- cross-posted to:
- 4chan@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- 4chan@lemmy.world
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…and grounds for committing sudoku. 🤣
- The average user has no need to use Bitlocker
- The average user should be using a local account instead of a Microsoft Account.
- Using a Microsoft Account causes Bitlocker to auto-enable.
- Loss of access to your Microsoft Account when Bitlocker is enabled can cause loss of all your data.
- Microsoft can and will roundly ignore you if you lose access to your Microsoft Account.
Microsoft has painted users into a very dangerous corner. Security is vitally important, but not when it’s almost maliciously implemented.
Even as a security professional I understand that most people will be ill served by having their computer locked down like Fort Knox. There are ways of ensuring security without having all personal content go permanently poof with the slightest wrong move.
100% agree with the sentiment. Working in IT makes you realize how incapable some people can be with even the simplest computer tasks at times. What would you recommend as an alternative for secure data in the case of the average person? File level encryption instead of disk level? Wondering what would be the best way to go about getting my family to secure their private info.
For safety, backups are much better than encryption.
The only thing encryption does is prevent others from reading your data if the machine gets physically lost or stolen. And ironically, that might prevent a stolen machine from ever making it back into your hands.
For desktops, encryption of a machine that doesn’t have critically private/sensitive content is even dumber. I mean, if you have terabytes of CP or are a terrorist, then sure, lock that down to make the police earn their wages. Or do it even if you don’t, but you just want to give authorities the middle finger.
But not much on the average computer needs encryption so long as you keep good physical and network security. And the problem with that is much of it is behavioural - they will need to learn how to not do dangerous things online and off.
In order to protect data is a good backup system - something that just works, is dummy proof, can be administered remotely, and which can restore content easily and reliably.
On a Mac, nothing beats iCloud. It’s encrypted before it even gets uploaded, and Apple has repeatedly shown it cannot retrieve the content… it needs to be forcibly cracked.
On the PC (both Windows and Linux) I prefer Duplicati backing up to BackBlaze B2.
I absolutely agree with you, disk encryption is mostly against someone physically taking your device. Phones and laptops? Absolutely, yeah. Desktops? I have some faith in my door lock, and if the cops show up, have fun with my steam library. Most of the data that is interesting for law enforcement is on people’s phones nowadays, like regular contacts, media, or message histories. If you encrypt your desktop, sure, by all means do it, but it should be opt-in, not opt-out (or don’t-opt-at-all, microsoft).
I’m using hardware encryption, i.e. my data is too heavy to be stolen. The manual actually recommends two people lift it.
Oh hey, another T7500 owner! You have the second-CPU caddy installed in that thing?
What do you use yours for?
One is light hosting using VMs. It boots normally.
The other is for experimenting on various OS’ in VMs. It does not boot normally. Even before the 2nd CPU caddy, it always POSTed 10 times - no more, no less - with a memory error code before booting into the hypervisor. And yet, no issues with memory, no issues with RAM slots themselves. Or, at least, it’s affecting all 4 of the on-mobo slots equally.
That’s wild. Mine posts just fine, though it was very particular about the ram. I had to re-seat most of the 8 sticks several times. And one time it posted with memory errors when I had a dirty cpu pad on cpu 0. But now, it boots perfect every time.
Do you leave yourself running for extended periods? This thing seems like a power hog. Ive got dual Xeon 5355’s, 120W each. The GTX 980TI is 250W, and I’ve heard those sticks of ram are 10W each. I have been turning it off when im not actively doing something on it.
Actually, it’s a Precision 690! Same case, though I’m pretty sure. And yes, I do have the second CPU installed. Dual Xeon 5355’s! And 32GB of DDR2. And a GTX 980TI.
This is partly Microsoft’s fault, for sure, but it’s also more of a function of how secureboot works. A Linux system using TPM backed FDE with secureboot enabled would have the same problem going the other way.
Secureboot prevents a lot of ways the TPM could be compromised, so as part of “securely” turning it off, it wipes the keys (otherwise those protections would be pointless, the first thing an attacker would do would be to turn off secureboot).
The main problem is it turning itself on with no input from or feedback to the user, and not giving the user access to the key without using a Microsoft account. I’ve heard of people getting screwed by this because they set up with a local account and thus never got their secureboot key (or did, but it was hidden somewhere and they were never told to save it).
Oh yeah sorry I should have elaborated when I said it’s partly Microsoft’s fault. ATEOTD, this mostly happened because neither of them expected the FDE to be enabled which is on Microsoft for silently enabling it
Hm… Eclains why all the Linux install tutorials start with: disable secure boot, disable bit locker,…
Weaponized security. These fuckers booby-trapped usb boot.
I really don’t miss windows. I’m happy with almost everything else but windows. Fischer price macOS is perfectly acceptable to me at this point.
Fuck Liquid Glass though.
Literally happened to me two days ago. Everything was fine until i installed gpu drivers and then it said “plz give secure boot password” and i had to abort mid install. Also was infront of a fresh linux recruit.
This is probably my fault, big brother Microsoft saw me replace Win11 last month with Linux and don’t want real OS’s taking up their precious market share.
How can something “enable itself” while requiring a password?
it was already enabled, he just tripped secureboot.
It’s not strictly a password, it’s a recovery key for the encryption. The drive is unlocked automatically at boot by the key residing in the TPM, if the system “hasn’t been compromised”
Bitlocker is enabled by default on new Windows installations, and you can run into this situation by resizing partitions or messing around with your EFI partition. Disabling secure boot without disabling bitlocker first will result in this.
Make sure you have your recovery key, or completely disable bitlocker until you’re done provisioning your system (or uninstall windows altogether)
Yep, happened with my wife’s laptop. Fortunately you just follow the instructions and we had a second laptop but I was still sweating bullets.
dual boot with windows ? good fucking luck
Switching from windows 7 to Linux really was a good call from me, as in, the timing. I’m glad I have never and will never experience horrors like this
Since about Windows 7 each major windows release has been a bunch of new annoying things you have to learn how to work around, and a couple of fixes for older annoying things that now work better. For example, Windows update on 10 and 11 is actually pretty decent at actually updating everything and finding drivers for fairly common hardware. Windows 11 has some nice window management features built in, etc.
Its easy, just make sure you select the right options during OS setup, hit an unmarked key combination to open a terminal and enter an undocumented command that Microsoft might remove at any moment to bypass certain online/account requirements, uninstall Candy Crush every 6 months or so, enter these registry values to fix the right-click menu, windows search, etc.
Y’know what, thinking about it, its been about 7 years since I last gave Linux a shot on my primary PC, might be about time to try it again…
Zorin is a really nice and easy transition so far. I just started my exodus and have Zorin on a couple laptops and I like it. The phone companion app is nice too.
Microsoft’s SSO is an absolute train wreck. I’d rather pound my pecker flat with a mallet than deal with another Microsoft account.
I actually like the Microsoft Authenticator, as it dramatically improves security for Microsoft Accounts. Not only does it plump up 2FA TOTP from 6 digits to 8, but it can also implement challenge-response codes as a second layer of protection.
What I do not agree with is putting your computing eggs all in one basket. I have never used a Microsoft Account to secure Windows, and I never will. Complete data loss via loss of control of the Microsoft Account is just too high of a persistent threat. And that risk rises by an order of magnitude the less technically inclined a user is. For someone who has almost no computing experience, it is an unconscionably risky system to use.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but that greentext doesn’t accurately reflect how BitLocker works (unless there’s some missing context). Assuming you override the boot order using the one-time boot option and live boot that way, rebooting afterwards won’t affect the TPM or BitLocker because nothing has actually changed. If you change the boot order in the BIOS / UEFI settings and move USB boot above the normal boot drive in order to live boot, then the TPM will see a change and BitLocker will lock. But you can just change the boot order back to the way it was and the TPM will be happy again and BitLocker will automatically unlock. Unless you do something really stupid like clearing the TPM altogether.
I guess it’s also possible the person didn’t just live boot and tried to install Zorin while live booted, which would cause issues, but I doubt that’s the case here.
As nice as most distros are, I wouldn’t recommend installing it on Gpa’s/Parent’s PC, simply because if a problem arrives most people won’t be able to give them a fix easily, unless they also know how to use Linux.
i installed mint for my extremely non-technical parent and the only time they have issues is when trying to use windows stuff. so a non-issue.
Installed mint for an elderly relative that only uses it for YouTube and email, the only calls I get are when mozzila stops working because the version is too old
i just set up weekly auto-updates.
I’d rather the app stays as it is and doesn’t show new windows or randomly move about stuff because new updates. Modern crunch with constantly changing the UI and hiding everything isn’t helpful for elder relatives
Well, mine was one of the curious ones - once they disconnected from the WiFi and no neighbor could fix it, they had to wait a few days till I came over to help.
Hopefully Linux market share will improve and you can get lucky, but issues will inevitably happen - if you’re committed and close by, maybe you could try, but it sucks when you’re away
Seems like Linux skills for IT people can become a gold mine.
My grandpa fixes all of his Windows problems himself
absolute gigachad
That explains why I was just trying to update my friend’s motherboard’s firmware and it locked him out. He had to reinstall his os.
