I shudder at the thought of having to generate and store a crypto key for the lifetime of a machine in order to run it. This is why, btw, I've abandoned full-disk encryption: I once lost a key (in shambolic fashion), hence losing an entire disk.
A one-machine-one-key scheme is impractical for so many reasons, one of them being exactly that: onus is on the user to keep the key available but secret. People who blindly double-click on random .exe attachments would supply the key pronto as soon as any malware would ask for it. As all sysadmins know, securing a machine from its owner is often the right thing to do, and in that sense UEFI is not a bad thing.
Besides, if UEFI really becomes a staple of the Windows world, I can see enterprise/sme customers requiring a sanctioned way to add custom cert authorities, to which Microsoft won't be able to say no. Because taiwanese manufacturers like to reuse parts wherever possible, the feature will trickle down to the consumer market.
The more I read about UEFI, the more the scaremongering seems like paranoia.
>As all sysadmins know, securing a machine from its owner is often the right thing to do, and in that sense UEFI is not a bad thing.
It most certainly is. We're not talking about an IT department controlling company-owned machines. We're talking about Microsoft controlling user-owned machines.
There are crypto chips that provide secure storage and signing for private keys. If these are used in UEFI, then the chip can sign e.g. Red Hat's boot certificate without the private key ever touching the CPU.
A one-machine-one-key scheme is impractical for so many reasons, one of them being exactly that: onus is on the user to keep the key available but secret. People who blindly double-click on random .exe attachments would supply the key pronto as soon as any malware would ask for it. As all sysadmins know, securing a machine from its owner is often the right thing to do, and in that sense UEFI is not a bad thing.
Besides, if UEFI really becomes a staple of the Windows world, I can see enterprise/sme customers requiring a sanctioned way to add custom cert authorities, to which Microsoft won't be able to say no. Because taiwanese manufacturers like to reuse parts wherever possible, the feature will trickle down to the consumer market.
The more I read about UEFI, the more the scaremongering seems like paranoia.