
               | codedokode wrote:
               | Using TPM with closed source firmware, especially written
               | and designed by Microsoft, probably full of backdoors,
               | when you don't even know what it's doing is a worse
               | choice.
        
               | shitter wrote:
               | I don't think it's a worse choice. Either way, you're
               | screwed with physical access. At least with TPM, the
               | attack requires more sophistication.
        
           | salawat wrote:
           | So.... Take your laptop with you everywhere?
           | 
           | When did we start creating nightmarish system complexity to
           | guard against attacks that are generally exceedingly
           | rare....oh wait. Forgot where I was.
        
       | snvzz wrote:
       | Unsurprisingly, a key is better protected with a good passphrase
       | than a TPM, if you have to pick one.
        
       | dist-epoch wrote:
       | Password-less TPMs will always be fundamentally vulnerable. The
       | only question is what is the price to break them. It can be very
       | high (as seen in the Xbox).
        
       | 0x_rs wrote:
       | > _Our attacks have shown that an fTPM cannot sufficiently
       | protect its internal state against firmware or physical attacks.
       | In such a scenario, a passphrase-only key protector of reasonable
       | length provides better security than a TPM-only protector with a
       | numeric PIN (5.3.1). This is in stark contrast to Microsoft's
       | claim that "BitLocker provides the most protection when used with
       | a Trusted Platform Module" [29] (see also in 2.3). In fact, of
       | all available protectors (seen in Figure 1), TPM-only is arguably
       | the weakest protection strategy._
       | 
       | This might not be surprising to some, despite Windows hiding the
       | GUI passphrase functionality behind some group policy settings,
       | both "Require additional authentication at startup" and "Enhanced
       | PIN", which isn't perhaps the most intuitive and a normal user
       | might not even realize unless they notice the "normal" PIN is
       | numerical-only. In any case, for the average person that might
       | have their devices stolen, this is likely not to be a threat, but
       | I think a passphrase should always be preferable, BitLocker
       | doesn't support any better option.
        
         | CircleSpokes wrote:
         | Not only do they hide it under a group policy even when you
         | enable an "Enhanced PIN" there is a maximum length of 20.
        
           | IYasha wrote:
           | Any key strength limitation is mandated by... certain forces.
           | This is not a secret (anymore). "If anything in consumer tech
           | can be weakened, make sure it is".
        
           | cma wrote:
           | Why do they do this, Samsung does the same tiny length limit
           | for Secure Folder. Is it law enforcement requested?
        
             | halJordan wrote:
             | It's because tpms are small and have small storage. The
             | outrageous "its a secret cabal" voices are a prime example
             | of what people cook up when faced with something they cant
             | explain due to ignorance but feel the need to have an
             | answer. Its as outrageous as a Republican saying "Q did
             | it."
        
               | salawat wrote:
               | If you'd like to provide schemata, open standards and
               | source code for them, then don't keep the class waiting.
               | 
               | Don't/can't? Then you're a fool trusting someone else to
               | do something you yourself cannot inspect. Then again,
               | most people seem to be oddly fine with that. I am not of
               | that number.
        
               | intelVISA wrote:
               | as a 1337 pwn3r the TPMs are fine
               | 
               | source: just trust me bro
        
               | Dylan16807 wrote:
               | Wondering if something was requested by law enforcement
               | isn't implying a cabal, chill.
               | 
               | Also a couple kilobytes of flash costs basically nothing.
               | And you could hash keys over a certain length, which is
               | much better than having such a short limit on a human-
               | typed string.
        
             | bflesch wrote:
             | yes
        
               | copper-float wrote:
               | Source? That would be very shocking.
        
               | rasz wrote:
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from
               | _th...
               | 
               | >Later provision was added to allow export of 56-bit
               | encryption if the exporter promised to add "key recovery"
               | backdoors by the end of 1998.
               | 
               | First SSL crippled to 40-bit RC2/RC4
               | 
               | First 802.11 wireless protocol WEP "64" key length
               | shortened to 40 bits
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A5/1 vs
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A5/2
               | 
               | >to allow the British secret service to eavesdrop more
               | easily. The British proposed a key length of 48 bits,
               | while the West Germans wanted stronger encryption to
               | protect against East German spying, so the compromise
               | became a key length of 54 bits
               | 
               | >Documents leaked by Edward Snowden in 2013 state that
               | the NSA "can process encrypted A5/1"
        
               | wyager wrote:
               | Would it? Apple crippled iCloud image encryption for
               | years at the request of federal LEAs.
        
               | _georgesim_ wrote:
               | Can you share a source for this please? Not finding
               | anything useful.
        
               | wyager wrote:
               | I have no idea if anyone has covered it. It's industry
               | knowledge. Source: me
               | 
               | I figured it would be generally known at this point,
               | especially with the whole perceptual hash debacle
               | (intended to satisfy LEAs despite the plan to finally
               | enable image encryption). I'm not sure what the internal
               | politics looked like after the perceptual hash snitch got
               | axed - my friends who would know quit Apple by then.
        
               | asldkfjaslkdj wrote:
               | [flagged]
        
               | halJordan wrote:
               | Despite the "hurr, durr; I'm cynical" responses, you're
               | not insane, it would in fact be shocking.
        
               | Spooky23 wrote:
               | Why? The FBI pitched a fit over access to a shooter's
               | phone in the press a few years ago, then stopped.
               | 
               | Now, you have a multiple products on the market that can
               | crack passcodes by utilizing flaws that allow you to
               | brute force PINs, which are by default 6 digit numbers.
               | (Despite most guidance demanding 8)
        
               | rasz wrote:
               | Cellebrite UFED Cellphone Forensic Extraction Device
               | Teardown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LLGGCXH9MQ
               | 
               | UFED, get it? its right in the name :] Video has little
               | demonstration with older phones, one click bypass for all
               | passcodes.
        
       | taraharris wrote:
       | Why not simply abandon TPM and focus on making simple, trustable,
       | massively parallel general-purpose hardware without backdoors for
       | spy agencies and corporations?
       | 
       | Whose computer is this, anyway?
        
         | cryptonector wrote:
         | This isn't a TPM spec vulnerability. This is a CPU (SP)
         | vulnerability, and it's devastating regardless of whether you
         | use a TPM or not.
         | 
         | TFA is fine, but thinking that this is specifically a
         | vulnerability because of TPM is a serious mistake. Not using a
         | TPM won't make you safer.
        
         | dathinab wrote:
         | Mine and I want a TPM, it's a device essential for modern
         | laptop security.
         | 
         | _Even if you would be able to control every bit of firmware on
         | your computer and there was no DRM or similar you still would
         | want a TPM!_
         | 
         | through potential a different implementation and not some of
         | the features build on top of it
         | 
         | like something like a TKey integrated into your CPU with some
         | additions for securing the boot chain (including the EFI
         | itself) would probably be a convenient, simple, way to have the
         | necessary security without many of the problems ... or did I
         | just reinvent TPM ?
        
           | als0 wrote:
           | TPM is more or less an API specification. The specification
           | is fine but people are worried about implementation backdoors
           | and pre-provisioned keys. It should be possible to have an
           | open source public trustable implementation that anyone can
           | synthesise onto an FPGA or a real chip design. This ought to
           | avoid fears about backdoors, while keeping a mature security
           | model and good software support. I suspect there isn't
           | sufficient demand or skill for such a project.
        
             | dathinab wrote:
             | > I suspect there isn't sufficient demand or skill for such
             | a project.
             | 
             | IMHO more like: There is little to no profit in this, nor
             | much motivations for AMD/Intel to provide this. But it does
             | involve additional work, especially if the fTPM
             | implementation they use currently does (partially) use code
             | they got from other companies which they can't open source.
             | 
             | Through you wouldn't need a FPGA, for a TPM to really be
             | secure you want it to be integrated into the CPU. And most
             | times this means it's not a "special" physical chip but
             | just a "standard co-processor" running some software. E.g.
             | in case of ARM Android smart phones it's likely a more or
             | less normal Cortex M0 processor (and it likely runs more
             | then "just" a TPM, e.g. some DRM pipe protection code).
             | 
             | So theoretically you would just need to publish the "bar
             | metal" code and anyone could analyze it and then build and
             | run it e.g. using qemu (if qemu can handle co-processors
             | idk.). And by also allowing to extract the build code from
             | the CPU combined with reproducible builds you could also
             | verify it runs what it says it runs (kinda, I mean who says
             | there isn't a hardware backdoor rewriting the code, and it
             | being a FPGA doesn't help there because the FPGA hardware
             | could also rewrite the FPGA bin-code.... at least
             | theoretically)
        
               | kfreds wrote:
               | As I'm sure you're aware FPGAs are nice because they can
               | complicate things for an attacker in the physical supply
               | chain. Andrew "bunnie" Huang did an excellent talk on the
               | subject:
               | 
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzb37RyagCQ
        
           | cryptonector wrote:
           | TPM 2.0 is a fantastic spec. There's little that's wrong with
           | it. Even the bus sniffing vulnerabilities w/ dTPMs aren't
           | TPM's fault but the BMC's and BIOS', as there is absolutely a
           | way to encrypt and authenticate secrets to/from the TPM.
           | 
           | Reinventing this wheel will probably lose a lot of good
           | things. People who reinvent wheels often fail to understand
           | what came before.
        
             | flangola7 wrote:
             | Encrypting bus traffic? What kind of mission impossible spy
             | is this supposed to protect from?
        
           | akira2501 wrote:
           | Is a non removable TPM actually the right level of security?
           | It feels like the same level of security I would get by
           | having one of those realtor lock boxes permanently affixed to
           | my front door and always keeping my house key in it.
           | 
           | Maybe the key itself is "more secure" because it only lives
           | in the lockbox and is only taken out to unlock the front door
           | and then put back right away. Is this the right system for
           | actually securing access to my home, though?
        
           | the8472 wrote:
           | If you could replace all the vendor keys (including the
           | firmware signing keys) with your own then TPM could make
           | sense. But today's TPMs don't support that.
        
             | cryptonector wrote:
             | > If you could replace all the vendor keys [...]
             | 
             | You very much can. It's trivial.
             | 
             | TPMs have four key "hierarchies" each of which has a
             | _seed_. Of those four, one (the  "null" hierarchy) gets a
             | random seed each time the TPM is reset, while the other
             | three (the platform, endorsement, and owner hierarchies)
             | have their seeds stored in EEPROM/NVRAM, and there are
             | functions in the spec for replacing those with new,
             | randomly generated seeds.
             | 
             | All primary keys in a TPM are derived from seeds, and the
             | derived keys are not stored anywhere -- they are always
             | derived as needed from the hierarchy's seed and a given
             | template. Therefore changing a hierarchy's seed loses all
             | access to primary keys previously used in that hierarchy.
             | 
             | All other keys are saved off-chip encrypted to a primary
             | key. Thus rotating a hierarchy's see loses all access to
             | _all_ keys previously used in that hierarchy (not just the
             | primary keys).
             | 
             | The only thing here that is remotely problematic here is
             | that you have to trust the TPM's RNG. If you're paranoid
             | you might believe that the RNG is itself a PRNG with a
             | hidden seed and that the manufacturer knows it. But if you
             | roll the endorsement hierarchy seed and delete the
             | endorsement key certificate from the TPM, then how will the
             | manufacturer identify the TPM in order to look up its
             | putative hidden RNG seed? Even if they could find it, how
             | would they know which RNG output was used as the
             | hierarchy's new seed?
             | 
             | So, yes, you can "replace all the vendor keys". It really
             | is trivial. However, _before you do it_ you _may_ want to
             | use the existing keys and certificates to bootstrap
             | (enroll) the host into your organization 's network and
             | _then_ change the seeds and certify various public keys as
             | derived after the seeds are changed so that you can
             | continue using the TPM for attestation.
        
               | the8472 wrote:
               | You cut off the "including the firmware signing keys"
               | part, that's critical. Otherwise the vendor could be
               | coerced or subverted to sign malicious firmware which
               | then subverts your system at runtime.
               | 
               | Only when you can bring your own keys for the entire boot
               | and trust chain can you untether yourself from the vendor
               | once you have purchased the hardware.
        
               | cryptonector wrote:
               | Yes, you can get compromised through firmware updates.
               | But then, not using a TPM also leaves you vulnerable to
               | firmware and software updates. If NSA has compromised all
               | TPM vendors, then you can expect that they've compromised
               | much more still, and so you've basically lost the fight
               | against them. Key management is always a weak link in the
               | chain.
               | 
               | I.e., I'm objecting to this focus on TPM in TFA and this
               | discussion because a voltage fault injection
               | vulnerability in the SP is fatal to security regardless
               | of TPM usage/non-usage. I'm also objecting to the idea
               | that TPM adds vulnerabilities when a non-TPM-using system
               | already is full of ways for NSA and/or other such
               | agencies to backdoor it.
        
               | the8472 wrote:
               | > Yes, you can get compromised through firmware updates.
               | 
               | It's not just about updates through regular channels but
               | about evil maid attacks with signed malicious firmware.
               | This vector would be avoidable if you could sever the
               | trust relationship.
               | 
               | Another wrinkle is that some of the blobs are encrypted
               | (e.g. ME), so they can't even be audited.
               | 
               | Currently too much of the trust chain relies on
               | untrustworthy components. So you can't trust the system.
               | But the DRM vendor can well enough for their purposes.
               | Which makes them a negative.
               | 
               | > I.e., I'm objecting to this focus on TPM in TFA and
               | this discussion because a voltage fault injection
               | vulnerability in the SP is fatal to security regardless
               | of TPM usage/non-usage.
               | 
               | Yes, agreed.
        
               | cryptonector wrote:
               | > It's not just about updates through regular channels
               | but about evil maid attacks with signed malicious
               | firmware.
               | 
               | Yes, evil maid attacks are the primary way for targeted
               | attacks using malicious firmware.
               | 
               | So this is something that maybe the TCG should tackle. It
               | should be possible (maybe it is?) to require that the
               | host meet some policy before the firmware update can run
               | -- this would prevent unauthenticated evil maid attacks.
        
           | MrStonedOne wrote:
           | [dead]
        
           | kfreds wrote:
           | You're spot on.
           | 
           | TKey is based on ideas like TPM and DICE. Think of TKey as a
           | TPM-in-time, and a discrete TPM on an x86 mainboard as a TPM-
           | in-space. Both go through the load-hash-measure-trust/execute
           | steps, but TKey only needs one hardware domain to accomplish
           | this whereas a discrete TPM needs two.
           | 
           | Measurements and their results need to be computed in a
           | context that can't be subverted by the object that is being
           | measured. In the discrete-TPM case the host loads and hashes
           | the object and then sends it to the TPM before letting the
           | object influence the host's control flow.
           | 
           | The only difference in the TKey case is that instead of
           | sending the hash to a TPM the TKey derives key material based
           | on Hash(sk, Hash(object)) and then removes sk from RAM. This
           | is roughly equivalent to TPM sealing.
           | 
           | The TKey equivalent of TPM quoting/attestation would involve
           | a signing step using sk, and leaving the resulting
           | certificate in RAM before letting the object influence
           | control flow. A downside to this approach is that each
           | measurement creates another level in a PKI-like structure. If
           | you do the same thing with a discrete TPM you can do multiple
           | measurements and still only have one signature attesting all
           | of them.
        
         | flangola7 wrote:
         | Without a TPM servers can't verify that their genuine app is
         | being used.
         | https://developer.apple.com/documentation/devicecheck/valida...
        
           | gkbrk wrote:
           | Why would users want a server to know they're using their
           | official crapware or an alternative/modded client that serves
           | users better?
           | 
           | Surely the device should serve the interests of the user that
           | pays for it, and not some random developer.
        
             | flangola7 wrote:
             | Well for one, anti cheat.
        
           | MrStonedOne wrote:
           | [dead]
        
         | jeroenhd wrote:
         | Mine, and I like it to stay that way. A TPM can be a valuable
         | tool for protecting my data, making it difficult if not
         | impossible for anyone to decrypt my drives. TPM+PIN is hard to
         | beat.
        
           | nly wrote:
           | TFA literally shows a TPM+PIN is totally insufficient to
           | protect your data
        
             | cryptonector wrote:
             | By... compromising the SP, thence the fTPM, but
             | compromising the SP is sufficient to compromise the whole
             | host so...
        
             | DethNinja wrote:
             | Why is PIN insufficient? Assuming encryption algorithms are
             | sane, a 20 character long PIN should be able to achieve
             | adequate entropy to keep the data safe.
        
           | taraharris wrote:
           | TPM's true owner is the NSA, not you or I.
           | 
           | https://www.stat.rice.edu/~dobelman/kstorm.txt
           | 
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6337282
           | 
           | https://www.militaryaerospace.com/computers/article/16711478.
           | ..
           | 
           | https://www.businessinsider.com/leaked-german-government-
           | war...
           | 
           | https://supplychaindigital.com/technology/nsa-trusted-
           | comput...
           | 
           | https://redmondmag.com/articles/2013/08/22/windows-8-securit.
           | ..
           | 
           | https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/security/2015/07/29/on-the-trust-
           | of-...
        
             | charcircuit wrote:
             | Protecting American's, American businesses', and the
             | American government's security is in the interest of the
             | NSA.
        
               | BlueTemplar wrote:
               | Probably, but the biggest issue here is that most people
               | aren't American, even on this website.
        
               | charcircuit wrote:
               | The technology doesn't discriminate people based on their
               | nationality. Secure products are being built and exported
               | to the rest of the world.
        
             | cryptonector wrote:
             | The first link said nothing about TPMs. The second link is
             | nonsense. The third link says the NSA "teams" with the TCG,
             | which could be concerning indeed, but there's no details
             | there. The fourth link is light on details and full of FUD.
             | The fifth link says roughly the same as the third, and is
             | equally light on details. The sixth link is like the fourth
             | but it does have some actually useful information that says
             | you're wrong:
             | 
             | > It is also important to note that any user concerns about
             | TPM 2.0 are addressable. The first concern, generally
             | expressed as "lack of user control," is not correct as OEMs
             | have the ability to turn off the TPM in x86 machines; thus,
             | purchasers can purchase machines with TPMs disabled (of
             | course, they will also be unable to utilize the security
             | features enabled by the technology). The second concern,
             | generally expressed as "lack of user control over choice of
             | operating system," is also incorrect. In fact, Windows has
             | been designed so that users can clear/reset the TPM for
             | ownership by another OS of they wish. Many TPM functions
             | can also be used by multiple OSes (including Linux)
             | concurrently.
             | 
             | This refers to the fact that you can:
             | 
             | - disable the TPM if you don't want to use it
             | 
             | - change the platform/endorsement/owner hierarchies' seeds,
             | delete all the platform and endorsement certificates, and
             | thus render any agreements between the NSA and the TPM
             | manufacturers useless to backdooring the host (unless the
             | agreement involves voluntary vulnerabilities in the TPM's
             | firmware)
             | 
             | The last article you link to is much more interesting
             | because it actually involves thinking about how the NSA (or
             | other such agency) could have a backdoor inserted into the
             | TPM:
             | 
             | > However, such "trust" can be easily misused to break
             | security. In the talk, I used TPM as an example. Suppose
             | TPM is used to implement secure data encryption/decryption.
             | A standard-compliant implementation will be trivially
             | subject to the following attack, which I call the "trap-
             | door attack". The TPM first compresses the data before
             | encryption, so that it can use the saved space to insert a
             | trap-door block in the ciphertext. The trap-door block
             | contains the decryption key wrapped by the attacker's key.
             | The existence of such a trap-door is totally undetectable
             | so long as the encryption algorithms are semantically
             | secure (and they should be).
             | 
             | Er, well, this fails because there is no way to compress
             | cryptographic material, and we're talking about random or
             | pseudo-random keys being compressed (which, you can't) then
             | encrypted. So this particular idea fails immediately.
             | 
             | That doesn't mean that there aren't other backdoors. For
             | example, the ciphertext could be larger than necessary
             | rather than use a compression of the plaintext. But this
             | too fails because the sizes of the ciphertexts are easy to
             | determine from the plaintext sizes.
             | 
             | The best way to add a backdoor is to have secret commands
             | that use public keys for authentication (and even
             | encryption) so that you have to know the backdoor in order
             | to be able to use it. I cannot prove that there is no such
             | backdoor, but if you have the means to decap and reverse
             | engineer a dTPM then you can do this.
        
               | lima wrote:
               | Thanks for debunking this unfounded conspiracy theory.
               | 
               | There are many things to worry about when it comes to
               | firmware backdoors, the TPM ain't one of them.
        
               | cryptonector wrote:
               | You're welcome!
        
               | salawat wrote:
               | >Er, well, this fails because there is no way to compress
               | cryptographic material, and we're talking about random or
               | pseudo-random keys being compressed (which, you can't)
               | then encrypted. So this particular idea fails
               | immediately.
               | 
               | Excuse me, but wtf. That's BS. Cryptographic material is
               | _nothing but data_. A Huffman encode will work on a
               | number that happens to be a public key just as happily as
               | it will a anything else.
               | 
               | Cryptographic material doesn't have a magic "immune to
               | compression" characteristic.
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | cryptonector wrote:
       | I've not yet read past the abstract, though I've read (and
       | responded to) a lot of the commentary here.
       | 
       | QUESTION FOR THE AUTHORS: Is there any way in which a voltage
       | fault injection vulnerability in the SP can affect only the fTPM
       | and not actually be a full host compromise but for the fTPM
       | compromise?
       | 
       | I believe the answer to that has to be no. If you can compromise
       | the SP you can compromise the whole system. Therefore this isn't
       | really about fTPM. But you'll notice that many commenters are
       | running away with this and saying that TPMs make systems less
       | secure, which is not really correct.
       | 
       | Yes, TPMs are not used correctly by most BMC/BIOS
       | implementations, or even by OSes, and there are vulnerabilities
       | that arise from that misuse. But TPM 2.0 does provide what is
       | needed to solve those issues.
       | 
       | The wholesale attacks on TPM 2.0 itself here are not warranted,
       | especially if the SP vulnerabilities are more general rather than
       | being specifically limited to fTPMs.
        
       | 1827163 wrote:
       | Yet one more reason the Platform Security Processor is a
       | nightmare and should be removed completely from future
       | processors.
        
         | anthk wrote:
         | And IntelME.
        
           | Sunspark wrote:
           | I sometimes wonder if it'll be a selling point of Chinese
           | CPUs in the future, "our CPU might not be the fastest, but
           | it's the only one running at any given time!".
           | 
           | People don't need "flagship" CPUs for every single purpose.
           | There is no reason why one cannot have a slower more private
           | system for specific purposes, say general purpose computing,
           | and the faster one with the autonomous network-aware CPU and
           | OS be used for games only or something.
        
             | BlueTemplar wrote:
             | Issue here is that I trust the Chinese even less to not
             | have something like this hidden in the hardware.
        
               | officeplant wrote:
               | if my Starfive RISC-V boards start dialing home they
               | won't get much out of me other than second hand
               | frustration with learning a new platform.
        
               | 1827163 wrote:
               | Interesting it is the Chinese processors (e.g. Allwinner,
               | T-Head, Rockchip) that happen to be free of this secure
               | boot garbage by default. If you want to you can blow an
               | efuse (with power applied to the VPP pin) and enable
               | secure boot. But otherwise it's off.
               | 
               | I am waiting for a high performance ARM or RISC-V chip
               | that's on par with AMD and Intel performance. One without
               | secure boot. The moment that comes out, my Ryzen system
               | is going in the bin immediately.
        
               | Sunspark wrote:
               | On par? Depends which year you're targeting and perhaps
               | what applications. If you mean on par with current year
               | then it'll be a long time before that happens because AMD
               | and Intel are able to run power-hungry while ARM and
               | RISC-V try to use less power.
        
       | temptemptemp111 wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | riedel wrote:
       | Stupid question: was there no responsible disclosure and is there
       | no cve assigned? Seems like a rather practical attack (or am I
       | missing something?
       | 
       | Do the researchers consider it a known fact that that fTPM is
       | broken by design and thus do think that nobody will get hurt? It
       | would make sense to require an additional passphrase on fTPM
       | devices for bitlocker. Was there a statement from Microsoft or
       | AMD?
        
         | hnj2 wrote:
         | From the paper: "All security-relevant findings discussed in
         | this paper were responsibly disclosed to AMD, Microsoft, and
         | the systemd-cryptenroll maintainers. The systemd-cryptenroll
         | maintainers quickly got back to us to discuss specific
         | mitigation strategies."
        
       | sampa wrote:
       | shows that people shouldn't trust closed HW crypto (HW SSD
       | passwords - same)
       | 
       | trust only open-source software crypto
        
         | moonchrome wrote:
         | Yes, it's an idiot proof method that's vetted by millions of
         | reviewers because it's developed in the open. The ability to
         | self validate is also invaluable, hard to have major widespread
         | bugs with that, especially if it's widely adopted by trillion $
         | companies. OpenSSL is a great example of this.
        
         | candiddevmike wrote:
         | How would open source software crypto replace the purpose of a
         | TPM?
        
       | asldkfjaslkdj wrote:
       | Question, this is a widely used tpm since it's 'free', so it
       | makes sense it was the first one looked into, but
       | 
       | anyone did similar tests to the el-cheapo ones that will end up
       | on 99% of computers around the world?
       | 
       | My bet is that messing with voltages on those chips too will
       | expose all sorts of exploits too.
        
       | gen3 wrote:
       | "security properties of the TPM - like Bitlocker's TPM- only
       | protector - can be defeated by an attacker with 2-3 hours of
       | physical access to the target device"
       | 
       | So I take this is more of a data exfiltration type of attack?
       | 
       | Edit: here is the POC https://github.com/PSPReverse/ftpm_attack
        
       | aceazzameen wrote:
       | It says any TPM can be defeated in 2-3 hrs with physical access.
       | Is the AMD one different? Can it be defeated over networks? And
       | is this something I should be concerned about since I just bought
       | a new AMD machine?
        
         | smarx007 wrote:
         | Yes, relevant in case of a lost device:
         | 
         | "Motivated by Windows 11's push to use the TPM for even more
         | applications, we apply the vulnerability to Microsoft BitLocker
         | and show the first fTPM-based attack against the popular Full
         | Disk Encryption solution. BitLocker's default TPM-only strategy
         | manages - without any changes to the user experience - to
         | swiftly step up a user's security in the face of a lost or
         | stolen device. However, as our work complements the established
         | at- tacks against dTPMs with an even more potent attack against
         | AMD fTPMs, a TPM-only configuration lulls a non-technical user
         | with high protection needs into a false sense of security."
         | 
         | "Users who fear a physical attacker with reasonable resources
         | should opt for a TPM and PIN configuration. When BitLocker
         | identifies that the underlying TPM is an fTPM, users should be
         | urged to turn their PIN into a passphrase."
        
           | goolz wrote:
           | Does this line imply then it is mostly a concern for Windows
           | users? I don't mind only using Linux, it is Best in Slot for
           | most tasks anyways.
        
             | dfox wrote:
             | Typical Linux installation will not rely on TPM in any way.
             | But if you use systemd-cryptenroll to provide BitLocker-
             | like UX for FDE then the concerns are mostly same.
        
             | dathinab wrote:
             | if Linux full disk encryption would have a more user
             | friendly UX a lot of Linux users would probably use that
             | too
             | 
             | its a very convenient feature
             | 
             | through is not convenient to setup
             | 
             | and a lot of Linux users never trusted it to be secure, i.
             | e. a lot of people expected an attack like this sooner or
             | later
        
               | folmar wrote:
               | The current state of userfriendly is quite good. In
               | Ubuntu it's just a checkbox in the installer and input a
               | passphrase.
        
               | dathinab wrote:
               | yes and it does use the TPM and is affected by this
               | attack ;=)
               | 
               | at least the recent ubuntu versions when using the
               | default full disk encryption setup do setup decryption
               | using TPM you still need an additional password as
               | without you would e.g. lose access to your data if you
               | change some hardware, you motherboard brakes or depending
               | on how they set it up you also need the password after
               | kernel upgrades etc.
               | 
               | but the vulnerability allow someone with hardware access
               | to access all your data by booting their code but messing
               | with the TPM in a way where it still measures as if it's
               | was booting your code
        
               | Rimintil wrote:
               | The passphrase is what makes it a poor user experience.
               | Many people simply need an encrypted disk that you can't
               | boot offline and not the boot-time PIN/passphrase (which
               | Microsoft abandoned as the default in Windows 8, I
               | believe, again due to UX).
        
             | dhx wrote:
             | It could also be a concern for Linux users if they have
             | configured their system to use systemd-cryptenroll (even
             | with --tpm2-with-pin=yes or --fido2-with-client-pin=yes).
             | The user is not asked for a secure passphrase in addition
             | to having a TPM present. The user is just asked for a short
             | PIN that is provided to the TPM2 or FIDO2 device and the
             | device is not meant to return the secret without a valid
             | PIN being provided.
        
               | hnj2 wrote:
               | There is actually an interesting point regarding TPM+PIN
               | and systemd-cryptenroll: The data sealed in the TPM can
               | directly be used to decrypt the disk (it is base64
               | encoded and used as a passphrase for a luks key slot).
               | The PIN is only used to authenticate the TPM's unsealing
               | of the data. In contrast, the unsealed BitLocker data
               | still needs to be decrypted with the pin to get to the
               | VMK.
               | 
               | When our attack is successfully executed on a target,
               | this means that TPM+PIN is broken on systemd-cryptenroll,
               | and as secure as PIN-only with the same PIN on BitLocker.
        
             | creshal wrote:
             | ChromeOS also heavily relies on TPM for disk encryption,
             | and unlike Windows doesn't even give you the option of
             | adding a passphrase or pin on top of it.
             | 
             | And there's probably some large enterprises that use
             | regular Linux desktops with LUKS/Btrfs/ZFS encryption in
             | TPM only mode, to match their Windows setups. Systemd e.g.
             | added systemd-cryptenroll with ergonomics comparable to
             | Windows' Bitlocker enrollment.
        
         | goolz wrote:
         | I am wondering the same, considering the proliferation of AMD
         | in the last few years I would be devastated to have to go back
         | to Intel. Just when the Framework came out with their AMD
         | versions too.
        
         | cwerling wrote:
         | One of the authors here. This attack is relevant if your
         | machine is physically exposed to attacks, e.g., in an office
         | environment or while traveling, and if you don't use any
         | additional pre-boot passphrase to protect the disk (but rely
         | solely on AMD's fTPM).
         | 
         | When TPMs became popular, dedicated TPMs were mainly used,
         | being a separate chip on the mainboard connected via the SPI or
         | LPC bus. These were prone to (relatively primitive) bus
         | sniffing attacks, where you would hook up a Logic Analyzer to
         | the bus, watch a regular boot procedure grab the disk key, and
         | then use software like Dislocker to extract all data from a USB
         | Live Linux or alike.
         | 
         | Nowadays, most modern CPUs (both on Intel and AMD) ship
         | firmware TPMs that are "included" with CPU die, making them
         | safe against the bus sniffing attacks. However, they can still
         | be prone to more sophisticated attacks like ours.
        
           | cryptonector wrote:
           | Can you confirm that compromising the SP can compromise the
           | whole system, therefore the focus on fTPM is a bit
           | hyperbolic?
        
           | als0 wrote:
           | > These were prone to (relatively primitive) bus sniffing
           | attacks, where you would hook up a Logic Analyzer to the bus,
           | watch a regular boot procedure grab the disk key, and then
           | use software like Dislocker to extract all data from a USB
           | Live Linux or alike.
           | 
           | The TPM supports encrypted sessions, but they are opt in. See
           | Parameter Encryption in the TPM spec. The issue is that
           | Bitlocker doesn't use them for whatever reason. If Bitlocker
           | turned on encrypted sessions, it would be not possible to
           | sniff the key. It's crazy that Microsoft keep things
           | insecure.
        
             | hnj2 wrote:
             | We haven't looked to much into encrypted sessions, but for
             | anyone wondering how they prevent MITM attacks in such a
             | scenario: systemd-cryptenroll seems to be ahead in this
             | regard: https://github.com/systemd/systemd/commit/acbb504ea
             | f1be51572...
        
           | bo1024 wrote:
           | This is important because one purpose of TPMs is to prevent
           | the owner of the machine from doing certain things (as in
           | Digital Rights Management). And the owner of the machine
           | presumably has physical access.
        
             | dathinab wrote:
             | no
             | 
             | they are for boot chain security which is an essential
             | featur for any laptop
             | 
             | TPM by itself never prevents anyone from doing anything
             | 
             | but it's used with features like secure boot, but as long
             | as they fully implement the spec they don't prevent you
             | from doing with your laptop what you want as long as you
             | don't install software which does so
             | 
             | secure enclave and similar used for DRM isn't directly a
             | TPM feature but more an extension using TPM and other CPU
             | features
             | 
             | and yes it can be used to security store keys in your
             | hardware. Any keys! A feature any user understanding
             | security would appreciate.
        
               | labcomputer wrote:
               | Erm... yes, actually.
               | 
               | For DRM to work, it has to be running in a trusted
               | environment where the user can't just load up a debugger
               | as superuser and read the keys from memory.
               | 
               | The way you do that is by using secure boot to ensure
               | that you are running a trusted kernel that enforces
               | appropriate access controls... which requires TPM.
               | 
               | One of the main selling points of TPM is that you have
               | chain of trust to ensure the boot process wasn't tampered
               | by a rogue boot loader that modified your code. And, yes,
               | that has security benefits as well, but don't for a
               | second think that DRM wasn't a major consideration.
        
               | yrro wrote:
               | There is some confusion because there _are_ DRM systems
               | that require users to use Secure Boot with a TPM:
               | 
               | https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/phutif/riot_ga
               | mes...
        
               | officeplant wrote:
               | How am I not surprised to find our favorite kernel level
               | anti-cheat company doing this.
        
               | dathinab wrote:
               | no secure boot only enforces you run a trusted kernel not
               | that the kernel enforces access controls and in a full
               | secure boot implementation the user can freely choose
               | what _they_ trust
               | 
               | and attacks which mess with the boot chain have been a
               | huge problem for a long time for enterprises, TPM likely
               | would have ended up very similar to how it did even if
               | there wouldn't be DRM. Also the DRM lobby has since a
               | long time pushed for moving (parts of) the DRM into the
               | firmware (i.e. in a context where TPM doesn't matter
               | much), which is where vendor-locked secure enclaves and
               | similar come in which are related to TPM2.0 but not the
               | same. For example on some ARM/Android chips part of the
               | DRM system is in a locked secure co-processor.
               | 
               | And just because something can be abused doesn't mean it
               | isn't useful or it's fundamentally bad. Through you seem
               | to be making exactly that argument now with a "but it was
               | designed with bad things in mind" added, which is a IMHO
               | pointless argument. What matters is what it _is now_, not
               | why it ended up there.
               | 
               | And what it is now is an _essential_ security feature for
               | laptops, which also can be abused iff used in combination
               | with some other features and that other features are
               | tweaked to harm the user (e.g. don't allow custom keys
               | for secure boot).
        
               | labcomputer wrote:
               | > no secure boot only enforces you run a trusted kernel
               | not that the kernel enforces access controls
               | 
               | Yes, I am aware of that. But having DRM that is not
               | _completely_ ineffective has a prerequisite that it runs
               | on a kernel that does enforce those access controls. The
               | only way that works is with a trusted boot chain.
               | 
               | You originally responded "no" to a post saying that one
               | purpose of TPM is to facilitate DRM.
        
               | hnj2 wrote:
               | Author here: TPMs are not a TEE (trusted execution
               | environment), and the TEE included in AMD's CPUs function
               | completely separately from the TPM. So you could disable
               | the TPM and still have the TEE run DRM code.
               | 
               | The fact that both TEE and fTPM run on the PSP (or AMD-
               | SP) might add a little confusion, but is nevertheless
               | interesting.
        
               | labcomputer wrote:
               | > TPMs are not a TEE (trusted execution environment),
               | 
               | I was using the phrase "trusted environment" more
               | generally than that.
               | 
               | I do not mean a separate environment from the main CPU.
               | Rather, that applications (like software DRM, or even the
               | graphics driver) running on the CPU can't trust the OS to
               | enforce access controls without a secure boot
               | environment.
               | 
               | How do you know that windows won't let the user spin up a
               | debugger and dump all your memory (or load a modified
               | driver that lets them dump the frame buffer after content
               | has been decrypted) for later use?
               | 
               | You need to _trust_ that you are running in an
               | _environment_ where users haven't just loaded whatever
               | kernel modules or graphics drivers they want.
               | 
               | TPM is generally how you get a secure boot chain, so it
               | is a prerequisite. Hence, TPM facilitates DRM.
        
             | cryptonector wrote:
             | TPM _can_ be used for DRM. If you roll all the hierarchy
             | seeds though then the TPM can 't be used for DRM and you
             | can just be denied access to media. In order to use a TPM
             | for DRM you need a fairly dystopian secure boot of a
             | consumer OS that enforces all DRM -- this is very much a
             | possibility, naturally, and TPM enables it but does not
             | guarantee it (otherwise we'd already be there today, though
             | we're heading in that direction now).
        
             | hoffs wrote:
             | No...
        
             | Mindwipe wrote:
             | There aren't really any mainstream DRM systems that use a
             | general computing platform TPM, precisely because they have
             | a terrible track record of being breached.
        
               | labcomputer wrote:
               | The point isn't to store keys in the TPM. The point is to
               | ensure you're running an unmolested version of Windows
               | that will enforce whatever security controls the DRM
               | maker wants to have.
               | 
               | Part of that is things like:
               | 
               | * Don't load an unsigned (or wrongly-signed) GPU driver,
               | because it might be modified to allow a user to read from
               | framebuffer memory after content has been decrypted.
        
               | Sunspark wrote:
               | All this effort for nothing making life difficult for the
               | end-user. Physical video splitters are a thing. They are
               | asked to respect HDCP, but they don't have to. It's how
               | streamers are able to play a game on their monitor while
               | also streaming the video of them playing the game.
        
               | labcomputer wrote:
               | Oh, no argument from me there, I'm just pointing out that
               | you kinda need TPM to make your DRM not trivially
               | bypassable.
               | 
               | I imagine that the MPAA et. al. are planning to attack
               | the splitter thingy one day, so they'll want to make sure
               | you can't slurp the frame buffer when that avenue is
               | gone.
        
         | daneel_w wrote:
         | Access/privileges to execute on the host is required. I,
         | personally, would not feel concerned unless I was a TPM user
         | _and_ knew I was a specific target.
        
           | dathinab wrote:
           | you also need to connect (cheap) hardware to your motherboard
           | 
           | this makes it very very unlikely to be usable in a virus or
           | remote attack
           | 
           | but if you lose your arm laptop and didn't use a encryption
           | password you might want to consider your data leaked
           | 
           | also I would treat Intel cpus the same, Intel having a
           | similar vulnerability is not unlikely
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | patrakov wrote:
       | The most important sentences of the article:
       | 
       | "Our attack utilizes the AMD-SP's vulnerability to voltage fault
       | injection attacks [14] to extract a chip-unique secret from the
       | targeted CPU."
       | 
       | "The attack requires access to the motherboard of the target
       | system (4.1), particularly its SPI bus and voltage regulators."
       | 
       | In other words, it is required to open the laptop and connect
       | custom (but cheap) hardware to the motherboard to disrupt its
       | normal operation.
        
         | moring wrote:
         | Amateur-me thinks that it would not be too hard to prevent such
         | an attack: Have a voltage fault detection circuit at all (TPM-
         | relevant) supply pins that hard-locks the chip until it gets
         | power cycled, and have those circuits be powered by on-chip
         | capacitors that survive just a little longer than their time-
         | to-trigger. Would that be feasible?
        
           | cwerling wrote:
           | Your idea roughly goes into the direction of what the
           | industry has started implementing: Tunable Replica Circuits:
           | 
           | https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/the-
           | st...
        
           | Tuna-Fish wrote:
           | This mitigation helps until the attackers stop confining
           | themselves to the supply pins. You can do voltage fault
           | injection through any exposed metal (or metal that can be
           | made exposed), and the attacker can be entirely happy with
           | attacks where they don't actually pull the voltage plane
           | down, but instead just make some specific circuit a bit iffy
           | by injecting an opposite voltage at some specific point and
           | with low enough current that it's undetectable when looking
           | at the chip as whole.
           | 
           | Approaches such as yours do make the attack require a lot
           | more skill to accomplish.
        
             | ilyt wrote:
             | If you spike the voltage on other pin you'd most likely
             | trigger ESD protection which is just a diode that's
             | connected to one of the power rails, and spike the chip's
             | power supply.
             | 
             | Which would be detected if internal watchdog monitors
             | voltages. But if spikes are short enough they might be
             | pretty hard (or just expensive) to detect.
        
         | cryptonector wrote:
         | Note that the SPI bus sniffing attacks on dTPMs are simpler to
         | mount (being passive) but also require direct access to the bus
         | (motherboard), and unlike this attack can be prevented in
         | software by knowing the public key of a primary key object on
         | the TPM (e.g., the endorsement key) and using it to
         | authenticate the TPM to the host.
         | 
         | That said, even a host using a dTPM with proper authentication
         | of the dTPM has a problem if the SP is vulnerable to voltage
         | fault injection attacks, because even though SPI bus sniffing
         | wouldn't yield the unlocked FDE keys, the attacker presumably
         | could get full control of the CPU and recover the unlocked FDE
         | keys there.
         | 
         | In other words, the problem here is the voltage fault injection
         | vulnerabilities in general. The fTPM part of it is not as big a
         | deal as the total compromise of the whole system due to those
         | voltage fault injection vulnerabilities.
        
           | amluto wrote:
           | I haven't looked closely at the TPM protocols lately, but I
           | think this doesn't help against active bus attacks against a
           | dTPM. The host can (I think) reboot the dTPM and send an
           | arbitrary sequence of PCR changes to the dTPM, and the dTPM
           | will believe it. And then the host can ask the dTPM to unseal
           | something, and it will.
           | 
           | This won't help break a PIN that is protected by the dTPM,
           | but it will fully break any protection relying on the _host_
           | to verify a PIN. (Which is the default BitLocker behavior.)
        
             | cryptonector wrote:
             | TPM 2.0 Extended Access policies can be very complex. You
             | can make it so that in order to unlock key objects in the
             | TPM you have to have more than matching PCRs, but also a
             | PIN, and the software on the host shouldn't provide the PIN
             | if the PCRs don't match what it expects. Of course, TPM-
             | using software is still too simple in this regard so that
             | you're correct right now, but it doesn't have to be that
             | way.
        
         | Arrath wrote:
         | > voltage fault injection attacks
         | 
         | What's old is new again!
        
       | jeroenhd wrote:
       | Gnarly, especially because these vulnerabilities seem
       | unpatchable. Luckily, it seems TPM+PIN should remain safe if your
       | PIN is difficult enough to brute-force, though.
       | 
       | As this includes an attack against the secure processor, does
       | this also pose risks to any DRM keys?
        
         | bootsmann wrote:
         | PIN needs to be quite long (and most certainly alphanumeric)
         | for this to work, see the table in 5.3.1
        
       | jhoelzel wrote:
       | Honestly TPM is probably creating more bad than good at this
       | point.
       | 
       | Every time I think about the millions of computers that will be
       | declared worthless this year, it makes me a little bit more
       | angrier.
        
         | judge2020 wrote:
         | > Every time I think about the millions of computers that will
         | be declared worthless this year, it makes me a little bit more
         | angrier.
         | 
         | What is this a reference to? Every computer I've found will let
         | you boot into the bios and disable secure boot or add new keys
         | to the trust store.
        
           | DoItToMe81 wrote:
           | I've had laptops where secure boot was permanently on unless
           | you used legacy bios, and I've fixed several, both PCs and
           | laptops, where there was no option to disable secure boot or
           | use legacy bios. This was some years ago, and the situation
           | has improved a lot since then.
        
           | r2_pilot wrote:
           | Microsoft is edging closer and closer to dropping support for
           | Windows 10(even a computer I built in 2017 that's still
           | running perfectly fine can't upgrade). But for many users,
           | changing to another OS besides Windows is tantamount to not
           | functioning, so planned obsolescence continues apace.
        
             | babypuncher wrote:
             | That's not happening until 2025, GP said "this year".
        
             | nly wrote:
             | You can install W11 without a TPM with a workaround.
             | Microsoft should be forced to allow it by default.
        
             | Workaccount2 wrote:
             | I wish there was a linux distro made by people who love
             | windows, not linux.
        
               | red-iron-pine wrote:
               | Use any Unbutu distribution with MATE or Cinnamon. Like
               | shit dawg, I got my grandma using Linux Mint with MATE.
               | 
               | Changed the background to match the same one on her old
               | laptop and added some desktop icons, and _boom_ 99% of
               | her experience was the same. Had to help her a little
               | with the LibreOffice -- that 's a little different -- but
               | otherwise functionally similar to Windows 7 / Win10.
               | 
               | I'm using linux as a daily driver and at this point there
               | isn't anything I can't do on Windows. The hold out for a
               | while was games, but Proton w/ Steam works well and I can
               | play big titles like Cyberpunk 2077.
        
               | spsesk117 wrote:
               | I've always felt that $BIG_BRAND_DISTRO+KDE got pretty
               | close. It's still Linux, so not quite the same, but as
               | far as look and feel, it's pretty close I think.
        
               | ilyt wrote:
               | I remember some videos where people pretended some KDE
               | theme is how new windows version looks and people had no
               | problems believing it.
        
               | PrimeMcFly wrote:
               | There have been several, but what makes Windows Windows
               | is the ecosystem, and no distro can replicate that.
        
               | galangalalgol wrote:
               | What is that ecosystem now? What do households with
               | windows use that isn't on the cloud?
        
               | PrimeMcFly wrote:
               | A lot of stuff is moving to web/cloud stuff, but we are
               | not there entirely.
               | 
               | As one example, I had to take a proctored exam recently,
               | and the only supported OS was Windows or MacOS. Linux was
               | not an option.
               | 
               | Then there is games, Proton is great but plenty of AAA
               | titles are still not compatible.
               | 
               | Just for starters.
        
               | galangalalgol wrote:
               | Games for sure, the exam software is disappointing.
        
               | officeplant wrote:
               | The problem with the cloud is how often I've run into
               | blanket linux/bsd support bans. Especially when it comes
               | to professional certifications done online. I had one
               | website refusing to work on my FreeBSD or Debian
               | installs. It would just get to a certain point and not
               | let me proceed and multiple buttons refusing to work
               | properly.
               | 
               | Got on the phone with support and they were dumbfounded.
               | Got the idea to just spoof my user agent as a windows box
               | on edge and it worked perfectly afterwards.
               | 
               | Even if not done on purpose there is a lot of crufty shit
               | online that breaks in unsuspecting ways when I'm on a
               | linux/BSD box. Especially if interfacing with the
               | government websites and webapps. Our state fire code
               | website looks straight out of 2002 and has multiple
               | warnings about making sure to use IE6... in 2023.
               | 
               | Maybe its just my use case (fire industry / local
               | government), but it helps to have a mac or windows
               | machine lying around as backup.
        
               | somat wrote:
               | There is a aphorism.
               | 
               | Bsd was made by people who love unix, linux was made by
               | people who hate windows.
        
               | Aleklart wrote:
               | I think they hate unix, not windows, because they dragged
               | all legacy nonsense unix had for hardware reasons
               | straight into modern times so everyone can laugh on it.
        
               | asynchronous wrote:
               | If I may suggest, ZorinOS is about as close to windows on
               | Linux as it gets. Found it through a HN comment myself.
        
               | MisterTea wrote:
               | Sounds like the last time you used Linux was 20 years
               | ago. Linux been as easy as Windows to install and use for
               | at least 10 years now. My mothers laptop runs Linux Mint
               | and she doesn't know its not Windows even though the
               | colors are all wrong. Why? It's all about the DE - if it
               | looks like windows, walks like windows and quacks like
               | windows, its windows. If she can click on the menu and
               | find the internet then it's a win. Installation was was
               | as easy as windows and everything worked out of the box.
               | 
               | Hell, I installed the Chicago95 XFCE theme on my main
               | system to see how well it emulated the look and feel of
               | Windows 95 and wound up liking it. Why? Because even
               | though it looks dated, the icons were immediately
               | familiar and I felt navigation instantly become easier.
               | 
               | Do not underestimate the power of familiarity. Many of us
               | grew up on DOS/Windows playing games and typing school
               | work up in Word so moving away from those familiar waters
               | is HARD. It's like being an immigrant moving to a new
               | country - you have to put in extra effort to learn to
               | adjust to culture and language. Some can, some cant.
               | YMMV.
        
               | xxpor wrote:
               | This is what I ran in 2002 or so:
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linspire
        
             | doubled112 wrote:
             | I did find it odd that my Ryzen 7 1700X (8 cores, 16
             | threads, 3.4GHz) was suddenly "not good enough" to run the
             | OS.
        
               | jeroenhd wrote:
               | It'll work fine, Microsoft even explains how to upgrade:
               | https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/installing-
               | windo...
               | 
               | They chose an arbitrary cut-off date for hardware support
               | for their new OS. They decided not to support old stuff
               | anymore and they had to pick a date/technology platform.
               | It was always going to be arbitrary. In my opinion they
               | should've picked a clearer distinction (i.e. require a
               | certain level of AVX support so all binaries can be built
               | with AVX optimizations enabled) but I can see why they
               | chose to do this. After all, they're going to have to
               | support the OS for ten years, that four year old CPU is
               | fourteen years old by the time Windows 11 goes out of
               | support.
        
               | theschmed wrote:
               | [dead]
        
               | CircleSpokes wrote:
               | It can work yes but AMD chips didn't get GMET until Zen2
               | so if you leave virtualization based protection on you
               | might see a performance hit.
               | 
               | From Microsoft's website:
               | 
               | >Memory integrity works better with Intel Kabylake and
               | higher processors with Mode-Based Execution Control, and
               | AMD Zen 2 and higher processors with Guest Mode Execute
               | Trap capabilities. Older processors rely on an emulation
               | of these features, called Restricted User Mode, and will
               | have a bigger impact on performance.
               | 
               | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-
               | us/windows/security/threat-pr...
        
               | mardifoufs wrote:
               | Which is amazing since windows 11 is full of mentions of
               | green energy, lowering energy consumption and asking you
               | to lower screen brightness to lower carbon emissions.
               | Total green washing when you consider the gigantic
               | amounts of ewaste that arbitrary cut off date will lead
               | to. It's just funny tbh, like I get it's most likely very
               | different teams working on those things but it's tone
               | deaf at best.
               | 
               | But hey at least the OS has a revolutionary new green
               | technology called... Battery saving mode!
        
               | doubled112 wrote:
               | This is what most of the consumer facing eco trends feel
               | like.
               | 
               | Kool-aid Jammers are my latest laugh. Plastic pouch.
               | Plastic straw wrapper. Paper straw.
               | 
               | Right, the straw was the enemy here?
        
               | mrguyorama wrote:
               | The worst part is that it is clearly cargo culting. What
               | consumer suddenly buys kool aid they never bought before
               | because it says "paper straw now!" on the packaging?
        
               | doubled112 wrote:
               | True. It is not as though I've ever cared about what the
               | vendor supports at home before.
               | 
               | Most of my machines were on a Linux distro before that
               | decision, and Debian 12 is providing a good enough to me
               | experience on the desktop, even gaming.
               | 
               | I'll probably just stay there indefinitely. Is that an
               | upgrade? Subjective. I'm happier here.
        
               | ridgered4 wrote:
               | That link does not say it will work fine. It says it is
               | not recommended or supported and if it blows up it is
               | your problem. Additionally it says you might not get any
               | updates. Certainly, it sounds like it might just be some
               | ass covering on their part but they were also testing a
               | nag watermark for unsupported installs like this so maybe
               | not. Either way it doesn't sound like a really solid path
               | forward.
        
               | jeroenhd wrote:
               | It's certainly not a path forward that Microsoft will
               | recommend. It'll work fine, though.
               | 
               | If not, there are other operating systems that do work.
               | Microsoft isn't the exclusive owner of the PC space,
               | that's one of the major points of all of the antitrust
               | fines and lawsuits.
        
               | yarg wrote:
               | He said it'll work fine, not that Microsoft is promoting
               | it as such.
               | 
               | There're no fundamental changes to what's actually
               | required, the limitations are arbitrary and set by
               | Microsoft (and they provide a means to get around them).
               | 
               | It'll work fine.
        
               | bo1024 wrote:
               | Really crystallizes how what matters is "good enough" for
               | Microsoft's goals, not the user's.
        
               | tester756 wrote:
               | Isn't this about Spectre/Meltdown vulns instead of the
               | perf. specs?
        
               | CircleSpokes wrote:
               | IIRC it has more to do with that series of chip not
               | having GMET (AMD Guest-Mode Execute Trap for NPT) which
               | is used in Windows 10/11s virtualization based
               | protection. Microsoft requires this option for all new
               | PCs from their partners but you can install windows 11
               | and run it fine without this CPU feature (there is a
               | performance hit if you leave virtualization based
               | protection on though since it has to be done in
               | software).
        
             | reisse wrote:
             | Dropping support, so what?
             | 
             | That does not make these PCs obsolescent in any way. People
             | still use Windows 7, and even Windows XP. Especially in the
             | many contexts where "security" is not important at all.
        
             | criley2 wrote:
             | Microsoft said they were ending support in 2025, which is
             | what 8 year life for the OS?
             | 
             | I don't even think Apple hits 8 for OSX updates. They
             | obsolete the laptops more quickly than that, even if they
             | do hit 6-7 years regularly.
        
               | daveoc64 wrote:
               | Windows 10 was released in 2015, so they will have
               | offered 10 years of support, which was the standard
               | policy in place ever since Windows Vista (Windows Vista,
               | 7, 8/8.1, 10).
               | 
               | Apple does not support any macOS version for that long,
               | and is unlikely to support a current version of macOS on
               | any given device for that long.
        
               | Aleklart wrote:
               | You say "support" like the moment they stop it, OS cease
               | to work. OSX Leopard is usable for most of tasks. Lot of
               | people still running Windows 7 and Windows XP without any
               | need for "support". Windows 10 will be even better
               | without constant "support" reboots. Can't say this for
               | Windows 11, as it so tightly stuffed with spyware and
               | online integrations, it might just not boot if MS plug
               | some server switch.
        
               | daveoc64 wrote:
               | I would not want to run an unsupported OS of any variety.
               | 
               | Modern web browsers will stop working on older operating
               | systems - so will other apps.
               | 
               | Not only is it a massive security risk, but it will
               | simply become impractical for most users.
               | 
               | Besides, if you're afraid of the TPM vulnerability
               | described in this article, you ought to be more worried
               | about running an out of date OS!
        
               | BlueTemplar wrote:
               | Windows 7 is only starting to get obsoleted now : while
               | Microsoft is still updating it with critical security
               | fixes, Qt and Chromium dropping it is pretty much the end
               | for non-legacy usage. (Good bye Windows I guess...)
        
               | brookst wrote:
               | "Support" can mean a lot of things.
               | 
               | Apple does not provide security updates for Catalina,
               | which was released 3.5 years ago. People would be crazy
               | to run unpatched OSes for any use case involving the
               | internet or wifi.
        
             | ekianjo wrote:
             | Don't reward them for that. The only solution is to move to
             | another OS, that's the only thing they will ultimately
             | understand - no matter how inconvenient it might be.
        
               | gambiting wrote:
               | That's not an option if you use your machine for work and
               | your Dev tools only work on windows. PS5/Xbox toolchains
               | only work on windows, as a gamedev I don't really have a
               | choice.
        
           | salawat wrote:
           | ARM that are microsoft certified will specifically _not_ give
           | you that option.
           | 
           | You are probably largely using x86_64 which come with the
           | option to do so, but there has been a lot of push around
           | moving to things like ARM for energy efficiency reasons.
        
             | mastax wrote:
             | > there has been a lot of push around moving to things like
             | ARM for energy efficiency reasons
             | 
             | There has? Where?
             | 
             | Specifically for Windows PCs, not chromebooks or apples.
        
               | als0 wrote:
               | Not got a reference but one of the new Lenovo ARM laptops
               | claims to have 26 hour battery life. If true then that's
               | pretty compelling.
        
               | Mindwipe wrote:
               | Not running any software is very helpful for battery
               | life.
        
               | officeplant wrote:
               | Even as a ARM/RISC-V cultist I had to chuckle at that.
        
               | hypercube33 wrote:
               | An AMD Lenovo Laptop supposedly gets 16 hours of battery
               | life and again, this is subject to what you're running,
               | but it runs x86 stuff natively instead of having to
               | translate it. Isnt this 'good enough' for most people? I
               | know we have people wanting week long laptop batteries,
               | but over 12 solid, real world hours should be good enough
               | for the majority of users, I'd think.
        
         | cryptonector wrote:
         | > Honestly TPM is probably creating more bad than good at this
         | point.
         | 
         | The problem isn't the TPM. The problem is the CPU (SP) being
         | vulnerable to voltage fault injection attacks. You could be
         | using no TPM and still have all your secrets leak if the host
         | is fully compromised.
        
         | sidewndr46 wrote:
         | It's called the TPM because it is trusted. The real question
         | is, who is it that trusted that thing?
        
           | brookst wrote:
           | Eh, not a great bit of rhetoric.
           | 
           | TPM = Trusted Platform Module. Trusted is an adjective
           | modifying platform. The business case is that software should
           | not run on untrusted platforms because hardware can always
           | attack software. So, the promise is that TPM will allow
           | software to guarantee* to users that the hardware is not
           | malicious.
           | 
           | * as much as one can guarantee anything in tech
        
             | sidewndr46 wrote:
             | I agree, my rhetoric on TPM is rather elementary.
             | 
             | From my perspective TPM is mostly about compliance with
             | security directives. Actual security engineers would
             | realize the TPM's security provided is about as far as you
             | can throw it. You have no idea who designed the thing, who
             | manufactured it, or who swapped it out while it was in
             | shipping to you.
        
               | cryptonector wrote:
               | > You have no idea who designed the thing, who
               | manufactured it, or who swapped it out while it was in
               | shipping to you.
               | 
               | All wrong, as others have pointed out. As for the last of
               | the above, if the OEM includes (as they _should_ )
               | platform certificates for the TPM, then the TPM cannot
               | have been swapped out while in transit w/o the OEM
               | helping the attacker. For example, Dell includes platform
               | certificates binding the TPM.
        
               | CameronNemo wrote:
               | _You have no idea who designed the thing, who
               | manufactured it, or who swapped it out while it was in
               | shipping to you_
               | 
               | Wait, what? In most cases you 100% know who designed and
               | manufactured it. Regarding "swapping out" a TPM, how do
               | you do that for fTPMs or TPMs that are on the same die as
               | the CPU? Come up with a perfect replica AMD CPU with a
               | bugged TPM? Desolder the original CPU and put the replica
               | in?
        
               | sidewndr46 wrote:
               | I think if you went back in time, you'd find people
               | saying that openssl was developed by a consortium of open
               | source contributors.
               | 
               | It's painfully obvious nowadays that openssl was written
               | by the NSA (or equivalent state level entity) via
               | intermediaries deliberately adding subtle but significant
               | vulnerabilities.
               | 
               | Let me propose this metaphor: you buy a front door to
               | your house. For some reason I (the door vendor) include a
               | complete lockset. I tell you that the lockset is totally
               | secure. I offer you volumes of academic research and
               | attestations that this is true. But there is no practical
               | means by which you can establish the security of that
               | lockset.
               | 
               | Do you believe that no one else can open your front door?
        
               | brookst wrote:
               | > It's painfully obvious nowadays that openssl was
               | written by the NSA
               | 
               | The problem is that your lack of context and perspective
               | on this fairly simple, easily-falsified theory calls all
               | of your opinions into question.
               | 
               | A more nuanced conspiracy theorist would say "if you look
               | at PR's to openssl that contributed later-discovered
               | security issues, 70% were from first-time contributors
               | who never went on to submit any other PR's". And I'd be
               | like "wow, that's suggestive of a coordinated action",
               | and we could dig into it.
               | 
               | But "the NSA wrote openssl" is as factually, demonstrably
               | wrong as saying "the NSA builds every door lock that's
               | for sale at Home Depot". It's too big of a conspiracy, to
               | inefficient for the supposed state goals, and too easy to
               | falsify by just looking at a couple of examples.
        
               | sidewndr46 wrote:
               | Or we could look at what history tells us and find out we
               | don't need some convoluted theory of evidence with a
               | bunch of 1st time contributors.
               | 
               | You might for example, just outright buy out the
               | cryptography solution providers:
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG
               | 
               | Money is a relatively simply mechanism to achieve an end
               | goal. Much safer than for example, torturing someone or
               | beating them with a wrench.
        
               | kaetemi wrote:
               | The only one that would fit my mainboard I bought on
               | Amazon, and I only got it to upgrade Windows. The
               | indication on it is "made in China". As a consumer I also
               | have no idea how these suspicious chips that I'm required
               | to plug into my mainboard are supposedly trusted, and by
               | whom, and what for.
               | 
               | "Plug this chip that says made in China into your
               | mainboard, for security reasons, to continue." is not
               | really emitting trust or confidence in any way.
        
               | ilyt wrote:
               | > "Plug this chip that says made in China into your
               | mainboard, for security reasons, to continue." is not
               | really emitting trust or confidence in any way. "
               | 
               | I'm sure 30 other chips made in china on same board are
               | entirely fine
        
           | ElectricalUnion wrote:
           | Trusted system is one whose failure would break a security
           | policy. It's not about it being secure, it's about it
           | breaking other things when it's broken.
        
         | Cheeeetah wrote:
         | TPM allows government to request your data in the first place.
         | So it should not be trusted by individuals from the beginning.
        
           | wkat4242 wrote:
           | Uhh what? How does that work? Where do they request it? The
           | TPM manufacturer? Microsoft?
           | 
           | TPMs aren't very secure and as a discrete component their
           | connection to the CPU can be intercepted (unlike fTPM or
           | apple's integrated solutions).. There's a big difference
           | between having a deliberate backdoor and just a vulnerable
           | design that can be exploited.
           | 
           | I haven't seen them accused of being backdoored. Intel's ME
           | (and AMD's equivalent) perhaps but that's not the TPM.
           | 
           | TPMs can also be used to hide DRM keys from the user and I'm
           | also opposed to that, but generally that stuff is hidden in
           | other hardware. Like Google's wildvine stuff in mobile CPUs.
        
             | cryptonector wrote:
             | > TPMs aren't very secure and as a discrete component their
             | connection to the CPU can be intercepted (unlike fTPM or
             | apple's integrated solutions)..
             | 
             | The problem here is that while it is possible for a BMC /
             | BIOS to know a dTPM's EKpub _and_ use it to establish
             | encrypted (and authenticated) sessions to the dTPM, most
             | BMCs /BIOSes don't. This is a limitation on the host side,
             | not the TPM side. I get that in total the vulnerability
             | exists, but it doesn't have to, and TPM has a perfectly
             | good solution for it. Take it up with the OEMs!
        
             | Cheeeetah wrote:
             | The manufacturers perhaps. They provide the keys in the
             | modules anyway.
             | 
             | BTW, there is Chinese passport law which states that the
             | algorithm should be independently developed. The law once
             | blocked TPM 1.0 but allows TPM 2.0
        
               | cryptonector wrote:
               | Yes, if you want to recover keys from a dTPM you have two
               | options:
               | 
               | - decap it, scan it with an electron scanning microscope,
               | reverse engineer it (or have already done so), and read
               | the seeds and all NVRAM on the chip
               | 
               | - force the manufacturer to record the seeds even though
               | they have processes to never do so, then force the
               | manufacturer to reveal the seeds a dTPM shipped with
               | given an EKpub for it
               | 
               | A few nation states could probably pull off the latter,
               | but probably very few. And I suspect they haven't
               | bothered and won't until TPM usage finally gets in the
               | way. This is pure speculation, and they may well have
               | forced all the manufacturers already for all any one of
               | us knows.
               | 
               | More nation states could pull of the former. But again,
               | they might not bother until TPM usage finally gets in the
               | way.
               | 
               | As long as BMCs and BIOSes continue to use non-encrypted
               | sessions to talk to dTPMs there is no need to do any of
               | this when the attacker has physical access to the
               | motherboard.
        
               | wkat4242 wrote:
               | They have some weaknesses. A dTPM uses an unencrypted
               | protocol to communicate with the CPU (simple i2c or SPI)
               | and it's pretty easy to sniff it if you manage to get
               | legit access. But you do need a legit user to log in to
               | the machine once. This is a bit of an achilles heel.
               | 
               | Example: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/how-to-
               | go-from-stole...
               | 
               | In this sense an integrated solution is better because
               | there is no simple bus to sniff, but it does have to be
               | properly implemented of course. Which seems to be not the
               | case here.
               | 
               | By the way a dTPM _should_ have a real entropy RNG so
               | technically it shouldn 't have any (usable) seed. It's
               | basically a smartcard soldered onto the mainboard. Of
               | course smartcards can also have key generation flaws like
               | the Infineon flaw a while back. https://www.schneier.com/
               | blog/archives/2017/10/security_flaw...
        
               | cryptonector wrote:
               | > A dTPM uses an unencrypted protocol to communicate with
               | the CPU
               | 
               | While that is strictly speaking true, the TPM command set
               | allows you to set up an encrypted session to the TPM
               | using an ECDH or RSA key for key exchange that
               | authenticates the TPM.
               | 
               | The problem is that the BMCs and BIOSes out there don't
               | record a public key for a primary key on the TPM and then
               | don't bother using encrypted sessions (not even
               | opportunistically getting that public key from the TPM,
               | which would defeat passive attacks).
               | 
               | That's a _software_ problem, not a TPM problem!
               | 
               | I know that TPM 2.0 is a huge topic, so it's quite
               | forgivable that people don't know these things. I've
               | written a tutorial that might help: https://github.com/tp
               | m2dev/tpm.dev.tutorials/tree/master/Int...
        
               | wkat4242 wrote:
               | Thanks, I didn't know that, I thought indeed that it was
               | simply not possible with TPM 2.0.
               | 
               | I do think it's time for a TPM 3.0 though. What apple
               | does with their T2 security chip, and later with the
               | M1/M2, is having the secure element not only handle the
               | key material but the actual encryption as well. They have
               | hardware acceleration that can handle encryption at full
               | disk speeds. This is still a much better option than a
               | TPM especially with symmetric encryption where the key
               | would inevitably end up in the main CPU. In Apple's
               | scenario this no longer happens.
        
               | cryptonector wrote:
               | > By the way a dTPM should have a real entropy RNG so
               | technically it shouldn't have any (usable) seed. It's
               | basically a smartcard soldered onto the mainboard. Of
               | course smartcards can also have key generation flaws like
               | the Infineon flaw a while back. https://www.schneier.com/
               | blog/archives/2017/10/security_flaw...
               | 
               | The seeds are an essential part of the TPM story as for
               | generation (derivation) of primary keys, and being able
               | to "take ownership" of a TPM by changing those seeds.
               | 
               | The seeds are not an essential part of the TPM story for
               | its RNG. A TPM absolutely can and should have a solid HW
               | RNG. Though, were I designing a TPM, I'd combine the
               | output of a HW RNG w/ a PRNG seeded internally.
        
               | wkat4242 wrote:
               | But the seed itself should still be fully random though?
               | And generated on-device during initialisation. Derived
               | keys are a thing of course, and I understand the benefit
               | thereof.
               | 
               | But a manufacturer-installed seed that they have control
               | over sounds like a very bad idea.
        
         | IYasha wrote:
         | Good? It was never intended to do so. )
         | 
         | Also, made me remember (once again) decade old presentation on
         | TPM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgFbqSYdNK4
        
         | candiddevmike wrote:
         | There needs to be a way to measure and report on boot order.
         | Hopefully there will be other options besides a TPM for this.
        
         | neilv wrote:
         | Debian Stable welcomes refugees:
         | 
         | https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-dvd/
         | 
         | (Or, for laptops with closed WiFi and no Ethernet, use this
         | installer: https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-
         | free/cd-in... )
        
           | einpoklum wrote:
           | You mean, Devuan welcomes refugees:
           | 
           | https://files.devuan.org/devuan_chimaera/installer-
           | iso/devua...
           | 
           | Devuan is Debian unencumbered by systemd.
        
             | anthk wrote:
             | Better GNUinos or Trisquel, no propietary bits included.
        
               | einpoklum wrote:
               | GNUinos is very nice as well! https://gnuinos.org/
        
             | crote wrote:
             | You mean the Devuan which for more than a year and a half
             | had a bug which resulted in the empty string being set as
             | root password?[0]
             | 
             | [0]: https://linuxiac.com/devuan-users-are-at-risk/
        
               | einpoklum wrote:
               | Nope.
               | 
               | 1. That link is dead ("Access Denied")
               | 
               | 2. The bug is not in Devuan, it's in something called
               | refractainstaller, which is used for Devuan live-ISOs. If
               | you just install Devuan that doesn't happen.
               | 
               | 3. With a refractainstaller live-ISO, and if you chose to
               | not define a root user, then this bug manifests.
               | 
               | The bug seems to have lingered for so long because
               | despite being rather obvious (i.e. you can just become
               | root) because nobody tried to secure a live-ISO-based
               | system, which is something you typically use as a "rescue
               | disk" or to diagnose hardware.
               | 
               | So - is this a screw-up? Yes. Does it reflect
               | significantly on Devuan as a project? Not really.
               | 
               | To draw a parallel - the fact that systemd has had bugs
               | which other init systems didn't, or had gotten over
               | decades before, does not mean it's an undesirable
               | project. My (and many people)'s problems with systemd
               | regard its fundamental design philosophy, as well as its
               | governance/behavior as a software project.
        
               | Arnavion wrote:
               | >1. That link is dead ("Access Denied")
               | 
               | Works for me.
               | 
               | >2. The bug is not in Devuan, it's in something called
               | refractainstaller, which is used for Devuan live-ISOs. If
               | you just install Devuan that doesn't happen.
               | 
               | From the link:
               | 
               | >>When you download and install the desktop-live Devuan
               | image, you will be prompted to create a user account at
               | the end of the process.
               | 
               | ... ie it seems to be talking about the normal process
               | for installing a Linux distro - you make a live CD, boot
               | it, and run the installer.
        
             | whynotmaybe wrote:
             | I'm a windows user since 3.1 and don't know much about
             | linux except the few trials and my pihole.
             | 
             | What's the impact of having systemd (or not) for the
             | everyday layman like me that just uses Visual Studio Code
             | to build flutter apps ?
        
               | yarg wrote:
               | Very little.
               | 
               | It's an idealogical flamewar, that in most cases is
               | without impact.
               | 
               | The binary format of the log file still seems to me to be
               | a bad idea - it introduces corruptibility and complexity
               | to a vital service that should be simple and
               | uncorruptible.
               | 
               | If a failing system starts to do weird things, plain text
               | append only logging is preferable.
        
               | roblabla wrote:
               | Nothing. Systemd is a suite of software that handle a lot
               | of the low-level operations on Linux (In particular, the
               | service manager, some network configuration, along with
               | some other stuff). Historically, those operations were
               | handled by different services (like SysvInit).
               | 
               | A lot of people are mad about it for a lot of reasons,
               | but if you're not a system administrator, it's probably
               | better to stick with systemd, since it's what most of the
               | linux community has standardized on, and thus it's much
               | easier to find information online about using those
               | systems.
        
               | dralley wrote:
               | >but if you're not a system administrator
               | 
               | And even, probably, if you are.
        
               | nightfly wrote:
               | I _am_ a system administrator and systemd has been an
               | overwhelmingly net positive for me
        
               | seized wrote:
               | Amen to this. I understand some of the complaints with it
               | getting into name resolution and other things, but having
               | had to decipher vendors init scripts it's a huge
               | improvement for managing services.
               | 
               | When you add in things like Podman and it's use of
               | systemd it's overall not a bad thing at all.
        
               | ilyt wrote:
               | > What's the impact of having systemd (or not) for the
               | everyday layman like me that just uses Visual Studio Code
               | to build flutter apps ?
               | 
               | Compared to initrd, after Debian upgrading to systemd,
               | the system boots slightly faster and shuts down slightly
               | slower (or same speed, depends really what you run)
               | 
               | By "unencumbered by systemd" they mostly mean "works
               | worse". We've removed tens of thousands lines of fixes
               | for "easy", "simple" sysv scripts when we upgraded our
               | servers to version that runs systemd.
        
               | MisterTea wrote:
               | > What's the impact of having systemd (or not) for the
               | everyday layman like me that just uses Visual Studio Code
               | to build flutter apps ?
               | 
               | Nothing. I run Void Linux Musl with XFCE and I have no
               | issue running Steam and other big glibc programs in
               | Flatpak, docker, etc.
        
               | johnny22 wrote:
               | most of the general purpose distributions use systemd.
               | Almost every general purpose distro you've ever heard of.
               | They all adopted it by choice, because they thought it
               | was a better option than the alternatives for one reason
               | or the other.
               | 
               | Basically, don't worry about it.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | fullstop wrote:
             | The one which set your root password to "" if you used the
             | live-cd installer and selected the sudo option?
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | als0 wrote:
       | It's worth mentioning that standalone TPM chips from Infineon and
       | others are a lot more hardened than Intel or AMD's fTPMs.
       | Infineon's TPMs are tested against fault injection attack,
       | package removal, side channels and so on.
        
         | cwerling wrote:
         | Please note, though, that's imperative to then go for a
         | BitLocker TPM+PIN configuration at least. A standalone
         | (discrete) TPM with TPM-only protectors can be attacked by bus
         | sniffing, a hardware attack much simpler than ours. [1]
         | 
         | The beauty of a discrete TPM is its anti-hammering protection,
         | making a numerical PIN a very effective security measure (akin
         | to a SIM/SmartCard).
         | 
         | [1]
         | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S089812211...
        
           | als0 wrote:
           | Bus sniffing can be mitigated by encrypting communications
           | using the TPM's in-built parameter encryption capabilities.
        
             | cryptonector wrote:
             | Yes, this. Bitlocker could absolutely do this.
             | 
             | There's still other active attacks resulting from the BMC
             | and BIOS and parts of the OS not also doing the encrypted
             | session thing.
        
       | dschuetz wrote:
       | Wait isn't that the fancy MS Pluton thing AMD decided to add to
       | their processors to make the systems more "secure"?
        
         | dathinab wrote:
         | no, TPM ist somthing different
         | 
         | wether pluton features contributed to allowing this attack I
         | can't tell from the abstract
        
         | dist-epoch wrote:
         | Pluton is next gen TPM, fixing many of the current TPM
         | vulnerabilities.
        
       | charcircuit wrote:
       | This works up to Zen 3. This is going to set the PC consumer
       | space's security back even further than it already is compared to
       | mobile.
        
       | goolz wrote:
       | To anyone with a bit more breadth on this topic: is this as
       | terrible as it sounds or more just in the realm of academia and
       | nation-states?
        
         | dist-epoch wrote:
         | > Bitlocker's TPM- only protector - can be defeated by an
         | attacker with 2-3 hours of physical access to the target device
         | 
         | That sounds pretty practical.
        
           | goolz wrote:
           | Indeed it does, and this is just done by a team of
           | researchers. Imagine what the NSA and their goons could get
           | up to with 1000x more resources.
        
             | Eisenstein wrote:
             | This is why you need to evaluate your threat model. Is the
             | NSA out to get you? If so, I hope you aren't relying on HN
             | for your security strategy. Are you worried about theft?
             | Add a passphrase to your encrypted volume and don't rely on
             | TPM. Worried about your coworker or family snooping on your
             | computer and seeing your emails to your mistress? TPM is
             | fine.
        
               | goolz wrote:
               | Well, considering I am 008, my threat model is quite high
               | indeed! But ya, I was being hyperbolic. And HN has
               | provided plenty of worthwhile info on the topic of OpSec
               | over the years, do not be quick to discount. I would be a
               | fool to reveal too much about my threat model but the
               | reality is there exist many people who have reason to
               | fear the NSA. Am I one of them? Nice try, NSA!
        
               | altairprime wrote:
               | The popularity of hyperbole in HN discussions makes it
               | _easier_ for people to discount HN, both in drowning out
               | useful information and in weakening discourse. Please
               | reconsider in the future.
        
         | creshal wrote:
         | TPM based disk encryption is mostly useful as theft protection,
         | so that companies, education facilities or government agencies
         | can provision 100,000 devices without having to match
         | smartcards/fobs/disk passwords to devices and users. (Which
         | often leads to terrible security practices, like backup
         | passwords shared between devices etc.)
         | 
         | So cracking it in 3 hours by amateurs is pretty bad, because
         | now even not too sophisticated thieves can start looking for
         | crypto wallets or sensitive data to ransom.
        
         | drakythe wrote:
         | Mostly academia and nation states. Physical access will always
         | be king and this provides one more avenue for adversaries to
         | bypass encryption more easily.
        
           | netheril96 wrote:
           | > Physical access will always be king
           | 
           | No. Your wording suggests that once attackers gain physical
           | access, all is lost. It is not true. With a passphrase based
           | full disk encryption, if the passphrase is strong and the
           | machine is powered off, physical access doesn't imply data
           | access.
        
             | Laaas wrote:
             | Attach a microphone to the device while they are not
             | looking, decode the keys they are pressing from the sounds,
             | figure out what keys are the password, done.
             | 
             | This is _trivial_ for any mildly sophisticated attacker.
        
               | coppsilgold wrote:
               | You don't even need to attach it, other placements are
               | sufficient as well. An example of how an attack can be
               | performed: <https://github.com/shoyo/acoustic-keylogger>
               | 
               | Room bugged = keyboard keylogged
        
             | antegamisou wrote:
             | You still have to defend against cold boot attacks or very
             | sophisticated hardware implants:
             | 
             | https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-
             | big-h...
        
         | spacebanana7 wrote:
         | Not an expert, but I think the biggest exposure most consumers
         | might face is lost/stolen devices where it's conceivable an
         | adversary could have physical access.
        
         | cryptonector wrote:
         | They have a voltage fault injection attack on the SP. That's
         | game over, never mind the fTPM.
        
       | FeistySkink wrote:
       | Does this affect OPAL 2.0 in any way? I tried to search through
       | the spec [1] but didn't find immediate clues.
       | 
       | [1]: https://trustedcomputinggroup.org/wp-
       | content/uploads/TCG_Sto...
        
         | cwerling wrote:
         | Thanks for the pointer, we haven't checked out OPAL yet. It
         | seems to be the most popular standard when it comes to "Self
         | Encrypting Drives" (SED).
         | 
         | Looking into it shortly, I've found a paper from 2019 from
         | Meijer et al. ([1]) finding several flaws with OPAL-compliant
         | drives. They further find that BitLocker entirely depends on
         | SSD-based encryption if the hardware advertises it. This
         | finding's nature is very similar to ours in that BitLocker's
         | Disk Encryption is insecure/unreliable in particular hardware
         | configurations.
         | 
         | [1] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8835339
        
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