A friend, @chloetankahhui has been speaking up against the proposal to enforce age verification at the OS level, and the QRTs to this shows the extent of naivety that a lot of people have.
No one who does hardware security believes that any system is bulletproof, but do you really think that circumventing these things will always be a simple firmware mod or hardware hack?
Let's dive in. /1
Since the late 2000s, computer chipsets have shipped with security processors like Intel Management Engine and AMD Platform Security Processor.
Part of their job is to verify that the UEFI firmware is from the computer OEM and has not been tampered with or comes from a 3rd party. /2
How do these security processors verify the firmware integrity?
Through a set of cryptographic keys and their hashes, which are used to verify the cryptographic signature of the UEFI firmware. These keys or hashes are *burned* into the processor and cannot be changed. /3
For now, these functions are not strictly enforced or turned on in a lot of consumer devices.
But is there anything stopping nation states from forcing hardware manufacturers and OEMs to do so?
What options do you have in such a case? /4
There have been vulnerabilities in ME and PSP, and there MAY BE a way for users to bypass these checks.
But this assumes:
- Someone out there will put in labor to circumvent these things and release it freely, even at great expense.
- A simple, user doable hack even exists.
/5
Again, no one assumes that any system can be made 100% bulletproof. But that was never the point is it?
The end game is for manufacturers to harden their devices against cheaper tools and raise the barrier to entry such that it costs a fortune for hackers who might even try. /6
This is why GiovanH's blog article is a must-read.
People assume that accessible hacks of invasive systems will always exist, and users hacking their devices is to be expected.
THIS SHOULDN'T BE A NORM. THIS IS AN ARMS RACE AND WE'RE OUTMATCHED. /7
https://blog.giovanh.com/blog/2025/10/14/a-hack-is-not-enough/
People who think "oh we'll just buy Chinese motherboards and chips" or "just use open source hardware"
WHO FABRICATES THE BOARDS AND CHIPS FOR OSHW? DO YOU BELIEVE STATES LIKE CHINA AREN'T INTERESTED IN SIMILAR MEASURES OF CONTROL?
This is the tech equivalent of tankie-ism.
/8
Go on, circumvent these measures & keep our tech open and free.
But know that many hackers find basic hardware hacking tools too costly and out of reach. WE'RE OUTRESOURCED.
PUSH BACK BEFORE THESE POLICIES BECOME NORMALIZED. DON'T RELY ON HACKING ALONE TO SAVE US.
/END
>but guess what would happen if China's SoC manufacturers would get equally as big as let's say, Intel/AMD/Qualcomm?
the executives would inevitably complain about state regulation, and the state's usual response for this is (for this day and age) surprisingly cathartic.
@elly @sleepyowl imo the urgent crisis rn is with Android OEMs which are walking back on the whole "OEM unlock bootloader" contract. Full control from the reset vector up was always hard to get (esp. on retail consumer devices) beyond a certain level of platform complexity, was always a freedom-nerd niche desire. But both the PC and Android contracts included custom OS support because there's real demand for that. Evidently some vendors are still somewhat cool (Moto collab with Graphene sounds positive?) but between Xiaomi announcing straight up "no more unlock for you" and OnePlus doing weird efuse-blowing things it's the most worrying space right now x_x
We really need to build an actually compelling and desirable platform (see the Modal.cx vision) with the best FOSS components we have, with which we would be able to campaign for our requirements much better. IMO just having abstract and nerdy demands would never get wider political/regulatory/business/NGO/etc attention, while "this is the free people's digital sovereignty sustainable green repair awesomeplatform we want X Y Z requirements to be met for our future innovation to unlock freedom horizons and independent sovereign cyber security" is the best shot we can have.
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