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Posted by hornedhob 1/27/2026

Lennart Poettering, Christian Brauner founded a new company(amutable.com)
375 points | 736 commentspage 7
markstos 1/28/2026|
Is this headed towards becoming a new Linux distribution or hardening existing ones?
vaylian 1/28/2026||
So much negativity in this thread. I actually think this could be useful, because tamper-proof computer systems are useful to prevent evil maid attacks. Especially in the age of Pegasus and other spyware, we should also take physical attack vectors into account.

I can relate to people being rather hostile to the idea of boot verification, because this is a process that is really low level and also something that we as computer experts rarely interact with more deeply. The most challenging part of installing a Linux system is always installing the boot loader, potentially setting up an UEFI partition. These are things that I don't do everyday and that I don't have deep knowledge in. And if things go wrong, then it is extra hard to fix things. Secure boot makes it even harder to understand what is going on. There is a general lack of knowledge of what is happening behind the scenes and it is really hard to learn about it. I feel that the people behind this project should really keep XKCD 2501 in mind when talking to their fellow computer experts.

egorfine 1/29/2026||
> I actually think this could be useful

Yeah it could be. Could. But it also could be used for limiting freedoms with general purpose computing. Guess what is it going to be?

> hostile to the idea of boot verification, because this is a process that is really low level

Not because of that.

Because it's only me who gets to decide what runs on my computer, not someone else. I don't need LP's permission to run binaries.

Phelinofist 1/28/2026||
I personally do not worry about an evil maid attack _at all_. But I do worry about someone restricting what I can do with _my_ computer.

I mean, in theory, the idea is great. But it WILL be misused by greedy fucks.

jacquesm 1/27/2026||
Will you always offer an option to end users to disable the system if they so desire?
LooseMarmoset 1/27/2026||
it won’t matter if you disable it. You simply won’t be able to use your PC with any commercial services, in the same way that a rooted android installation can’t run banking apps without doing things to break that, and what they’re working on here aims to make that “breakage“ impossible.
egorfine 1/29/2026||
They will. Just like they pretend it's the distros who made systemd ubiquitous.

So it's going to be someone disabling this for end users.

shrubble 1/27/2026||
Looking forward to never using any of this, quite frankly; and hoping it remains optional for the kernel.

If there’s a path to profitability, great for them, and for me too; because it means it won’t be available at no charge.

egorfine 1/29/2026|
No one wants this for their computer.

These kind of technologies are forced on users.

snvzz 1/28/2026||
How do they plan to make Linux (with MLoCs...) deterministic?

Why not adopt seL4 like everybody else who is not outright delusional[0][1]?

0. https://sel4.systems/Foundation/Membership/

1. https://sel4.systems/use.html

MomsAVoxell 1/27/2026||
How long until you have SIL-4 under control and can demonstrate it?
pelasaco 1/28/2026||
Great team, hope you guys all the best!
smm11 1/28/2026||
Just get a Mac, I guess.
no_time 1/28/2026|
Terrible idea, I hope go bankrupt.

I can see like a 100 ways this can make computing worse for 99% people and like 1-2 scenarios where it might actually be useful.

Like if the politicians pushing for chat control/on device scanning of data come knocking again and actually go through (they can try infinitely) tech like this will really be "useful". Oops your device cannot produce a valid attestation, no internet for you.

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