Top all-time · #119
Matthew Garrett
Personal blog · mjg59.dreamwidth.orgsecuritysystemshardware
Matthew Garrett's personal blog at mjg59.dreamwidth.org covers security, systems and hardware. Since 2011, 306 different Hacker News readers have linked it 565 times, most often “Implementing UEFI Secure Boot in Fedora”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-07-06, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 2 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Matthew Garrett's blog for its Linux, firmware and UEFI secure-boot posts, and for his accounts of Richard Stallman and of moderation and power management. Commenters cite specific posts as background for their own points.
- Recommended for · 2 comments
- One commenter calls a TV post 'a great post'; another says reading the full blog explains how secure boot for Linux was built.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Implementing UEFI Secure Boot in Fedora10 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2012-05-31
- Making hibernation work under Linux Lockdown10 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2021-02-21
- Mir, the Canonical CLA and skewing the playing field7 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2013-06-20
- /41713.html7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2016-04-19
- Lenovo shipping new laptops that only boot Windows by default6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2022-07-08
- It's time to talk about post-RMS Free Software5 people · 13 mentions · first linked 2019-09-14
- /48429.html5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2017-05-02
- Self-sign custom your Android ROMs, so that not even Google can roll it back5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2016-02-23
- The desktop and the developer5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2014-05-19
- End-to-end encrypted messages need more than libsignal5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2022-12-09
What Hacker News says?
> I've spent a lot of time working with [RMS] to help him understand why various positions he holds are harmful. I've reached the conclusion that it's not that he's unable to understand, he's just unwilling to change his mind. — Matthew Garrett ( https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/52587.html )
Comment linking /52587.html
on “Richard M. Stallman resigns”Submitted I stayed in a hotel with Android lightswitches and it was as bad as you'd think as a story · 928 points
HN discussionMore information on‒what I guess‒is the relevant backstory (RMS making reprehensible statements related to the Epstein scandal) can be found (among other places) in this blog post [1] by Matthew Garrett (original source referenced in the post is [2]). [1] https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/52587.html [2] https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec21...
Comment linking /52587.html
on “Richard M. Stallman resigns”Submitted Linux Foundation quietly drops community representation as a story · 778 points
HN discussionIt happens all the time. Constantly and consistently. If you go against any kind of socially conservative or libertarian perspective it will get down voted and very likely flagged. It's always been this way. https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/28232.html >The effect of both is to enforce the status quo of social beliefs. Stories that appear to challenge the narrative that good programmers are just naturally talented tend t…
Comment linking /28232.html
on “The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News”Submitted Lenovo shipping new laptops that only boot Windows by default as a story · 551 points
HN discussionYou're referencing this blog post: https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/40505.html
Comment linking /40505.html
on “Reverse Engineering a Mysterious UDP Stream in My Hotel”Submitted WiFi deauthentication attacks and home security as a story · 545 points
HN discussionhttps://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/55845.html I was referring to this.
Comment linking /55845.html
on “Do not leave XPS laptop in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag”Submitted The GPU, not the TPM, is the root of hardware DRM as a story · 445 points
HN discussionThis is horribly misleading - http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/44694.html has some more details. But the short version is that Lenovo are force-enabling a feature that ensures they get better power management, and which is unsupported under Linux because Intel have never submitted code. If Intel ever do so (or if someone else writes it), Linux will just work.
Comment linking /44694.html
on “Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop”Submitted What is an SBAT and why does everyone suddenly care as a story · 423 points
HN discussionThis is a good time to mention https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/thinkcentre_bios/9sj995us... , with the quote "Fixes the issue of installing Redhat 6.3." (If you don't remember: https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/20187.html )
Comment linking /20187.html
on “Linux can’t be installed on a recent Lenovo laptop”Submitted TVs are all awful as a story · 416 points
HN discussion>Not going to lie, that’s pretty horrible. The stock firmware is, uh, not good. I ported Coreboot to the second batch boards ( https://github.com/mjg59/coreboot/tree/X210_good ) and things improved significantly - I wrote it up at https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/50924.html
Comment linking /50924.html
on “Thinkpad X210”Submitted A quick look at the Ikea Trådfri lighting platform as a story · 412 points
HN discussionI absolutely agree with you that the current big LLMs enable an attack on all FOSS licenses and especially copyleft ones. That doesn't mean that one couldn't create LLM code generators in a respectful way. Do license analysis on the input code and then train separate models on the different license buckets, with the outputs from each model considered derivative works of the input corpus. Also I don't think a restric…
Comment linking /57615.html
on “FOSS infrastructure is under attack by AI companies”Submitted Android permissions and hypocrisy as a story · 395 points
HN discussion> And I'd advise anyone to think twice before buying smart plugs or smart devices. Not all smart devices are created alike. Research your purchases. So far the one I’ve been most happy with is IKEA Trådfri. It costs roughly half of the comparable Phillips hue offering, but still delivers on any aspect I care about. Works 100% locally, uses standard Zigbee (non-WiFi) networking. No cloud required. Supports HomeKit, A…
Comment linking /47803.html
on “Google Is Turning Off the Works-with-Nest API”Submitted More awful IoT stuff as a story · 384 points
HN discussionWhile we're talking about authentication: Once the user is logged in, how practical is it for native apps on Apple platforms to use something more secure than bearer tokens to authenticate with the service on each request? I'm reminded of https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/59704.html
Comment linking /59704.html
on “Apple Passkey”Submitted Responsible stewardship of the UEFI Secure Boot ecosystem as a story · 383 points
HN discussionIt certainly does not require FOSS users to purchase a license. There is already a shim loader signed by a MS-recognized authority, which ships with a signed copy of MokManager, which lets you register a "machine owner key" of your own choosing. You can then use that key to sign kernels for your own machine, or for anyone else who wants to go through the on-screen enrollment step to trust your key. https://mjg59.dre…
Comment linking /20303.html
on “Freedom and security issues on x86 platforms”Submitted Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think as a story · 377 points
HN discussionA valid concern, but x86/x86_64-based Chromebooks have a F/OSS BIOS and drivers -- for example, Google went out of their way to contribute the relevant bits to coreboot. Installing GNU/Linux on such systems is straightforward and well-documented (flip the physical or virtual developer switch; enable USB boot from a shell; boot installer or OS from USB) too. Proprietary firmware means dealing with stupid things like…
Comment linking /20187.html
on “Ubuntu's Bug #1 is fixed”Submitted Microsoft aren't forcing Lenovo to block free operating systems as a story · 367 points
HN discussion>But it was certainly possible for a Linux vendor to have got a key into the kek and dB lists: https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/12368.html Your text is written in past tense. But if there is a maintained list why is nobody working to get linux vendor keys in now? Yeah, it'll take a while for the hardware cycle to refresh, but it's better than nothing.
Comment linking /12368.html
on “Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker”Submitted Hacker News is a social echo chamber as a story · 339 points
HN discussionThere are two sides to this coin. Firstly there's the hardware vendors who make firmware, who decided to incorporate UEFI presumably because intel pushed it hard (original efi booted itanium and is also found in older Macs). But it was certainly possible for a Linux vendor to have got a key into the kek and dB lists: https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/12368.html That's from Matthew Garrett, who along with Peter Jones, wer…
Comment linking /12368.html
on “Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker”Submitted Skylake's Linux power management is dreadful you shouldn't buy until it's fixed as a story · 334 points
HN discussion
