Thousands of Penguins Raise Flippers At Microsoft Secure Boot

Microsoft says that the Secure Boot, a new technology with the introduction of Windows 8 will protect us from hackers, but nearly 13,000 people have a number, say reservations.


They have signed an online petition to computer manufacturers to ensure they do not end up shipping PCs that can only run Windows.

The controversy has been brewing for a few weeks, Microsoft says that everything will be fine, and the Linux community is mulling over a possible flanking attacks.

For Linux fans, there's a sense of déjà vu. Microsoft supports a very similar technology called Palladium about 10 years ago but it went nowhere after an open-source games.

This time around, even the Linux geeks admit that the Secure Boot is a good idea. It uses encryption keys stored in the firmware of the computer, ensuring that hackers have tampered with the operating system. It's the same kind of technology that Apple has successfully used his iPhone and security experts generally agree that it's made the iPhone more secure. The problem is that nobody is quite sure if Linux geek suddenly have to jailbreak their PCs to perform Penguin. It would be a step back.

Red Hat engineer Matthew Garrett first raised the alarm last month. Now the Free Software Foundation has joined the fight, launches its online petition in hopes hardware makers to push their systems to prevent their Windows-only devices.

Because Windows is by far the most popular PC operating system, many free software enthusiasts worried that the computer makers, no extra steps required for other operating systems to run on their PCs to take.

"This is a feature worthy of the name, so long as the user is able to use programs they wish to stand," the FSF said on its website. "But we are afraid that Microsoft and hardware manufacturers will implement these boat limitations in a way that users avoid starting anything other than Windows."

If this happens, the FSF says forget Secure Boot, better to call it "Boot Limited."

Although it is common for servers to get the ship ready for Windows or Linux, it is not just a given when it comes to computers, where Linux has about one percent market share, according to Jay Lyman, an analyst with industry research firm The 451 Group to conduct. "It seems that the desktop market worsens a little bit to where the hardware is both operating system," he says.

It is a concern for Anthony Schmidt, a self-proclaimed Linux enthusiast who lives in Renton, Washington, near Microsoft's headquarters.

He is signing the petition because he wants hardware makers to know that he wants to run what he wants on his PC, not just Windows 8

Schmidt is 30, but he was using Linux back when they had a lot of tinkering to get it running on a PC. He remembers driving back and forth from his local computer store cards and components that are trying to work with Linux available. "You'd end up gong to the store, find what they had and then come home to see if it would work."

He does not relish the thought of returning to this day.

Like Lyman, is Schmidt's concerns over PCs harder and harder to peel. He blames the "gadget culture" that seems to make more passive users of technology. "It is not, what can I do to the device. It's what makes the device," he says.

Microsoft on its side does not want to talk to us about Safe Boot. But in a blog post, Microsoft said Windows Division President Steven Sinofsky technology will give users "full control over your PC."