Why Locked Bootloaders Should Be Illegal

I have been thinking about corporate greed and overreach lately. I have been thinking about a practice that Apple started with iPhones but seems to be spreading despite more opposition to this idea. When I say "locked bootloaders", I mean "bootloaders that require a system to run a certain operating system and enforced via things like signature checks with no permitted option available to disable them".

If you bought a computer, you should be allowed to install any operating system because of ownership rights because it should be yours. But Apple disagrees, and even though Microsoft has been surprisingly soft about this, and even endorsing Linux in a way in surprise moves, it is quite concerning that they could do the same thing. There is a technology known as Secure Boot that open source researchers and even some lawyers worry about. Its stated purpose is to protect computers from bootkits, an insidious form of malware that loads at the system start, and is very hard to detect.

Legally, there are antitrust laws that should do this. But with rises in corporate greed, it is not hard to imagine Macrosoft tearing up the unwritten rule that PCs are supposed to be personal and open by forcing locked bootloaders in the name of security in order to make it harder to stop using Windows (or whatever OS they are making).