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Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,803  

A glimpse of things to come?

Hello:

Rather worrying, I think.

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Canonical dusts off TPM encryption for Ubuntu 25.10
Passwordless disk locking is coming, a couple of years later than hoped
By Liam Proven @The Register
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https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/31/ubuntu_tpm_fde/

We also feel it's worth pointing out that GNU guru Richard Stallman is dead set against this stuff, and we tend to agree with him. As Edward Snowden put it: Stallman was right. "Trusted Platform" doesn't mean you can trust your computer, it means software vendors can trust the PC to prevent you from fiddling with it.

Cannot but wonder how long before we get this crap in Debian/Devuan.

Best,

A.

steve_v

Banned

Registered: 2018-01-11

Posts: 510  

Re: A glimpse of things to come?

TPM functionality isn't necessarily anti-freedom in itself, but it does provide some fairly obvious mechanisms for abuse... Personally I am almost as sceptical of Canonical's motives as I am of IBM/Redhat, and I suspect this will be yet another attempt to get a foot in the door in for something more unpleasant in the future.

IOW, same shit, different day. Same sub-optimal solutions.
The general public doesn't think enough to see through the "for your safety" bullshit or care enough to resist, and the legislators are either completely tech-illiterate or bought-and-paid-for.
So aside from (futile IME) "education", the only real answer is the same as it has always been: Reject these technologies, wear the "less safe convenient" hair-shirt, and when things get really screwed up - help build something that is less so.

Also, like, give the FSF and DBD some money or something. You get fun badges and stuff.

Last edited by steve_v (2025-08-01 16:08:30)

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Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. Four times is Official GNOME Policy.

Micronaut

Member

Registered: 2019-07-04

Posts: 245  

Re: A glimpse of things to come?

This is just one aspect of the drive to lock down 'general purpose' computing. Remember, there is DRM functionality built into our CPUs since at least a decade ago. I forget when they started, but it's been there a while. Generation after generation of equipment, they add more of this stuff. The point is going to come where they can lock it down and the old stuff will be too far behind to be useful.

How much work is there on "Open Source BIOS" for lack of a better term? We will eventually need to be able to flash something new into our motherboards with fewer corporate control options.