Forced E-Waste PCs And The Case Of Windows 11’s Trusted Platform
Hey man, yeah, I get it. I worry a lot about sounding like a conspiracy theorist; a real Chicken Little.
But when I look internally and ask myself why I make these posts, why I conspire so much about unknown futures, I come to two most likely outcomes:
- I'm trying to trick you into installing Linux for some reason. Selfishly I guess if there's a larger userbase demanding support for things then I can expect better support for myself. Or I'm just trying to sound like a pompous smartass in front of internet strangers. But those are a little obtuse.
- I see a bunch of people standing in what I perceive (possibly incorrectly, but nonetheless) a trap and I'm shouting, "Hey, get outta there now before it springs!" because I have general empathy towards other people.
Worst case I'm wrong and I look a fool. I really don't have a problem with that. I know who I'd trust if the positions were switched 💯
Ya boy Richard Stallman agrees and has been saying this for years (although this article is more recentish), https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.en.html
“Treacherous computing” is a more appropriate name, because the plan is designed to make sure your computer will systematically disobey you. In fact, it is designed to stop your computer from functioning as a general-purpose computer. Every operation may require explicit permission.
As of 2022, the TPM2, a new “Trusted Platform Module”, really does support remote attestation and can support DRM. The threat I warned about in 2002 has become terrifyingly real.
Actual, honest to god reasons to upgrade to Windows 11 are already vague and questionable. Your average user probably doesn't even see any particular reason and only perceives the nuisance of it. But it's hard to fully close your iron fist around a platform when TPM enablement is so sparse in the consumer space. So what better way to do it than a mandatory OS upgrade with it as a system requirement and assure all (or a vast majority of) systems align at once?
Of course there are ways for stubborn users to skirt those requirements, but that misses the primary point of Trusted Computing. While the OS may baseline function to some degree, there's no telling what functionality may be crippled by not being in a trusted state. EDIT: For example, this could easily tie into games with anti-cheat such that they will refuse to run on Windows 11 unless TPM is enabled.
I don't know the future any better than anyone else, I'm just trying to read the winds at the moment. I suspect they may not try to pull the entire trap closed all at once and that Windows 11 may continue to more or less function as we've seen past iterations. But the pieces will be in place by then and it's only a matter of time before some greedy exec gives the word .....
The article focuses a lot on the security of the boot process, but there's no reason the TPM can't be used for DRM as well (as an example, https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5283799). It's correct when it points out the locked down nature of consoles and phones.
We could conceivably be in for a future where Windows refuses to run code that's not validated even after the OS boots. Or where it sees pirated software on the system and refuses to function in some manner until the software is removed/corrected to its liking.
There are so many possibilities here and all of them are bad.
- Forced online accounts so Microsoft always knows when/where you login
- Stored encryption keys so Microsoft could theoretically provide access to any computer the government requests
- Telemetry already reporting god only knows what metrics about what and how you use your software
- Forced AI that literally watches everything you do on your screen storing it in a known location making for a valuable target and also potentially/likely being used to create more telemetry and insights into your habits
- Eventual full control over your hardware by enforcing "trusted platform" restrictions
It's so fucking brazen I'm gobsmacked. As an elder Millennial, I get it, I can already hear most of you tallying in your head if having to care about your OS is gonna be the final straw . This is no longer a nerdy request to please use Linux, this is a five alarm fire. Add to all this how much Microsoft is in bed with the US government and potential issues with all that on the horizon and I really, truly believe it's time to switch, for your own good.
Please. Even if you're not going to run out and install Linux tomorrow, you need to start mentally preparing yourself for the inevitability of the task. Get yourself accustomed to the idea and when you're ready to dip your toes in, just know how many resources are out there for you.
And to the Linux community out there, there are going to be a lot of newcomers who don't have the technical skills to undertake this and enjoy/appreciate this in the same way as you do. Be kind to them, the need for us to support each other has never been greater. Please.
The game looks fiiiiiiiiiiine but I'm already exhausted at the thought of another $80 USD price tag with DLC/microtransactions and forced multiplayer elements.
AAA studios are all doing the same sorts of things and putting just a little twist on it hoping it'll be enough to persuade you away from all the other AAA games and studious out there doing the exact same thing.
I'm not a hater, I don't hate your mediocre looking game that absolutely fails to stand out from the crowd, but I'm not gonna buy into your advertising for it either. To anyone who finds a home in this game and enjoys it, I'm legit happy for you. Mostly I'm just never going to think about this ever again.
https://www.pling.com/p/2142966/
Maybe not all that close, but it's the best I can think of right now.
I think it has the general old school vibe, maybe you could tweak the colors to be a bit brighter like your example?
My last job tracked it, because of course they did. They could tell how often we logged into the AI tools and how many queries we ran a week and if we didn't hit a certain number, we were reprimanded.
It was a support job. They wanted us running customer tickets to train the AI, we were basically training our replacement. And it's obvious to everyone, we're not stupid, so morale was absolutely in the fucking gutter.
Well, that's on me. It's a difficult sentence to parse in English since it's kind of nonsensical, but I guess that's the joke 😅
Gross. AI corpo shilling.
If we're talking realm of pure fantasy: destroy it.
I want you to understand this is not AI sentiment as a whole, I understand why the idea is appealing, how it could be useful, and in some ways may seem inevitable.
But a lot of sci-fi doesn't really address the run up to AI, in fact a lot of it just kind of assumes there'll be an awakening one day. What we have right now is an unholy, squawking abomination that has been marketed to nefarious ends and never should have been trusted as far as it has. Think real hard about how corporations are pushing the development and not academia.
Put it out of its misery.
https://x-plus.store/products/n150-netbook
I picked one of these up after it got some buzz the other week. Still waiting for delivery, though, will report back once I've had some hands-on time with it! Probably just going to do Arch.
It's hilariously awful because, as a fan of the original Marathon trilogy, the aesthetic of the new game is the only thing that appealed to me; and it was stolen.
I have no interest in an extraction shooter. You can make an extraction shooter if you want, but you gotta make something that players can get emotionally invested in first. Original Marathon players won't recognize this and new players won't care so what was the fucking point of any of this, I'm going crazy. This industry has lost all direction
While the lyrics of this year’s song, “New Day Will Rise,” don’t make reference to any events in particular, Galia Press-Barnathan, a professor of international relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, says the message is nevertheless clear.
“You can’t ban a personal story from a competition,” she told NBC News in a Zoom interview earlier this month. “So you really get two for one,” she said, with a talented singer performing what sounds like “an old French chanson” paired with a story that makes clear the song is actually about “both a personal trauma and a national trauma, and how you sort of come out of this.”
Yeah, you told us not to make it political, but we figured we'd flagrantly worm our way around the intent of it anyways. Gross.
Except it's Bob from Reboot instead of Jack Black.
100% agree and I would like to add on to it that it's worth just posting information, too.
Did you run into a weird error with your Linux install and have a difficult, yet interesting time troubleshooting it? Post the solution! Even if it doesn't directly address someone else's problem, often finding pieces of an issue and correlating them with a bigger problem can help.
I don't run a personal blog and downvotes mean literally nothing here, so have at it!
I went cold turkey on Reddit when they stopped API access and it was rough in the beginning, but I get ever so slightly hints of the old internet here on Lemmy. It's raw, but it's fresh and it's ours. I love it.
Trackmania, although depending on how you want to slice it, you might consider it ONLY grinding.
Incredibly low skill floor (4 button racing sim) but with near infinite skill ceiling as you learn to master all the nuances of movement, surface types, tricks, etc.
Endless amounts of content with the seasonal campaigns, tracks of the day, and weekly shorts, but also just a full blown track editor for community content on the side. Each track is like a little puzzle where you memorize all the details then try and get your best performance. Play in an online server with your friends and just chat, listen to music, or watch a movie in the background. Find your favorite style and master it: tech, dirt, NASCAR, lol.
It's my favorite game to just turn my brain off and drive.
This reminded me of the novel Boomsday by Christopher Buckley (same author that wrote the book Thank You for Smoking if you're familiar) where Boomers are offered tax break incentives if they agree to kill themselves at age 75.
Except now Millennials are in the hot seat ...
After stating its studio would be based in Bellevue, Washington, the statement explains that the "LFG" in the studio's name stands for "looking for group," a common internet acronym for people searching for people to play games with.
"Our first game is a team-based action game that draws inspiration from fighting games, platformers, MOBAs, life sims, and frog-type games."
Studio named LFG and cites MOBAs as an inspiration. More MP only, GaaS stuff.
Reposting top level to address "false flag" claims:
- https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/unitedhealth-group-lawsuit-ceo-investors-mangione-b2747303.html
- https://rosenlegal.com/
- https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/unitedhealthcare-shareholders-class-action.pdf
While there’s certainly nothing conclusive there, I’m not really sure I see the point? When the murder first happened, there were already all sorts of talking points about UHC having twice the national average of denials while pocketing billions in wealth and using AI.
When you ask me who is angrier and has more legal capacity to take this kind of action, I’m gonna go with the shareholders. The American people should be the angrier party, but it’s a lot more abstract for them. Shareholders lost MILLIONS. Because, as the filing says, they didn’t make appropriate adjustments to reflect the reality of that situation.
Biggest point of contention here is the language used and it’s ugly, but it’s direct. People can make false flag claims without evidence until the cows come home, but I don’t smell it here.
Reposted this to social media and got that pushback from my conservative friend almost immediately, it's somewhat of a talking point.
- https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/unitedhealth-group-lawsuit-ceo-investors-mangione-b2747303.html
- https://rosenlegal.com/
- https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/unitedhealthcare-shareholders-class-action.pdf
While there's certainly nothing conclusive there, I'm not really sure I see the point? When the murder first happened, there were already all sorts of talking points about UHC having twice the national average of denials while pocketing billions in wealth and using AI.
When you ask me who is angrier and has more legal capacity to take this kind of action, I'm gonna go with the shareholders. The American people should be the angrier party, but it's a lot more abstract for them. Shareholders lost MILLIONS. Because, as the filing says, they didn't make appropriate adjustments to reflect the reality of that situation.
Biggest point of contention here is the language used and it's ugly, but it's direct. People can make false flag claims without evidence until the cows come home, but I don't smell it here.
Agreed.
And what's particularly galling about this is that it's never made any sense to me. Are you telling me an Android app, on compromised hardware or otherwise, could send malformed data that would for instance deposit $1M into my bank account? That doesn't sound like an issue of local security. An app is just a frontend, all validation would still be through the banking infrastructure.