Hard, Not Soft, Kill Switches • Hacker News Board

Re: Hard, Not Soft, Kill Switches

#31

Post by leoedin » Fri, Sep 25, 2015, 1:41 PM UTC

cnvogel wrote: post #8

Ok, maybe I've been doing too much hardware development and more tinkering than the average guy, but this part here, to me, sounds way overblown: > As you can see, it is not a trivial matter to > manufacture these HKSes. A lot of research and > hard work went into the effort. I mean, compared to all the other things one has to get right to design a laptop computer, switching these few signals is indeed very, very tri…

This article does leave me slightly confused. Both these additions seem to be completely done after the fact. Why would you solder wires to 1 side of the pads for the pulldown resistors (suggesting that when the motherboard was designed it was intended to always have enabled WiFi) rather than designing a proper switch (not very many components!) into the board to start with? It all sort of suggests that they didn't actually design their motherboard at all, or that these switches were an afterthought. Neither of those is particularly good given their claims.

It probably costs a lot more than $250,000 to develop a laptop from scratch, so I wouldn't blame them for taking a higher level systems approach and buying in a pre-existing motherboard design. However, doing that inevitably gives up control of the design (which puts into doubt their claims of being completely open). If that's the approach they've taken, they're not particularly open about it.

Re: Hard, Not Soft, Kill Switches

#32

Post by mtgx » Fri, Sep 25, 2015, 1:44 PM UTC

swalsh wrote: post #12

This is the first I've heard of Puri.sm. It seems like a very ambitious company. I'm not sure features like this are important enough to me to persuade my buying decision. However I love the idea of having another choice besides apple when it comes to hardware. I've just been really unhappy with everything else. I'm excited for another choice when looking for a high-end laptop!

My favorite part is that they're going to support Qubes OS [1].

That's why I'm hoping their next Skylake generation will come with an option for a 6820HQ or 6920HQ CPU [2] (4 cores/8 threads/8MB L3 cache), as well as options for 16 and 32GB of DDR4 RAM (but I assume they'll have that covered) and at least a relatively fast NVMe 256GB SSD drive just so I can run Qubes at maximum performance. Fingerprint authentication (along with software support for two-factor auth at login) would be nice as well.

I do think they need to drive their prices down in the future, though ($2,000 for a "private laptop"). Privacy and security shouldn't be just for the rich. Their laptops feel like they are at least 50% more expensive than what they should be. I imagine this will get better with scale. Their laptops also don't have to be "Macbook Pro quality". I think some compromises there in thinness and build quality can be reasonable, if it means dropping the price by $300 or so.

[1] https://www.qubes-os.org/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylake_(microarchitecture)

Re: Hard, Not Soft, Kill Switches

#33

Post by artmageddon » Fri, Sep 25, 2015, 1:44 PM UTC

WormyMcSquirmy wrote: post #5

I used to have a laptop that when you pressed the function button to enable/disable the webcam would actually install/uninstall the webcam drivers. I found it more hilarious than anything.

That's like trying to demolish a building by simply removing any roads that lead to it.

Re: Hard, Not Soft, Kill Switches

#34

Post by CuttlefishXXX » Fri, Sep 25, 2015, 2:06 PM UTC

eloy wrote: post #26

> There is other NO laptop on the market today that has a physical means to turn off a machine’s built in Webcam and Microphone. That was shocking to read, actually. I assumed that Purism wasn't the only company doing this.

>a physical means to turn off a machine’s built in Webcam

I actually had one on my last laptop, namely a piece of black insulation tape which I had placed over the lens.

Re: Hard, Not Soft, Kill Switches

#35

Post by Mister_Snuggles » Fri, Sep 25, 2015, 2:33 PM UTC

mbrutsch wrote: post #13

slasaus wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's even a bit worse when looking at it from a fail-safe point of view. To turn the bluetooth and wifi off , 3.3 Volt has to be put on the pins. Giving no power on the pins turns both devices on .

Devices that function when the power has been disconnected would be wonderful energy-saving devices.

These are signal pins, not power pins. The device is still receiving power when the switch is "off", all the switch does is provide a signal to the pins that tell it to disable itself.

Re: Hard, Not Soft, Kill Switches

#36

Post by Karunamon » Fri, Sep 25, 2015, 2:34 PM UTC

slasaus wrote: post #6

I especially like to see this laptop because it's the first that I know of that can effectively turn off the microphone (for the webcam we already have stickers so this is less of an advantage, of course still laudable). Though I think these hardware kill switches should not be optional. A product that praises itself for privacy and security should have this as a base feature instead of asking $89,- separately for it…

Doubly so considering the base model starts at $1,650 for specs that are hardly top of the line.

I really wonder who the target market for this is.

Re: Hard, Not Soft, Kill Switches

#37

Post by Mister_Snuggles » Fri, Sep 25, 2015, 2:34 PM UTC

cnvogel wrote: post #11

slasaus wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's even a bit worse when looking at it from a fail-safe point of view. To turn the bluetooth and wifi off , 3.3 Volt has to be put on the pins. Giving no power on the pins turns both devices on .

No, that's probably just by convention. If it's strictly an input then both directions are just the same in terms of safety. It's just sometimes more convenient to only pull things down or up and have a resistor provide the opposite pullup/pulldown current. Maybe it was chosen because the "high" voltage isn't specified and the standard might say: "Pull down to GND to activate, leave open to keep card off." Then you d…

This would work better if the switch worked as you described - close a circuit to GND to turn the card on, leave the circuit open to turn the card off.

If the wires to the switch fail then the card fails on.

Re: Hard, Not Soft, Kill Switches

#38

Post by pnathan » Fri, Sep 25, 2015, 2:53 PM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #36

slasaus wrote: post #6

I especially like to see this laptop because it's the first that I know of that can effectively turn off the microphone (for the webcam we already have stickers so this is less of an advantage, of course still laudable). Though I think these hardware kill switches should not be optional. A product that praises itself for privacy and security should have this as a base feature instead of asking $89,- separately for it…

Doubly so considering the base model starts at $1,650 for specs that are hardly top of the line. I really wonder who the target market for this is.

People who care about their security?

Lawyers, activists, crooks are 3 easy examples.

Re: Hard, Not Soft, Kill Switches

#39

Post by artlogic » Fri, Sep 25, 2015, 3:08 PM UTC

throwaway7767 wrote: post #20

witty_username wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK the microcode updates aren't mandatory, you can use your computer without them and use the stock microcode (though that's also proprietary).

> AFAIK the microcode updates aren't mandatory, you can use your computer without them and use the stock microcode (though that's also proprietary). Microcode is only one part of it. I was thinking of the ME firmware, and to a lesser extent the FSP. It's not possible to boot a modern Intel processor without ME. The ME has direct DMA access to all peripherals and can use the network interfaces directly, behind the ope…

Puri.sm has been saying for weeks they are going to have a big announcement about the ME "next week". I do wish their process was a bit more open, but I'm hoping they've actually found a way to make the machine boot without an ME. That in and of itself would be a huge step forward for libreboot/coreboot.

Re: Hard, Not Soft, Kill Switches

#40

Post by walterbell » Fri, Sep 25, 2015, 3:11 PM UTC

throwaway7767 wrote: post #15

cnvogel wrote: post #8

Ok, maybe I've been doing too much hardware development and more tinkering than the average guy, but this part here, to me, sounds way overblown: > As you can see, it is not a trivial matter to > manufacture these HKSes. A lot of research and > hard work went into the effort. I mean, compared to all the other things one has to get right to design a laptop computer, switching these few signals is indeed very, very tri…

Agreed, they're way overstating the difficulty here. I think they just wanted to advertise that they do this, which is fair, and it's a feature I wish more laptops had.

The transparency is good for a feature that affects security, enabling early discussions like this one, rather than waiting for post-shipment teardowns and reverse engineering. Like the Lenovo Retro surveys, this form of content marketing has the potential to improve product engineering/design.

Much has been written about the fact that Apple controls both hardware and software design. What kind of integrations become possible by combining open-design hardware with OSS software like Linux and Qubes?