> And I heard Microsoft is requiring some new addition to Chips that Windows will need which seems to be a kind of backdoor (I forgot what it is called).
It's called Pluton, and (scarily) there is not much public technical information about it.
Intel should be figuring how to fix sleep on their chipset, the company is managed by idiots and we just injected them with billions of tax payer dollars so they can continue this b.s.
I heard this before, with another name... around the 00s so "back in the day" some 20 years ago
I think that ended up as some sort of trusted computing project; we were worried back then that linux was gonna be impossible to run in our PCs... well then PCs turned into smart-phones and even though they run linux (or iOS), we ain't choosing what they run
the name was something with a P? like palladium or something that has no P but sounds somewhat like that?... I'm saying I don't remember.
Note that none of this is technical information; it's just broad descriptions of the sort that you could've written in 2005. It's not clear in your links, but I think Pluton updates work like microcode updates.
There's a nice quotation from the end of the How-To Geek article:
> As long as these measures don’t prevent us from running software we actually want to use, Pluton is a welcome development.
Yeah, I wasn't trying to editorialize on this. I honestly didn't know about Pluton, so I just included a couple of links to newcomers like myself.
Indeed, Pluton could be beneficial, assuming you are on the side of fully trusting the Microsoft ecosystem front-to-back. Or scary if you don't trust the old 'Softy.
That being said, Apple's M1 architecture has a similar security chip installed as well. Some people legitimately want these walled gardens. We here at HN are probably more on the fringe side than the majority.
It's an eternal trade-off explored in much fiction. The Browncoats v Alliance in Firefly or the Rebel Alliance v the Empire in Star Wars, or the Vickies v anarchists in The Diamond Age, and many more. We want both the stability and humanity and safety of a cultured, controlled civilization, and the creative, exuberant culture that can be born out of periods of chaos. On a personal level, this implies we all want to live on the right side of the tracks, but have the option to party on the wrong side of the tracks.
I think the rebels have to do better, to wit, they (we?) have to work smarter to make software that's just as functional but with far less code, so that it can be audited by an actual human being. Software engineers take a blase attitude about dependency bloat, but that must change. We also need to be ready to run on open hardware when it is released. Last but not least, we need to invent a way for the best hackers and geeks to sift through the software we run, people we trust to find flaws and exploits and not use them. I, for one, would gladly pay for this service, and I think thousands of others would, too.
and (scarily) there is not much public technical information about it
What little there is, and even articles that are occasionally posted here about the dystopia it'll bring, seem to have vanished and/or be taken over by corporate mouthpieces spreading FUD in the comments. I can only see that as being the industry trying very, very hard to stop any dissent.
It's called Pluton, and (scarily) there is not much public technical information about it.