
Permalink for comment 490679
Member since:

Issue one you have a 5 year old machine in the future MS has lost the key so you system can be attacked. Yet OEM has locked you motherboard and is providing no more update. So you cannot update bootloader to fix problem. So when microsoft pushes out update to bootloader signed with new key your computer now dies.

I agree with you that users need to be guaranteed more control over this, but there are a couple issues with this statement.

(1) Microsoft wouldn't "lose" a key; what you're referring to is the key's being leaked. Microsoft would still have the key, but so would everyone else, and as such, anyone could sign boot loaders for the motherboards set up with that key. It would effectively nullify the security "feature" for anyone smart enough to sign an arbitrary boot loader with the leaked key.

(2) Even if the old key is leaked, Microsoft can continue to sign things with it as well as the new key(s). So chances are they would continue to sign their OS and future OSes with those keys so that people who bought locked PCs would continue to be able to install MS OSes. (Even if smart people can sign their own boot loaders with the leaked keys, the average PC user won't be able to, so it would make economical sense to keep providing upgrades that will work with the leaked keys.)

Reply Parent Score: 1