Just because you haven't seen one doesn't mean they aren't prevalent.

If you(and others here) really want to educate yourself instead of spreading karmawhoring FUD, please read on.

Here are some references about boot malware which UEFI secure boot will prevent.

http://www.chmag.in/article/sep2011/rootkits-are-back-boot-infection [chmag.in]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/16/tdl_rootkit_does_64_bit_windows/ [theregister.co.uk]

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9217953/Rootkit_infection_requires_Windows_reinstall_says_Microsoft [computerworld.com]

I recommend reading atleast the first link.

Here's one juicy bit:

TDL4 is the most recent high tech and widely spread member of the TDSS family rootkit, targeting x64 operating systems too such as Windows Vista and Windows 7. One of the most striking features of TDL4 is that it is able to load its kernel-mode driver on systems with an enforced kernel-mode code signing policy (64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows Vista and 7) and perform kernel-mode hooks with kernel-mode patch protection policy enabled.

When the driver is loaded into kernel-mode address space it overwrites the MBR (Master Boot Record) of the disk by sending SRB (SCSI Request Block) packets directly to the miniport device object, then it initializes its hidden file system. The bootkit’s modules are written into the hidden file system from the dropper.

The TDL4 bootkit controls two areas of the hard drive one is the MBR and other is the hidden file system created at the time of malware deployment. When any application reads the MBR, the bootkit changes data and returns the contents of the clean MBR i.e. prior to the infection, and also it takes care of Infected MBR by protecting it from overwriting.

The hidden file system with the malicious components also gets protected by the bootkit. So if any application is making an attempt to read sectors of the hard disk where the hidden file system is stored, It will return zeroed buffer instead of the original dataThe bootkit contains code that performs additional checks to prevent the malware from the cleanup. At every start of the system TDL4 bootkit driver gets loaded and initialized properly by performing tasks as follows: Reads the contents of the boot sector, compares it with the infected image stored in hidden file system, if it finds any difference between these two images it rewrites the infected image to the boot sector. Sets the DriverObject field of the miniport device object to point to the bootkit’s driver object and also hooks the DriverStartIo field of the miniport’s driver object. If kernel debugging is enabled then this TDL4 does not install any of it’s components.

TDL4 Rootkit hooks the ATAPI driver i.e. standard windows miniport drivers like atapi.sys. It keeps Device Object at lowest in the device stack, which makes a lot harder to dump TDL4 files.

All these striking features have made TDL4 most notorious Windows rootkit and it is also very important to mention that the key to its success is the boot sector infection.

Another bit:

The original MBR and driver component are stored in encrypted form using the same encryption. Driver component hooks ATAPI's DriverStartIo routine where it monitors for write operations. In case of write operation targeted at the MBR sector, it is changed to read operation. This way it is trying to bypass repair operation by Security Products

The OEMs offered to add Red Hat and Ubuntu etc.'s keys but they refused since they didn't want to have an exclusive solution and neither did they want to be in the position of signing keys. If the Linux foundation stepped up, the OEMs will gladly add their master key to UEFI, but it doesn't want to.

Is there something about UEFI and secureboot that causes many folks' brains to be absolutely switched off? Or is the FUD successful in muddling the facts? Or maybe the whole issue is too complex for folks to understand. But it's Linux users we're talking about, not "M$ Windoze sheeple". About 80% of the posts on here and on Reddit about UEFI Secure Boot are simply false and extremely misleading which perpetuates the cycle of ignorance and spreading FUD. Very disappointing, I expected that people would be smart on here, but they seem to be ignoring facts "la la la" in the hurry to feel victimized and jump on the anti-MS bandwagon.

>When you turn off secure boot, Windows DOES NOT BOOT!

That is simply wrong. Windows 8 works perfectly well on machines on which UEFI secure boot is disabled as well as other machines that don't even support it.

>The virus cannot do much other than brick the machine, which it can do already in a much worse way by modifying a file so Windows refuses to boot whether or not secure boot is on.

Wrong, the virus can load undetectable malware since it just fakes the identity of the boot record when the OS or antivirus tried to read it.

If low uid folks like you have given in to the FUD from the FSF, what hopes do the common folks have?

And before all that, you lose the ability to spell.

I heard the Raspberry Pi is very Linux compatible, in fact it doesn't even run Windows.

That is because Slashdot usually does not cover launches of MS products, but makes a big deal of it when they're EOL'ed. If you get your news from sites like Slashdot, you automatically become ignorant like if you solely watch Fox News or even MSNBC.

Also look at the submitter's submitted stories. http://slashdot.org/~mikejuk

Hundreds of stories linking to i-programmer.info

This is nothing but pure blogspam.

The rants and negativity is getting old while there are tons of people who take a few minutes to get used to it and feel it's actually better.

Why not learn from a 3 year old how to use Windows 8?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlZgcAacIxU

Or from a five year old?
http://microsoft-news.com/microsoft-portugal-shows-the-simplicity-of-windows-8-in-a-different-way/

So if I buy a PC from Best Buy and use it to buy a book from Amazon, Best Buy should take 30% of that from Amazon since they enabled the purchase? That's not how retail works. They get the 30% or whatever on the laptop sale, not from what people do with the laptop.

Okay let me lay this down clearly because you're trying to mislead people here.

Apple charges 30% for two different thing.

1) App purchases. Eg. To buy Office for iOS
2) In-App purchases. i.e ebooks, or any service sold through the app, eg. Office 365 subscriptions.

For #1, for 30% they do payment processing (for which 3rd party processors charge about 2 to 5%), and promotion etc. which might
be worth 30% to some devs, but the problem is that they allow zero competition to the App Store itself. So if a third party wanted to do the same things as Apple but charge less, say 20%, they cannot. On Android/Play Store. THEY CAN. That is a big difference.

Coming to #2 is where your argument completely falls apart, as evidenced in the parent comments. Apple is not paying for Office 365 servers or hosting, nor for Netflix, nor for Readability nor for any of the apps' services that they either completel banned because they didn't pay the 30% tax for nothing to Apple, or forced to remove the link to the web site.

How is that not hurting developers?? Microsoft doesn't do #2, they only charge if you're using their infrastructure, zero if you're not.

Here's an assigment for you. Read the following links and come back and claim with a straight face that it's not hurting developers.

http://blog.readability.com/2011/02/an-open-letter-to-apple/
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/retailing/article/48130-apple-forces-e-tailers-to-remove-in-app-links-kobo-to-offer-html5-browser-ereader.html
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2011/02/apple_bans_sony_e-reader_app_a.html

Wow, that sounds like "shut up and write your own OS and sell it" in the 90s when MS was accused of monopoly.

I reserve my right to 'whine'. So, according to you, we're not even allowed to complain loudly about Apple's policies hurting developers?

If you don't like people 'whining' I suggest you make your own Slashdot and ban whiners there. Or just shut up and get out of here, Slashdot is an open discussion forum and people complain and' whine' about what affects them and others around them.

Reference for apps for the Pi reaching $25K in sales?

That's a pretty lame comparison comparing music on iTunes to app purchases. About as much relevant as number of sandwiches sold in 711 this morning.

I think you've been in a coma or living under a rock the past few years. I suggest you click on this link, read up on the stories that come up in the first few pages of the search and then come back to Slashdot to debate with a straight face that developer freedom is not lost on the iOS App Store compared to the PC or even Android.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=apple+bans+app+store

Apple's hosting Office 365 subscriptions and paying for Microsoft's data center hosting it(the topic of the article we're discussing)? Really?

Hosting Kindle ebooks? Sony ebooks(they banned Sony reader btw) ?

E.g. http://www.tuaw.com/2011/02/21/apple-rejects-readability-due-to-subscription-policy-where-wi/

The problem is that all of the points you list are FORCED by Apple, whereas Android allows competition to its Play Store. You could start a store for Android apps and charge only 5%, for example. Or throw an Android APK on your webserver and link it from your web pages. Try doing that with iOS.

Perhaps for apps, but Apple does nothing like that for in app purchases like Kindle ebooks or Netflix or Office 365 subscription(the fucking topic we're supposed to be discussing btw) but still wants to charge 30%. How do you support that?

A number of apps seem to have.

From http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2012/11/27/microsoft-we-have-sold-40-million-windows-8-licenses-thus-far/

Also, see
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kevinash/archive/2012/10/31/my-windows-8-app-approaching-100-000-downloads.aspx

No, stop playing the "poor Apple" card.

This is about in-app purchases like Netflix subscriptions, ebook stores etc. Not 30% cut of apps.

Wrong again.

From http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsstore/archive/2012/07/20/making-money-with-your-apps-through-the-windows-store.aspx [msdn.com]

For example, this wouldn't happen on Windows Store.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2011/02/apple_bans_sony_e-reader_app_a.html

http://www.tuaw.com/2011/02/21/apple-rejects-readability-due-to-subscription-policy-where-wi/

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/retailing/article/48130-apple-forces-e-tailers-to-remove-in-app-links-kobo-to-offer-html5-browser-ereader.html

This wouldn't have happened on the Windows Store and probably not on Play Store as well(you can always sell an APK directly for sideloading or use one of the 3rd party stores on Android).

Sorry, but Apple apologists like you need to come up with a better defense of Apple than trying to muddy up things by saying "everyone else is doing it". They're simply not.