Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: UEFI secure boot and Gentoo

["Michał Górny" <mgorny@gentoo.org>]

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On Sun, 17 Jun 2012 12:56:34 -0400
Matthew Finkel <matthew.finkel@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 11:51 AM, Michał Górny <mgorny@gentoo.org>
> wrote:
> > 1. How does it increase security?
> >
> This removed a few vectors of attack and ensures your computer is only
> bootstrapped by and booted using software you think is safe. By using
> any software we don't write, we make a lot of assumptions.

I agree that it removes a few vectors of attack. But this doesn't
necessarily mean the system is more secure. It has one vulnerability
less but let's not get overenthusiastic.

I'm basically trying to point out that a single solution like that can
do more evil than good if people will believe it's perfect.

> > 3. What happens if the machine signing the blobs is compromised?
> >
> See above. But also, a compromised system wouldn't necessarily mean
> the blobs would be compromised as well. In addition, ideally the
> priv-key would be kept isolated to ensure a compromise would be
> extremely difficult.

In my opinion, if a toolchain is quietly compromised, everything built
on the particular machine can be compromised. And signed. I doubt that
someone will check bit-exact machine code of the toolchain
and operating system before starting to sign packages.

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny

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