this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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Memes

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[–] FlexibleToast 92 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I guess if you don't know what a rootkit is it could seem like one.

[–] c0mbatbag3l 43 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is the calmest, most insulting thing you could have possibly said.

[–] FlexibleToast 14 points 1 year ago

Thanks, often that's what I'm going for.

[–] PixxlMan 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah. This meme makes no sense..

Let's avoid misinforming people please. The reality is bad enough, no need to start lying and deceiving

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But the meme has the right intention. Google WILL deploy a rootkit to make it make sense

[–] MooseBoys 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

While WEI definitely doesn’t qualify as a rootkit itself, any useful attester is going to require aspects of one - whether it’s a phone asserting that it hasn’t been rooted, or a PC running with approved SecureBoot and TPM keys.

[–] FlexibleToast 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's still not a rootkit. What do people think rootkits are?

[–] MooseBoys 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sure it is. A rootkit is a mechanism for hooking access to highly privileged execution levels of a device, masking its own presence, and persisting itself against removal. TPM + SecureBoot runs in firmware, more privileged than kernel mode. It analyzes the bootloader and other key boot parameters to verify they have not been tampered with. They can’t be disabled from within the OS. And sometimes they can’t be removed or disabled at all without someone finding a vulnerability, as in the case with phone rooting.

[–] FlexibleToast 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Great, but using the TPM as intended is not a rootkit or anything like a rootkit. It's using a security device as intended.

[–] MooseBoys -1 points 1 year ago

Although often associated with it, a rootkit does not inherently need to be malware. In the case of phones, and likely future PCs, they are used to prevent users and owners from modifying their device.

[–] Spudwart -4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There’s no way to say this one way or the other until it’s implemented.

However to “verify” a system from a hardware level to any decent level of accuracy would require kernel level access.

Technically you’re correct, until you’re not.

[–] FlexibleToast 8 points 1 year ago

That's still not what a rootkit is. Lol