Comment by RaleyField | Hacker News Reader

Comment by RaleyField | Hacker News Reader

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> it isn't a bad thing

What isn't a bad thing? Shitty security in BIOS chips? Instead of reformatting your disk you have to detach eeprom chip that holds bios from mobo and connect it to another system to inspect it for infections / changes. I'm not sure this is even possible for most mobos and it doesn't cost nothing like reformatting disk costs nothing.

EDIT:

> using BIOS vulnerabilities will be the only way to install an unsigned operating system.

Then I would rather not use those systems.

Android phones are already at this level - I could run CyanogenMod but I'd have to first run a random blob I refuse run because there is no way to verify what that blob does. I'm screwed both ways. At these moments I remember Stallman wasn't completely crazy and wish Linux was licensed under GPLv3 so that the phone I bought wasn't tivoized.

>At these moments I remember Stallman wasn't completely crazy and wish Linux was licensed under GPLv3 so that the phone I bought wasn't tivoized.

In which case Google would most likely simply have used a BSD variant as Apple did.

Ha. The strange thing about stallman is that his words of 'craziness' magically convert to words of wisdom, but there is always a delay in that process, which can go up to decades. This happens _always_. Joke's on us, despite knowing about this phenomenon, we never adjust for it.

but I'd have to first run a random blob I refuse run because there is no way to verify what that blob does

There's always reverse-engineering... an option which I believe could be far more powerful, and Stallman should've argued for; the ability (and right) to figure out what some software does and modify it is the fundamental key to the freedom he argues for, and while having the source code can certainly help, it's not the only possibility.

The power of RE comes from the fact that, while it's very easy to not release source code, it's nearly impossible to prevent someone from reading the binary on a general-purpose computer regardless of what the legal situation is.

I don't know what you're advocating for here. The ability to reverse engineer is explicitly required by the LGPL, and the GPL necessarily requires a minimum standard that covers the RE-ability of any covered work...

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