Yes siree, the excitement never stops!

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Joined 10 months ago
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Cake day: December 7th, 2023

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  • This person asked if they can make PopOS secure via TPM.

    I am saying that while yes, you can, there isnt much point, because setting up LUKS to work with TPM is inconvenient, easy to removed up, and basically offers no additional protection against all but extremely implausible security scenarios for basically everyone other than bladed server room admins worried about corporate espionage who are for some reason running bare metal PopOS on their server racks.

    Like the only actual use case I can see for this is /maybe/ having a LUKS encrypted portable backup drive, but even then you can still base the encryption key in the actual main pc’s harddrive without using tpm, though at /that and only that point/ are we approaching parity between the difficulty of using or not using tpm to accomplish this.


  • Oh ok so the use case here is if this casual linux user asking this question has only their harddrive stolen from their pc or their laptop in their home or apartment or workplace, not their whole pc.

    Mhm that seems likely.

    I guess this maybe makes sense if youre running like a server room, but chances are low thats the actual context of this question.

    Why would you run PopOS on a large operation’s servers?





  • Ok… so… if you have TPM… and LUKS…

    You still have a scenario where the encryption key is still on your physical device, LUKS with or without TPM, or … some kind of TPM based Linux encryption solution I have never heard of?

    Does Windows Secure Boot work on Linux via the TPM?

    No…

    Am I missing something?

    Theres no point in involving TPM in securing a linux computer.

    In a scenario where you’ve physically lost your computer, using TPM or not it wont matter if your pc gets into the hands of someone who can attempt to brute force the keys.

    If your pc is remotely compromised to the point it has something on it that can grab your keys, it also will not matter if you are using TPM in some way.

    The only practical use of full disk encryption is if your linux pc and or laptop gets stolen and falls into the hands of a non tech savvy person, and in that scenario, going through the trouble of correctly binding LUKS to TPM will have just been a waste of time.

    Thus, you should probably just use LUKS and not bother routing it through TPM.


  • Sure but you dont need to use TPM at all to use LUKS.

    You can store the encryption key on the harddrive, in the LUKS partition layer.

    Like thats the default of how LUKS works.

    Im really confused why people think TPM needs to be involved in anyway when using LUKS.

    Generally speaking you have to go out of your way to correctly cajole TPM v1 or v2 to actually correctly interface with LUKS.





  • That is a neat story, thanks for sharing!

    Best I’ve got doesn’t have to do with Godot, but I think its neat.

    The year is 2003 or 4, and I am beta testing the 0.5 release of Project Reality, which later more or less evolved into Squad.

    I know nothing about coding at this point being still in middle school.

    What I do possess is apparently pattern recognition.

    We are in a last minute waaay overextended beta testing session trying to iron out a mystifying bug:

    The whole new feature of implementing squad specific kit bags that are only obtainable at certain in game locations is working.

    But… sometimes it is not. At all. Sometimes you can grab an unlimited number of kits without restriction, sometimes you cant and have to follow the newly coded rules that limit kits by being in a squad, and having a total pool of requestable kits per squad and per your whole team.

    We get in vehicles, we get out of vehicles.

    We go to different parts of the map.

    We die then respawn via suiciding.

    We die then respawn via being shot, killed as infantry with different weapons, killed inside different vehicles.

    We join and leave amd create and disband squads.

    We die on the water, we die on the land.

    We die on islands, we die on beaches.

    We shall never surrender!

    Er, well the goof off testers wont, the devs are getting frustrated.

    Absolutely none of this has any discernable effect on the problem.

    After what must have been about 3 hours… we are basically just removeding about as testers as the actual devs including the one who actually coded the new system is in despair, we are gonna have to push back the massively advertised release date of about 8 hours from now.

    removeding about a bit and watching random zany attempts at most impressive suicides with those who we are at this point joking are just the chosen ones able to spawn unlimited specialist kits with c4 and anti tank weapons…

    Something clicks.

    I hold down the tab button to bring up the scoreboard with player names.

    I start telling a few of the testers who have not already left to try spawning kits at various locations.

    Everyone goes sure man why not.

    After doing this with myself and 5 other people… I have a theory.

    Everyone who has non alphanumeric characters in their name is able to break the kit limitation rules, everyone else is bound by them.

    The lead dev is skeptical, but checks the code again anyway.

    About a minute later he screams over the mic on teamspeak.

    About 10 minutes later, he has fixed what was probably a really simple but easily overlooked bug in how early python parses string values and passes them to other functions or data types.

    The server is back up, everything works correctly now, and Project Reality 0.5 is released only a few hours behind schedule, instead of the next week or two when the team would be able to organize another large scale testing bout.

    Lol and thats the story of how i saved a mod release date wooo!


  • Ding ding ding, winner winner chicken dinner.

    Sure if you are a bigger entity and have more money to throw around, there are other engines that’ll probably be a much better fit.

    If youre a broke ass indie dev, I am not really seeing a better choice than Godot right now, as youre not gonna be able to afford a more expensive engine without /usually/ pulling some kind of asset flip scam type thing.

    Sure there are some very good more niche 2D only development engines, but even with a lot of them youve still got some kind of liscensing to deal with.

    That basically leaves Unity and … OGRE, as far as I am aware for possibly good choices for a 3D game.

    Unity is currently self destructing, and OGRE, at least as far as I have tried, is pretty hard to get a native dev environment working on linux. Maybe I missed something or got confused, but I kept running into error after error trying to set up its more advanced features, which seem to require windows specific dependencies.

    I guess you could run it in a VM but that seems basically insane, and even if I was to set up a dedicated Windows machine just to develop on OGRE, it is far more clumsy to work with than Godot.


  • Whew, wont lie, I am getting tired and I had to reread that a few times till it clicked.

    SystemD… and Linux gaming.

    I am far from an expert on systemd and its alternatives, but so far all what I at least think I know is:

    SystemD is not as efficient as other paradigms could be,

    It could potentially be a massive security vulnerability, or maybe not, or maybe so, or no one seems to agree on this and then everyone starts yelling,

    I am reasonably confident that at least currently there are not any existing alternatives to SystemD that allow one to play much less develop basically somewhere between any to most games that involve 3d graphics.

    Again, I could be completely wrong about all of this, absolutely beyond my experience and skill set to comment much more than:

    A systemd alternative that would allow for modern kinds of multiplayer 3d online games would be really neat, but it seems like it would take a massive amount of effort that is at least nearly certainly beyond my ability to contribute to in any meaningful way.


  • You conveniently left out the qualifier of my statement.

    That I have ever known.

    Probably unlike the field of electrical engineering, every /single/ person I have known in my life has relied on me to provide free expertise in software related issues of all possible kinds, and also simultaneously mocked my expertise and ability any time I suggest they do something or use something that will actually work, but they do not think it will because -insert utterly nonsensical concern about issue they do not even know how to use basic vocabulary to describe-.

    This is apparently a rather unique phenomenon that happens to those who are programmers and know software.

    Software and programming is in every modern computerized device, but an astounding amount of people who use such devices both realize they are not experts and will seek the help of a software expert for assistance, but will also feel as if they are better able to solve a problem when -literally any random thing they do not like for any random reason is different in any other way-.

    If you attempt to explain anything to these people at this point it does not matter if you are correct, they will be angry and abuse you quite often.

    I do not hate the tech illiterate people I have known because they are ignorant.

    I hate them because they are abusive.

    Finally, when it comes to the kind of game I want to make?

    I want to make something I would enjoy playing.

    And I have found that I enjoy games that offer a mix of skill based challenge in the sense of being able to quickly execute exact commands to the controller rapidly and with precision, but also with a larger sense of strategy, and also with multiple possible ways to solve a problem, some that are obvious, and some that are non obvious and encourage thinking outside the box.

    And I have also found that every technically incompetent person I have known is utterly incapable of enjoying this kind of gameplay.

    And that is fine. As I said, I want to make a game for myself and people with similar game preferences, and mental capacities.

    I have been surrounded by abusive morons my whole life and I have no interest in making a game that appeals to such people.


  • Yep, I started my own game dev journey a year ago after a decade in the tech industry.

    My gamer friends: Use Unity Bro its so easy to learn!

    Hrm but uh what about cost structure, licensing, all that kind of stuff?

    Doesnt matter bro, you can just port it all if it doesnt work!

    Well uh, porting is actually a lot of work and burnout is a serious concern so wouldnt it make more sense to-

    Youre making this too complicated, what you need to do first is-

    And that conversation was obviously useless.

    Anyway yeah, I picked Godot after doing, you know actual research on all the benefits and limitations of various engines.

    See, Godot, being open source, and myself, not having a huge amount of money to throw at this, and also not just knowing any reasonable or reliable people that could contribute… I can afford to work with Godot at a comfortable pace and not be driven insane by budgetary concerns and a timetable, and Godot is likely to only improve, and I can improve with it, expand the scope or add new features as they become better supported by engine updates or freely usable nifty tools and techniques proliferate.

    Also at this point I am planning on really only supporting linux users, as I am again looking to do this as a hobbyist that isnt really concerned about making a ton of money, and also at this point I just literally despise every technically incompetent person non FOSS user I have ever known, so Godot suits that well.

    Oh and linux gaming marketshare is growing rather rapidly.


  • Yep, but the best part is because their core demographic is moronic, know-nothing-about-how-any-technology actually works, start-up indie game devs with basically only a dream and prayers combined with ‘i have played some video games, it cant be /that hard/ to make one!’ kinds of people…

    …you can expect discussion around everything going on with Unity to be filled with irrelevant and infuriating opinions/beliefs/concerns that will eat up most discussions in most communities while also mocking and downplaying actually correct and actually relevant things.

    It never fails to amaze and infuriate me how confidently completely wrong nearly all video game players are about literally everything about /creating/ video games.


  • Popped up on my general feed. Nothing special in particular.

    Yep. Fun to be a spaceflight fan, especially when an ironically now Nazi free NASA is funding a company run by a fascist lunatic megalomaniac liar and conman who has underdelivered on basically everything he has promised to everyone in the past 5 years that it should be obvious to everyone right now and built a cult of personality around himself that is impervious to seeing the obvious.

    Yep, Artemis has been removeded too.

    But it like actually works and is following basically well understood general rocket and spacecraft design principles instead of spending a decade plus telling absolutely ludicrous impossible lies about what theyre going to do.

    Also relatively important is that the Artemis program is not likely to be cancelled, whereas SpaceX is highly likely to go bankrupt.


  • Cool, is that going to put the entire Artemis program so laughably behind their contracted schedule that theyre at risk of having the entire program unfunded?

    Let me know when StarShip manages to even successfully orbit the Earth a few times and have both the booster and orbiter section land and be reusable I dunno 10 or 20 times with 0 or 1 failures (standard rocket launch failure rate is approximately 5% across the board) both within budget and within the timeframe promised in funding proposals.

    Spoiler: This will never occur because SpaceX will at best have to dramatically scale back its operational scope, or at worst, entirely go bankrupt sooner than you think after NASA and other investors stop giving them money and place their bets on far, far more advanced and reliable options.


  • So the Ship that apparently was supposed to have a condensed testing schedule is actually getting an extended testing schedule, and the speculated launch time of late Dec to mid Jan is now sometime in Feb, pending testing results.

    And they now also do not expect the flight license in Jan, also now that is expected sometime in Feb.

    SpaceX has not yet publicly said anything detailed about what went wrong with StarShip2 (despite their PR indicating that they would learn so much from the test data of StarShip 2), but much can be discerned from the video evidence:

    Lower Stage:

    • Unreliable Rocket Engines

    And/Or

    • Fuel Flow Plumbing / Pump Problems

    In addition to

    • Lower Stage Superstructure Not Structurally Integrous Enough To Execute Belly Flop Maneuver Without Serious Damage

    And also likely

    • Lower Stage Fuel Tank Construction Not Structurally Integrous Enough To Withstand Belly Flop Maneuver Without Serious Damage

    • Flight Termination System Appears To Not Function Properly

    Upper Stage:

    Not sure what went wrong exactly, but apparently:

    • SpaceX is not capable of determining their craft disintegrated until 3 minutes after it disintegrated, while also calling out that the craft had entered inertial guidance phase /after the craft had visibly exploded/.

    So basically their Mission Control protocols and/or their Communications systems have serious flaws.

    I am sure they will be able to complete their 3 Billion dollar contract from NASA and land StarShip on the Moon by the end of March this year, and I am sure they will be able to continue receiving massive funding grants from NASA after they definitely do not miss this deadline.

    Its not like Artemis recently managed to successfully return from a TransLunar orbit or anything.


  • This is because most anti cheats for windows are kernel level rootkits that have full access to your entire system, and gamers just trust that known to be ineffective, scammy and profiteering, anti cheat companies software companies would /never/ do anything nefarious.

    How can you trust them?

    You can’t! Black boxed code, babyyyyyy.

    Anyway yeah on linux systems basically the designs of all common anti cheat systems would be laughed at as hilariously insecure code that no sane person would allow on their computer because you would have to give it root level access.

    This is basically insane as in the linux paradigm, root level access is reserved only for a bare minimum of system processes, whereas on Windows, well with the new Pluton tech in the latest lines of major CPUs, Windows has the ability to DRM literally anything you install on it and just get rid of your ability to run or install it, as they see fit, with a network enabled sub layer of the CPU that you as a user cannot override from within Windows.

    The only hurdle for linux gaming is for more gamers and game developers to realize the truth of what I just said.

    Its possible to do anti cheat in less invasive ways. But that requires more work from game development studios, and is costly.

    Anyone else remember when servers had like actual human admins that would respond to player complaints, and would work on the backend of a server to come up with their own ways to detect cheating server side?