Canonical Seek To Allay Windows 8 ‘Secure Boot’ Fears

**RSSfeed** · 2011-10-28, 15:02

Canonical, along with Red Hat, have today published a white paper on the potential implications, and benefits, of “Secure boot” – the new ‘locked in’ boot safeguard Microsoft will require all PCs to ship with should they want to install Windows 8.
Secure Boot is designed to protect users from malware – a noble aim. It achieves this by only allowing pre-approved and signed software contained to boot. Software that isn’t approved is*prohibited*from booting.
Microsoft, whose Windows 8 operating system will need Secure boot to be enabled by default, have laid out their idea of how secure boot should be*implemented*- one that will see users of alternate operating systems, such as Ubuntu, placed at a disadvantage.
Microsoft’s proposal places no requirement on system*manufacturers*to provide*users with an ‘off’ switch for Secure Boot, nor does it lay out a method for adding extra ‘trusted’ software and operating systems after a system has been bought.
Solution

Canonical and Red Hat propose a different solution: one that provides users with the security afforded by Secure Boot, but one that also allows users to add more software and OSes – such as Linux – to the BIOS’ approval list.
This would, it’s hoped, allow users to run both Windows 8 and Linux, be it installed or on live media, on a PC with Secure Boot enabled.
Further still, the white paper suggests that PCs ship with a user-friendly interface for disabling/enabling secure boot altogether.

Read the whitepaper

Mer ...

**Rune.K** · 2011-10-28, 16:45

Intressant läsning om Windows 8, UEFI och secure boot.
Är det inte ett sakfel när det pratas om BIOS i artikeln?

**Adoby** · 2011-10-28, 18:42

Troligen inte. Det är BIOS som laddar bootsektorn. Och det är väl i samband med det som kontrollen skall göras att det är ett "godkänt" OS som håller på att laddas.

**Rune.K** · 2011-10-28, 19:10

Jag hade fått för mej att BIOS är ute och ersatt med EFI på nya datorer.

**Tapir** · 2011-10-28, 19:30

BIOS är ute och ersatt med EFI på nya datorer

http://translate.google.se/translate...ware_Interface

**Adoby** · 2011-10-28, 20:26

Hm ...

Verkar vara lite överlapp i begreppen. Det blir nog tydligare med tiden. Exempelvis säljer tydligen PHEONIX ett BIOS som implementerar UEFI.
I ett annat fall gör man en BIOS som baseras på UEFI.

Phoenix Technologies currently sells Phoenix SecureCore Tiano and Phoenix MicroCore Bios implementing UEFI. Aptio or Aptio 4 is American Megatrend's next-generation BIOS firmware based on UEFI and the Intel Platform Innovation Framework for UEFI/EFI.