Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: "Michał Górny" <mgorny@g.o>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Cc: matthew.finkel@×××××.com
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: UEFI secure boot and Gentoo
Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2012 17:10:02
Message-Id: 20120617191013.38dda99e@pomiocik.lan
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: UEFI secure boot and Gentoo by Matthew Finkel
1 On Sun, 17 Jun 2012 12:56:34 -0400
2 Matthew Finkel <matthew.finkel@×××××.com> wrote:
3
4 > On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 11:51 AM, Michał Górny <mgorny@g.o>
5 > wrote:
6 > > 1. How does it increase security?
7 > >
8 > This removed a few vectors of attack and ensures your computer is only
9 > bootstrapped by and booted using software you think is safe. By using
10 > any software we don't write, we make a lot of assumptions.
11
12 I agree that it removes a few vectors of attack. But this doesn't
13 necessarily mean the system is more secure. It has one vulnerability
14 less but let's not get overenthusiastic.
15
16 I'm basically trying to point out that a single solution like that can
17 do more evil than good if people will believe it's perfect.
18
19 > > 3. What happens if the machine signing the blobs is compromised?
20 > >
21 > See above. But also, a compromised system wouldn't necessarily mean
22 > the blobs would be compromised as well. In addition, ideally the
23 > priv-key would be kept isolated to ensure a compromise would be
24 > extremely difficult.
25
26 In my opinion, if a toolchain is quietly compromised, everything built
27 on the particular machine can be compromised. And signed. I doubt that
28 someone will check bit-exact machine code of the toolchain
29 and operating system before starting to sign packages.
30
31 --
32 Best regards,
33 Michał Górny

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: UEFI secure boot and Gentoo Florian Philipp <lists@×××××××××××.net>