Security theater round 2
https://lwn.net/Articles/912370/
instead of focusing on tackling severe security issues in the
user-space (OpenBSD's pledge anyone?) we are now bringing the boot
FUD again.
Security proposals are great, I love reading them. However this is
another one of those trojan horses that promise the world but you
don't actually get any security in practice. Let's take a look at it!
Windows 10/11 already ship with signed kernel plus drivers aplenty
and we still deal with the usual issues in user-space. Will they ever
get to them? No, because that level of security doesn't financially
benefit anyone.
For example. Videogame vendors have been resorting to planting
kernel-modules (aka rootkits, basically) that obviously have to be
signed. Okay, what does this have to do with anything?
Oh, they have issues:
https://www.gamepressure.com/newsroom/valorant-more-problems-with-anti-cheat-this-time-it-freezes-pcs/z71c1b
https://techraptor.net/gaming/news/valorant-anti-cheat-causing-other-games-problems
https://www.thegamer.com/vanguard-anti-cheat-pc-problems-for-valorant-players/
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/g02ggb/valorant_anticheat_starts_upon_computer_boot_and/
What does this tell us right away?:
1. Corporate writes and signs unstable, untested, buggy and user-hostile drivers.
2. Just because they're signed, doesn't mean they can be trusted to act against your own interests.
3. Who's to say the Valorant driver doesn't have an exploit, or a backdoor planted by another third party?
4. You can't do jack if SecureBoot becomes the standard (as they are on many ARM devices today! so don't say that won't happen)
The next attack vector will then simply be Microsoft, or another party
that gets to sign modules and drivers. Also, this still isn't tackling
99.99% of attacks (USERSPACE!!!! FFS!!!!) it's merely a lock with
a key that only Microsoft has complete access to.
Why would anyone care about this?
In the 0.001% of environments where you'd want boot-level security
you will not be running stock kernels, running some off the shelf operating system.
TODO for when I get around to them
----
Nuclide/FreeHL game tat:
- Gunman weapons still need more work!
- Team Fortress support is laughable in the weapons department, core ents
needs more testing (2fort works perfectly last time I tried)
- Poke646 is practically on halt until the other two are done
Counter-Strike still has animation oddities I need to look at with Spoike.
It's related to how we compose the animation blends in-engine. The basebone
field manipulation crap kinda sucks. You shoot a gun while crouch and your legs
which are _NOT_ supposed to move, bob back and forth. What's going on there?