Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot [LWN.net]

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 7, 2013 20:50 UTC (Sun) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
In reply to: Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot by paulj
Parent article: Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Right. So Secure Boot is completely worthless as a DRM-enforcement mechanism. Restricted Boot is not.

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Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 8, 2013 5:16 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (6 responses)

Restricted Boot doesn't need a flag either. There are systems which big media companies assume to be secure and have working DRM, simply by dint of platform information. No other flags needed. It might not be true, but it seems to be good enough for the likes of the BBC.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 8, 2013 6:32 UTC (Mon) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (5 responses)

I have no idea what you're trying to say here, so I'm just going to reiterate that there's no way to use Secure Boot as a DRM mechanism and if you disagree then you can describe exactly how it's supposed to work.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 8, 2013 6:41 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (4 responses)

You recognise Restricted Boot is useful for building a DRM system (2 comments above this). You say a flag is pointless for Secure Boot, it is then equally pointless for Restricted Boot, by the very same argument. I don't even know why this flag issue was brought up (I didn't).

The fact still remains that "Secure Boot" differs from "Restricted Boot" by 1 bit of information, which is at the whim of a number of hardware vendors.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 8, 2013 6:55 UTC (Mon) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (3 responses)

So… you're agreeing that Secure Boot isn't useful as a DRM mechanism? Like I said, I have no idea what you're trying to say here.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 8, 2013 7:23 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (2 responses)

You have said Restricted Boot is useful for a DRM system. You don't seem to quibble that Secure Boot and Restricted Boot differ by anything more significant than a bit of information controlled by the maker. I'm sure you're more than intelligent to understand what the implication is, should you be motivated to understand.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 8, 2013 14:34 UTC (Mon) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (1 responses)

No, I think you're going to have to be explicit about what you're saying.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 8, 2013 18:21 UTC (Mon) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]

Actually, I'd like clarification how Restricted Boot helps a DRM system. AFAICS it will merely lull media companies into a false sense of security because they might think it actually secures the system while it only secures the boot process.

Take any software that implements DRM, run it in a VM and you can bypass anything. You will need to arrange to run the exploit every boot though.

I find most interesting the contrast:

Securing a PC against malware - good
Securing an platform against hacks on the DRM - bad

While these two situations are technically indistinguishable.