Does the idea of this concern anyone else? Why is no one talking about it?

defiantemperte@lemmy.world to Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ@lemmy.dbzer0.com – 584 points –
200

Reminder that Microsoft is trying to shift Windows to be entirely cloud based, so this can easily happen overnight without your consent. You don't own your OS. Linux is the only way, unless you're one of those strange BSD folks.

>b-but muh proprietary software and vidya gaymes!!!!

Ik this is sarcastic but the video games issue is real regardless of Proton and its derivatives on Linux. Windows really is the best way to game right now

I feel that this very much depnd on which games you're playing. Competitive or Roblox, Windows is the better choice. Majority of the games I play though works without any issues on Linux.

I've heard that some games even are faster on Linux even when running proton buy it isn't anything I've myself has investigated.

Gaming is one of my main intrests and I've been playing on Linux for at least ten years. It's not for everyone I guess.

Yeah, I built a new PC at the beginning of the pandemic and went Linux. I don't even not windows and play all my games on there.

It's great that it works for what you play, but it doesn't for me. Hopefully the steamdeck train continues to pick up steam, because it's pretty much the only reason Linux gaming is gaining ground.

I play Apex Legends ranked. It runs better on pop os than win11 on my PC.

I think Roblox is the only game that has the kids booting into Windows. Another reason Roblox sucks, I suppose.

It really sucks that they went and blocked Linux. Before that it worked flawlessly. I was close to moving my kids over to Linux when they did.

Are you serious about roblox? Because I'm not much of a gamer, but kids play roblox and I was actualy planning on migrating to linux this summer.

Unfortunately yes, a month or so Roblox actively blocked Linux än VM:s. They claimed it is only temporarily until their new client is stable so that they can evaluate the results for windows first. General consensus seems to be that could just as well just filtered the results considering that they are able to block Linux all together.

I haven't checked it out for a couple of weeks though so I don't know if a workaround has been found. It's annoying though because Roblox worked perfectly before that. I would have loved to migrate my kids computer's to Linux as well since I got problems with rage every time I try to fix things on them 😅

I went fulltime Linux and therefor bought a full AMD system (better drivers) one year ago. I played about 15 games the last year, some of them AAA titles, rarely had problems, and all of them could be fixed by looking on protondb.com (unless the problems came from the game itself of course).

There are some titles which will not support Linux on purpose although it surely would run just fine, for whatever reasons, e.g. fortnite.

Yeah that's been my experience, but that won't be the case for everyone. I mostly play singleplayer games, only a few multiplayer games, so it makes sense that I don't have issues. But for someone who plays lots of multiplayer games, it wouldn't work.

My setup is I have my gaming rig with a 4080 running Windows, then I turned my old PC gaming rig into an unRAID server. It's a fully automated piracy machine running Plex. I just tell it what I want to download on my website.

Same here. Unraid + Arrs + Plex/Jellyfin + Overseer/Ombi + DelugeVPN + 50 other containers I have running

Excellent setup

What games are problematic on Linux these days? I've been Linux only for since Windows 7 server went EoL, and have had shockingly few problems, particularly in the last year or so. The few things that have been problematic with Proton work fine with GloriousEggroll.

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I do all my gaming in Linux. Yeah there's some games i really wanted to play that don't work in Linux, but there are so many games i can't hope to play them all anyway.

I made the jump several years ago to full Linux and never looked back. I game a bunch, built my own custom PC's for years. Linux has been great, and gaming on it has become fantastic.

The Steam Deck has helped push it even further, at this point I don't really check if games run on Linux, I assume they do and 95% of the time I'm right.

The few games that flat out don't run because of Anti-Cheat, I either wait until they are eventually supported, (Dead by Daylight, cough) or I just give them up. It isn't worth it to me to sacrifice my freedom, privacy, and consumer rights just to play a certain video game when there are literally 10's of thousands of games out there that I could play that run perfectly fine on Linux.

Are you saying the video game complaint isn't real? You have a solution? 90% of my personal PC use is gaming, otherwise anything I used to use my PC for is done with my phone.

Until Linux can support my entire steam library, I don't see why I'd bother.

I wish that was the only thing. I work in science/engineering and lots of software that control equipment are only windows.

There are options like using virtual machines, but it's way to cumbersome and prone to errors, you don't want a measurement that took half a day get ruined because of a stupid communication error.

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They aren't trying to move to be completely cloud based. That was a bad headline that misconstrued what they were actually doing. The article actually just talked about how they wanted Windows to be fully streamable from the cloud as an option.

That's exactly how Office365/Microsoft365 got it's start. Now, instead of buying a copy of Office, you subscribe to Microsoft365.

I'm assuming that the path from cloud as an option to subscription based OS will be a little faster. To be fair, I wouldn't be surprised if the stripped down locally installed version is offered as a Freemium option. Air-gapped and non-online computers usually just do one thing anyways. Most aren't being used to watch movies, buy stuff, etc.

My prediction would be that within 5 years, probably sooner, if you don't subscribe to your cloud-based Microsoft Windows OS, you'll have a bare-bones experience. Good enough for kiosks and such.

Granted, you are correct, the article passed around only talks about how it's an option right now, with some benefits… but we've all seen Microsoft do this exact same play before.

For a business a cloud based OS would be far easier to be honest. It's just an iteration on remote desktop services, with better latency and better protection of the business because of tools like this. I don't think this should exist without consent on your private OS, but I can stand with not having to tell the new guy again that he can't torrent on company property.

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its fake

It's not fake but it is confusing. Pluton is a chip mostly meant for cloud infrastructure. I believe some surface devices have it too but either way just don't use windows if you're sailing the high seas.

just don't use windows if you're sailing the high seas.

Or just don't use windows.

Microsoft can't be bothered to make a single, unified control panel but they have resources to work on shit like this.

I've never heard of microsoft pluton- that's why I wasnt talking about it

I remember a similar scare when Vista was coming out, and then nothing happened. Probably the tech wasn't ready then and now it is, that's why is so encouraging so see big progress in Linux gaming, just in case.

Edit: found a source for the Vista thing https://www.forbes.com/2007/02/10/microsoft-vista-drm-tech-security-cz_bs_0212vista.html?sh=38c0bc9e175e

And yes, we know the picture is fake, but the Pluton platform is real and the nefarious intentions can always be counted on.

Because Windows is known to be malicious spyware, and you should consider not tolerating it any longer.

Meh... just another reason added to a looong list about why I never looked back after switching to Linux, back when Vista was introduced.

F's out for me and any other music producers. It's like trying to game on Linux 15 years ago. You can do it in theory but when it's your job it just isn't there yet and I can't imagine it ever will be

Pretty sure it's possible or there are other options. But you'd probably had to invest a lot of work and time to make it work.

For most people it isn't worth the effort, which I understand.

Wow it took a whole 8 hours for the Linux-bore to comment 😂

I switched to pop os recently and I'm never going back to Windows. It's easier now than ever to switch to Linux, even for gamers. Steam, proton, and wine have made running your Windows apps and games in Linux so easy. You'd have to have a very specific use case to justify staying with Windows now.

Here's a fun one: I own two video capture devices, an Elgato HD 60 S and an Avermedia LiveGamer Portable 2. Both do not work in Linux. I found a simple USB HDMI capture device that works in Linux and cost a fraction of what thosmother overhyped ones cost me. It works way better than they ever did. That was one of my last adjustments. I can still stream my Switch and PS5 on Twitch, no problem.

That's a pretty niche use case and it was easy.

A good portion of popular multiplayer games doesn't work on Linux due to anticheat issues (R6S, Valorant, PUBG, Fortnite, CODs, BF2042, Destiny 2, Rust, Escape from Tarkov etc) so it's not as easy to switch to Linux just yet if you play any of those games. Not to mention lack of support from industry standard software such as Adobe etc.

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Could you tell us exactly which simple USB HDMI capture device you found that works well in Linux?

I've been looking for one myself.

No problem! This one right here: https://a.co/d/5o60f87

I must admit, it's a little weird that it connects with a USB A to USB A cable, but it works great. Takes 4K input, has pass thru, ouputs 1080p 60 fps to OBS, no driver was needed. Just worked. Be sure to set it up in OBS to use YUY12 color space (emulated) and make sure your consoles have RGB range set to "limited" as this little guy doesn't play well with expanded/full. Don't worry, the image quality is still great. I streamed FFXIV and Zelda with it recently. Look at twitch.tv/littlecolt for my recent streams, they are all on this thing.

Thanks for the info, really appreciated!

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Isn't this bypassed by clicking "More info" and the "Run" button appears?

As a Linux user no. As a trend that could catch on in general consumer devices.. yes

You are not authorized to view collateral_murder.mp4 because it contains unauthorized leaks of classified material. You're access has been reported.

  1. You are not authorized to view 'thought_crime.mp4' because it contains unauthorized view points in violations of Section 232 (17 U.S.C. § 381). Your IMEI and local audio-video recordings have been transfered to local authorities for further inspection.

20 years ago it was called TCP/Palladium and everyone was afraid this might happen. That was one of the reasons Microsoft implemented TPM chips.

Obviously everyone forget about it until now. Happy new times where Microsoft can dictate which files your, sorry, their computer is allowed to open.

If you click on "More info" you have the option to run it. You'll see a message indicating there's risk involved in doing so.

Yeah no... what is this? and where is this?

I'm on the latest stable version of W11 and I have tons of pirated content on my PC lmao

I've never gotten this message

This post was just a honeypot to see who admits to having possession of pirated content. Please stay where you are and authorities will be dispatched to your location shortly.

Seems it requires specific hardware to run. Newer AMD or Snapdragon processors can run it, all other processors (currently) cannot.

I get a dialogue from Microsoft defender smart screen that looks mighty similar to this whenever I've done a clean install of Oobabooga's Text Generation WebUI (for running local Large Language Models) with it basically going "are you really sure about running that" for an incredibly niche piece of software. OP seems to have lost the plot if you ask me, because quite frankly Microsoft will only be able to exert the level of influence over our machine if it were in the cloud running on their servers. and even then, they aren't going to kill off the local windows install because funnily enough, the internet ain't that available.

At this point non-internet connected Windows machines are such a niche part of their budget that they're almost but not quite mandating cloud accounts just for installation. They can absolutely force this on people's machines.

Holy crap. If this is real, this is gotta be the most dystopian thing I've seen so far. Time to switch OS and never look back.

Microsoft has a black list of file names including many KVM activators. I think “XVID” is what triggered this one

Way more likely "rip" or "HDrip" instead of XviD, which is (or used to be) a super common video codec. Like X264 today.

Yes. In order to run pirated content I had to run through a couple of hours of troubleshooting to disable the Microsoft anti-malware software, which would quarrantine and refuse to restore software without consent.

Pluton is a new name and may be Windows 11. Hopefully you can uninstall it with a third-party utility (windows utilities won't let you, and doing it by hand involves mucking around with the registry.l

I'm going to make the switch to Linux once I can brave it because Windows is malware and spyware and getting worse with each iteration.

I’m going to make the switch to Linux

one of us

Seriously, though, it's easier than ever.

It really is. I've tried yearly and always have to go back to windows. Three months ago I tried again and I love it. Everything works, gaming is great, I'm over windows finally.

I still struggle making some games work, but it's definitely close to perfection. Steam games are almost always flawless now.

Craziest thing is how bloated windows is. I dual boot and when I come back to Linux I always realize how much abuse I'm willing to take when using Windows.

If it took you a few hours to figure out how to play a pirated video then a Linux isn't for you.

No one likes gate keeping. Ideally Linux would be easy for people at any level to switch to.

Never seen this. I'd want way more proof its real. that beside said if it comes to that its Linux time. I don't prefer linux but I've found one that mostly works for me.

They say "it's always greener on the other side". Can't say it in this case though. I'm using Arch Linux BTW.

On Arch, the grass is whatever color you configure it to be.

How does Arch run in a laptop? I have a solid Windows laptop that that I'd like to test with Linux but I'm concerned about battery life. I've tried Ubuntu and Linux Mint but they seemed to drain battery like no other.

It depends. It's mostly good (quite probably better than under Windows), but if there's unsupported hardware that's less continuously (which it shouldn't be) it can drain the battery pretty fast. But that wouldn't be any different under Windows...

Nobara is great if you're a gamer. Also if you're not a gamer. ; )

Arch by definition is bare bones, you install what you want or need. Because of that, the installation process can be daunting for newcomers (hint: use the Install guide on their wiki), but you get full control.

I used Arch and Fedora with i3 on my old laptop, imo battery life with those was good.

I've never seen that particular "error" before, but juddging by how it looks you there's probably a run anyway button hidden under "more info".

Damn, never seen that before. Is it a windows 11 thing? It’s looking more and more like I’ll have to move to linux on my desktop, I guess.

Edit: hard to find a source for the image; I assume if it was real there’d be a lot more reports of this online but I’m not seeing those.

basic research tells me it's a... something integrated in the PC processor. AMD. It's fairly new and started to be released only in some models last year. All this explains why I haven't heard about it until now. Agreed this adds pressure to take on linux

Microsoft Pluton is hardware level SoC "zero trust" security that can be baked into the CPU. It's an optional implementation of TPM for windows 11, basically, that's much more invasive and harder to bypass when enabled. I'm not sure how or why it would involve itself in media playback though, since it's capabilities seem to be focused around executable security and cryptographic OS/driver verification. So this screenshot is likely fake... for now.

It should be pretty transparent to avoid in the open market. It looks much more geared towards the enterprise space where you want machines to be locked down like this, but I'm sure it'll creep into the consumer space once Microsoft decides it's mandatory.

Microsoft: Pay us to license your program on our OS

Small-time developer: I haven't even earned from this program and you want me to pay?

I still have a 8700K and haven't really had the need to upgrade in a while. I'll never buy a processor with something like this in it. If Microsoft forces it in new CPUs, I'm pretty sure I can make it the rest of my life with current hardware.

Yeah, me too. Silicon advances have gotten a lot more incremental and are in a point where if you buy high end current generation, you'll probably have acceptable performance for 10 years or more. The Ryzen 7900x/7900xtx rig I'm building right this second I figure will last me at least 5 or 6 years without any upgrades, even when playing modern top of the line games.

Definitely not like it used to be, where you could upgrade every two years and double your computer's performance to an insane degree.

Is this windows 11 or 10? That's absolutely wild, never seen it before.

Sounds like 11, but I have already seen how they try to block any app they don't like in w10 by calling it dangerous.

Depicted: Why I've been trying to violently cut away Windows' presence in my life.

"Security" features that add no security whatsoever and only exist for DRM reasons

Security for me, not for thee. At this point in my life windows is just too exploitative. I know a little about Linux, looks like it's time to learn.

My tipping point was actually how trigger-happy Windows Defender is about crack software and how you literally cannot meaningfully disable it without first breaking apart the entire OS. -- Only do a temporary turn-off that only lasts until the next time the computer is turned on. Or another less temporary turn-off that lasts until the next system update. Which. Fuck off. I can tell a feature that is working against me from how hard it is for me to get rid of it.

I won't be one of those liars who tells you "Linux is eaaaaaaaaasy, you'll get it in no time"

It's a skillset. You'll have to learn stuff. You'll have to browse wikis and ask for help on Discord servers and fucc around a lot. Plus it has this thing that when something works it works really well, and when something doesn't work, boy are you in for a capital-F-fun afternoon.

But it keeps me happy with how much I can customize my experience to my own personality, and how fast and smooth it is, even on my old, beat-up laptops.

Still keep a windows install around for those days when I need some application that doesn't exist on Linux, doesn't have a viable alternative, and won't play ball with Wine/Proton. But those are becoming rarer and rarer. Maybe one day I'll be rich enough to have a computer with several GPUs and I'll virtualize Windows instead of dual-booting it.

As a Linux Uber-amateur, it feels like we’re basically able to do anything I would want to do on Linux now… the thing where Microsoft tries to not allow you to download stuff because they haven’t paid Microsoft to sign it has always annoyed me. This would be the next level of nope.

One thing that’s kept me on the fence is I like multiplayer games, and I had always heard that battle eye didn’t work on Linux, but with all the proton development and steam deck interest, perhaps this is becoming a non issue?

Can you run any game you want on Linux yet? That's always been the main thing for me. I like my games, and I have a lot of them from new to going back to '85

If you use Steam like most people, check out protondb. It's not perfect as it only really shows off Steam games, but it's a good start. Steam will also let you add a non-steam game to your library and Proton will attempt to work with it, and in general it seems pretty good. The only issue you'll have is when you get to your super old games as the layer that Proton/Wine uses may not work, but for those you might as well just grab a VM and put a version of Windows on it that the game was built for.

im telling you the second this gets introduced to windows is the second ill have a linux install USB.

Error

Microsoft Pluton prevented an unauthorized file from opening. You are prohibited from opening this file because it may contain an unauthorized operating system.

File name: ubuntu-22.04.2-desktop-amd64.iso

You should have one already friend, start with something comfy like mint for a smooth transition.

I recommended zorin for new user, it usually makes the trick

Microsoft Pluton has detected thought crimes in violations of Section 232 (17 U.S.C. § 381) on your device. Your IMEI and local audio-video recordings have been transfered to authorities for further inspection.

What happens when you press More info?

This is Microsoft we're talking about.
It takes you their website where you can read 2 paragraphs of bullshit that will in no way clarify anything.

Nope, if you press « more info », a button « run anyway » appears near the « don’t run ».

Their support site is so infuriating. Why even have one if all your answers are the same 5 troubleshooting steps guaranteed not to solve your issue?

I consider using windows as self-harm. It is a decision you make. I choose not to harm myself in this way, so this does not concern me.

Some research tells me it's a physical chip that blocks you from opening certain files 😬. I did hear MS was coming with this at some point. Maybe check if this can be disabled in the BIOS

It sounds like this will become a problem if/when content providers start requiring it.

Like how Netflix requires certain hardware to enable 4K. (At least I think they do? I remember that was a thing a few years ago.)

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/information-protection/pluton/microsoft-pluton-security-processor

Microsoft Pluton security processor is a chip-to-cloud security technology built with Zero Trust principles at the core. Microsoft Pluton provides hardware-based root of trust, secure identity, secure attestation, and cryptographic services. Pluton technology is a combination of a secure subsystem which is part of the System on Chip (SoC) and Microsoft authored software that runs on this integrated secure subsystem.

Microsoft Pluton is currently available on devices with Ryzen 6000 and Qualcomm Snapdragon® 8cx Gen 3 series processors. Microsoft Pluton can be enabled on devices with Pluton capable processors running Windows 11, version 22H2.

What is Microsoft Pluton?

Designed by Microsoft and built by silicon partners, Microsoft Pluton is a secure crypto-processor built into the CPU for security at the core to ensure code integrity and the latest protection with updates delivered by Microsoft through Windows Update. Pluton protects credentials, identities, personal data and encryption keys. Information is significantly harder to be removed even if an attacker has installed malware or has complete physical possession of the PC.

Microsoft Pluton is designed to provide the functionality of the Trusted Platform Module as well as deliver other security functionality beyond what is possible with the TPM 2.0 specification, and allows for additional Pluton firmware and OS features to be delivered over time via Windows Update. For more information, see Microsoft Pluton as TPM.

Pluton is built on proven technology used in Xbox and Azure Sphere, and provides hardened integrated security capabilities to Windows 11 devices in collaboration with leading silicon partners. For more information, see Meet the Microsoft Pluton processor – The security chip designed for the future of Windows PCs.

I'm concerned about being able to run GNU/Linux on computers with Pluton chips, but I shouldn't get this hardware at home before the next decade. I'm trying to buy as much second-hand commodities as possible.

Yes, Microsoft exerting this sort of control over their operating system does deeply concern me which is why i switched to Linux and you should too

It is because of rumors about Windows starting to implement this type of measures that I moved to Ubuntu… That was shortly before Windows Vista came out, back in 2006.
I never went back again, except briefly on an air-gaped machine under 7 to play Skyrim and Grim Dawn.

In other words, you switched out of fear of restrictions that still haven’t manifested nearly two decades later

They haven't? Yesterday my computer updated without my permission and started popping up a screen that nags me about how I need to switch to an online Microsoft account in order to continue to use the operating system.

A few weeks ago I tried to disable Windows updates using a test scheduler job and despite being an administrator and going through the command line it told me I do not have the permission to do this.

The restrictions are here and they're getting worse.

Absolutely, with TPM chips now being a requirement to install Windows, it's only a matter of time until DRM becomes a mandatory low-level part of the OS.

I swapped to Linux for similar reasons many years ago. The initial idea was to hedge and get familiar with it so I had peace of mind. I ended up staying in the Linux sphere for most of my devices , except for my music production machine that still run windows.

Linux Mint reporting in. I've been running it on all my machines for... over 6 years now, not sure how much longer than 6 though. Did not look back, I can do everything I want without issue.

I, too, enjoy having an OS that doesn't fsck with me.

It's just so unbelievably nice when it doesn't ask you to use Microsoft edge, and it doesn't pop up web searches when you try to find an application, and it doesn't update without your permission or pop up a screen about how Windows counts are better than local accounts every two weeks.

They've just added up so many small annoyances that when I switch to Lennox it was a genuine breath of fresh air.

And by all means Linux kind of fucking sucks too, but it sucks because of its own technicality riddled advanced user problems. It's hard to update things, they want you to use cuz the command line for half of the stuff you want to do, and it's really easy to screw up your whole install and never be able to get back.

But it's worth it, the annoyances of linux are now worth it over the annoyances of windows and the annoyances of windows are intentional.

What distro do you run?

Ubuntu and more recently Pop!

I used to use a distro named "crunchbang"

I have seen similar message but not with that "unauthorized... of copyrighted material". How does it tell whether a file is copyrighted material or not?

That's what you get for using windows - software that might allow you to use your computer.

Dafuck is that shit, nobody should live like this

Microsoft Pluton sounds a lot like Google Ultron from the classic copypasta

If I was Microsoft o wouldn't let you run xvid as well are you living in 2010?

Fuck, this worries me. Looks like my upcoming next PC build will exclude a Windows OS and opt for a Linux distribution.

not very surprising tbh, Microsoft is exactly who I’d expect to do something like this. if you need to use windows on the machine you pirate stuff on just create a new user and disable smartscreen/defender on that account. i do agree though that this should get some more traction, more people use windows than id like to admit

How much you wanna bet that running the file through ffmpeg in a Linux subsystem scrambles whatever signature it's checking

Modern content detection systems don't rely on file signatures, they rely on content signatures. So, unless your FFMEG turns Alien movie into Jurassic Park movie, it will be detected as Alien movie.

Yeah, but how? How can a detection system detect the content of a video file stored locally? So they have petabytes of cache containing every movie ever made? Also do they upload files to server for detection?

Any of these can be disabled rather easily.

We should all take a moment to consider this attempt by Microsoft to force AMD and Intel to integrate 'chip to cloud' nonsense.

There. Now realize how hard we will all shit on either company if they actually implement it.

Microsoft does not give a fuck about the tiny fraction of people worried about this.

I was your typical on-the-fence guy for years, installing Linux a couple of times a year, hopping between distros but eventually always returned to Windows. Those days are over for good. I learned to understand packages, dependencies and the basic tools to be able to understand and execute most troubleshooting. Still on an Apple laptop but once they pull similar shit with their telemetry that’s it.

The only thing preventing me from hopping back over to Linux is trying to reinstall my games. I've used it on and off for a few years and I loved it, but last time I had some issues with power and thought maybe Linux was doing something wonky (ended up being a PSU issue) and then Halo Infinite dropped and I wanted to play that.

In hindsight, both reasons were bad and I should have stayed on Linux.

Gaming on Linux has improved massively, especially over the last year. You should give it another try.

There is gonna be easy fix for this in one second

This usually happens when you try to launch a program which MS can't verify it's signature or suspect it's a malware, never seen that happens with a media file and for a such idiot reason...!!

I'm not talking about it because I use an OS that treats me as its owner rather than as someone it's doing a huge favor to just by letting me log in.

For real? What's this shit? I'm so glad I'm using Linux and I don't have to deal with this crap anymore

>THE PIC IS FAKE
>WAIT!
>YOU CAN CLICK "More Info" AND "Run Anyway"
>THE PIC IS FAKE
>ACK