LB: Lol so far for "code signing/notarization makes users more secure!" I mean I always figured it would lead to rubberstamping giving the volume of software needing to be signed. The whole thing always felt like just an excuse to squeeze developers for subscription style income and hurts the liberties of users and developers
@eniko let's encrypt for software signing should've happened ten years ago and put the incompetent leeches that are CAs out of business
I don't mind notarization as much for some reason though, it feels more useful to send your binary to the mothership for them to run some quick malware tests than signing it on your own with a key you paid 200$ for
@eniko we have no personal doubt that the people responsible for setting up the system thought it would actually help, in addition to being rent-seeking. it IS the kind of thing that the hierarchical mindset glamorizes.
@irenes@eniko No disagreement. Even as far as that goes, though, there's a big difference between "signing helps" and "only signed drivers are allowed period, with no ability to bypass at all." I suspect I would feel quite differently about driver signing if it could be disabled by the end user.
@xgranade@irenes@eniko I feel the same about code signing and HTTPS certificates: Checking for them makes me happy. If I can't bypass them it makes me angry.
@eniko crypto signing has only one purpose and it's to tell the verifier (user) who created some piece of software. It's not ideal, as signing key can be stolen. But yeh, you should not be paying money, as it does not confirm anything. I mean. Technically, you could've been paying some big party to cosign your thing (pay for effort), given that they verify your identity in the process, but I doubt this is what Microsoft and co do (?).
Exactly. Codesigning is just "we (think we) know who made this." A leaked cert can be in theory be revoked but that means the legitimate owner has to reissue certs and then try to make sure their new certs don't get compromised like the previous ones.
It does not mean "automatically secure" and as Eniko pointed out, can amount to costly gatekeeping since the certs are often several hundreds of bucks per year.
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