No Rescue Mode

[Patrick]

@nurmagoz

@Patrick

The best and only thing hardware buyers can do is purchase devices that support user unlock/relock. Every purchase of a device that does not support unlock is a vote towards the end of general purpose computing access for mere morals.

General-purpose computers are fun but insecure, a sad reality, but true. The wind does not blow as the ships desire, as they say.

Once general-purpose computers are no longer available, that’s the end of small Linux distributions such as this one.

@nurmagoz

…Legal barriers.

None of the following quotes seem to be a legal barrier.

@nurmagoz

“Though the lawsuit was filed in California, NSO Group made its source code available to view only in Israel by an Israeli citizen, which the judge called “simply impracticable”, according to the ruling.”

Court orders maker of Pegasus spyware to hand over code to WhatsApp | WhatsApp | The Guardian

@nurmagoz

“NSO’s Pegasus code, and code for other surveillance products it sells, is seen as a closely and highly sought state secret. NSO is closely regulated by the Israeli ministry of defence, which must review and approve the sale of all licences to foreign governments.”

…these quotes do not imply that security researchers are prohibited from or scared to release malware artifacts such as disassembles due to fear of copyright laws. Specifically not in the case of Pegasus. Malware samples are shared and analyzed in public all the time.

@nurmagoz

@Patrick

It may not be impossible to secure that either.

Yeah sadly i dont see how that can be secure.

This isn’t easy for sure. You’d probably need to be able to at least:

• understand/write for example the following documents:
  • verified-boot/measured_boot.md at master · 3mdeb/verified-boot · GitHub
  • verified-boot/verified_boot_app_spec.md at master · 3mdeb/verified-boot · GitHub
  • verified-boot/verified_boot_main.md at master · 3mdeb/verified-boot · GitHub
  • verified-boot/threat-model.md at master · 3mdeb/verified-boot · GitHub
  • Verified Boot
• understand code flows
• basic programming

@Patrick

How does one now they got an original iPhone from Apple or one that has been tampered with?

@nurmagoz

https://checkcoverage.apple.com/

Might be some sort of remote attestation. Not easy and maybe even impossible to come up with a perfect implementation. Refer to the same wiki page Verified Boot.

@nurmagoz

Secure Enclave - Apple Support

That might be like Intel ME on steroids.

I may also not be the best idea to come up with more and more complex hardware designs. They’ll forget (or “forget”?) to disable some debugging feature. (Apple iOS - Malicious Backdoor or Debugging Feature? The Debate Over Operation Triangulation) → Too much complexity, etc.

As for end-user, desktop computers and notebooks, there does not seem to be any hardware vendors on Intel/AMD64 interested to provide such functionality. This might be due to lack of customer interest. The x86 market is shrinking.

On Intel/AMD64 we can be glad if we get at least OpenSIL. That might be the next realistic step after Sovereign Boot.

And if we’re really fortunate, maybe one day we’ll have Open Source Hardware. I’d prefer that any day about any proprietary co-processor.

The security co-processor design is to be considered in 10 to 20 years. That’s far away from anything realistic we’ll be working on anytime soon.

@nurmagoz

The question is: shall we have purely burned/fixed firmware where they are irreplaceable, non-upgradable which will be impossible to change by design (Mask ROM, OTP…), or upgradable with signed mechanism (more complexity, more attack surface to protect, but better usability).

Due to lack of hardware vendor interest… And due to no decent performance fully Open Source Hardware RISC-V being available yet… And due to Kicksecure not being a hardware development project… This is too far fetched for now.