I agree that master private keys are bad security design, and we can and should do better. I'm just not willing to say that all past security value is retroactively nullified. That feels polemic more than realistic.
Real but temporary security -> This 2048 bit key you generated will be commercial grade protection until at least 2030. Sometime after that computers will be strong enough to brute force it. Do not store anything with this key that will still be highly sensitive in 7 years. It's possible the underlying algorithm is cracked, or a leap in quantum computers happen that will make the key obsolete sooner.
Security theater -> All software running on this chip must be signed with our master key. Please trust all software we sign with this key, and no malicious party will have access to it. You are not allowed to run arbitrary software on your hardware because it is not signed with our key.
In the first case, the security is real. You own the lock, you own the key, and you control the entire security process. In the second case, you neither own the lock, the key, and basically have limited access to your own hardware.
IT admins are thrilled to have limited access to their own hardware, as long as adversaries do too.
In corporate IT, the greatest fear is insider attacks, either knowing or because statistically some users will inevitably make mistakes. Secure boot is fantastic in this context, even if it feels like an unreasonably impingement to gamers / tech enthusiasts.
Part of the blame, imo, lies with how clunky tools are at the lower levels. I've seen plenty of hardware based signing protocols that don't allow for key hierarchies.
Higher level tools push this along as well. Hashicorp Vault also, last I checked, doesn't allow for being a front end to an HSM. You can store the master unlock key for a Vault in an HSM, but all of the keys Vault works with will still be in Vault, in memory.
Security is about tradeoffs, most notably security vs convenience, but also many others.
Anyone who suggests that their personal preferences in tradeoffs are not just universally correct but also the only reasonable position to hold is just silly.
I really hope no one would ever think this non sarcastically.
Oh no! That will never happen. Because it runs on Apple M1 kryptonite chip that even Superman can't touch. /s
For most people there are, in fact, no legitimate reasons to run "their own" software on "general purpose" (read: household appliance) computing hardware. Almost nobody runs custom software on their washing machine or toaster.
But then we still also have things like Crypto AG.
As for games, lots of people play games and want good anticheat. If you don't like that you don't have to play those games but no need to act like the way you are because other people want decent anticheat.
Because it’s social pressure to compromise your computer to a gaming company to get to play a game.
People don’t care about the anticheat on their computer, they want it foisted on everyone else who plays, which is a sucky proposition for privacy and security minded people.
It’s like advocating for the TSA to be controlling access to the grocery store because you want to feel safe there and don’t mind the privacy violation.
No they want games without hackers. Which kernel based anticheats helps with. Can it also impact privacy and security? Yes no doubt but so can any program running on the computer even in userspace. Remember we are talking about kernel anticheats on windows lol.
If you are really worried about it you could dual boot like many people. Either way this whole argument seems silly to me.
Hackers are mainly only problem for anonymous ranked matchmaking. That's not to say cheaters don't exist without it but they are a) much less disruptive b) have much smaller reach and therefore c) are less motivated.
Like most ills being used to push anti-user technology, cheating is primarily a problem created by the industry itself.
What do you mean by this? As the user you are intending to have the game and its anticheat run. Having to download and run a game on your computer isn't compromising your computer either. Maybe the only thing which doesn't give the game company power to run potentially malicious code on your machine is cloud gaming. That also solves the cheating problem at least.
The isolation still exists for normal programs when the anticheat is present.
Would you also support a full cavity search each time you decide to fly a plane?
The kernel module has full access to your hardware, you don't know what it does exactly. You don't even know if it does something more than anticheat.
People got so complacent in recent years, and this is on a technology forum no less. I guess today the Sony rootkit[1] would be totally acceptable.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...
You don't know what the game will do either. It requires trusting Riot even if there isn't an anticheat.
Also most users will never know what the other kernel level drivers do.
>Would you also support a full cavity search each time you decide to fly a plane?
I don't see how this is related?
>The kernel module has full access to your hardware, you don't know what it does exactly.
The same can be said about any other kernel level driver and even about Windows itself.
>People got so complacent in recent years, and this is on a technology forum no less.
What Riot wants to do is not possible with a user level anticheat. Once Windows eventually gets its security improved such that apps can query the integrity of the system Riot would likely be able to get away with a less privileged anticheat.
>I guess today the Sony rootkit[1] would be totally acceptable.
If it didn't try and hide itself I would agree with you.
Great, let's install a backdoor in every computer so that some people can play games and watch movies. No. Computer is a thing for computing numbers not a replacement for a TV.
I understand this is the internet and being super dramatic is part of it but can we please be for real for one moment?
https://www.reddit.com/r/riotgames/comments/12wr2hz/kernelmo...
https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantTechSupport/comments/kfxy9a...
2. All it actually does is keep users trapped in Windows. God forbid anyone actually use Linux, or even a VM!
The only actually effective anti-cheat is the original: moderation.
Now that users aren't able to host their own servers, they can't do moderation. Game studios don't want to do moderation themselves, so they keep trying (and failing) to replace it with automated anticheat systems.
Good anticheat? Just play with people you know instead of random strangers. Thats your anticheat right there.
I'm not sure it's a good thing at its core. The intent seems legit on the surface, but digging into the implementation you'll always end up having an adversarial relation with your user's security and device ownership.
On games, I kinda see this as an argument for preserving a special status for consoles, where the maker keep a right to secure everything to insane levels. Doing the same on general purpose computing platform isn't acceptable. Banking and digital currencies are morr of a blurry line, but games definitely shouldn't be accessing the utter most secure system of the platform.
If anything, opening the door to a whole community to hack the base security of your computing life when litteral life and death applications also rely on those shouldn't be allowed.
Better than having keys which I cannot control on my computer. And I don't play games anyway.
Such keys should be in the hands of users, not Intel.