Greg Kroah-Hartman updated his rndis branch again on May 31. The Linux kernel maintainer added patches that would disable every driver tied to Microsoft’s Remote Network Driver Interface Specification. For years the protocol has lingered in the kernel despite repeated warnings. Now the end appears near. The move caps a saga that began in early 2023. Back then Kroah-Hartman first proposed marking the RNDIS code as broken. He argued the design itself invited trouble. “The Microsoft RNDIS protocol is, as designed, insecure and vulnerable on any system that uses it with untrusted hosts or devices,” he wrote in the commit message. “Because the protocol is impossible to make secure, just disable all rndis drivers to prevent anyone from using them again.” That language has stayed consistent across updates. Phoronix first covered the initial push in January 2023. Phoronix reported on the latest activity just hours after the branch refresh. The site noted that activity had quieted since 2024 before this fresh signal.…