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Freedom and security issues on x86 platforms

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Re: Freedom and security issues on x86 platforms

#51

Post by zanny »

mpnordland wrote: post #21

It's great that these guys pushing POWER8 at least have a workable situation, but at least for me, throwing $3,700 at a motherboard (Alone!) just isn't feasible. I would love to be free of proprietary firmware, but it would seem that's only for people better off than myself.

Consider the news of the Model 3 this week. There is no reason POWER8 cannot follow a similar trajectory, start with the Roadster equivalent $4k luxury workstation, move down to the performance desktop around $1500, and then release the mass market mobile / integrated board at $300 that can still go head to head with x86.

Re: Freedom and security issues on x86 platforms

#52

Post by kabdib »

Even if the ME was opened, the chips themselves are complex enough that nearly anything could be hidden. State machines that enable backdoors from instruction sequences can be pretty small (triggering these from a preferred vector, such as a web browser, seems hard-ish though).

Re: Freedom and security issues on x86 platforms

#53

Post by kwikiel »

cwyers wrote: post #37

Okay, so we get a pile of FUD (Secure Boot and Intel ME are DRM features now? 'kay), no acknowledgement of the actual security threats that compel Intel, AMD, Microsoft and the OEMs to adopt these measures, and an appeal to dump x86 for ARM (um), MIPS (uhhhhhhh), POWER8 (wat), and RISC-V (how?). What is the point of this, exactly?

Because if there is closed source binary blob in each x86 with privileges level higher than kernel we cannot make secure software (because trust chain will be broken just at processor level)

Re: Freedom and security issues on x86 platforms

#54

Post by korethr »

chadzawistowski wrote: post #38
mpnordland wrote: post #21

It's great that these guys pushing POWER8 at least have a workable situation, but at least for me, throwing $3,700 at a motherboard (Alone!) just isn't feasible. I would love to be free of proprietary firmware, but it would seem that's only for people better off than myself.

You have to start with a single step. Costs could go down over time.

While I agree with you, the average buyer of computer components is used to spending an order of magnitude less on a motherboard. A person can go to their usual source of computer parts and pick up a motherboard for a couple hundred USD at the high end. A few thousand USD for motherboard that does not offer an order of magnitude improvement in raw speed or expandability is going to be a very hard sell.

Re: Freedom and security issues on x86 platforms

#55

Post by kabdib »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #42

Unbelievable. Yet again, we have a post on finding x86 alternative that's most FOSS friendly. Yet again, the author is unaware of or ignores the only architecture that's open, has GPL cores, and an ecosystem. That's SPARC. Oracle's T1 and T2 cores are open-source to study. More appropriately, Cobham-Gaisler's Leon3 HW is dual-licensed under GPL and commercial. The Leon4 is 4-cores. SPARC ISA is open. Open Firmware ex…

Is SPARC unpopular because of its power consumption?

Re: Freedom and security issues on x86 platforms

#56

Post by javajosh »

Theoretically one way to correct it is to have an external device that blocks network activity going in or out.

Yes, I realize you could get around this. The superblob could be a) looking for patterns in JPGs for input, and b) stenographically encoding output into...anything the user is doing.

Sigh. Nevermind.

Re: Freedom and security issues on x86 platforms

#57

Post by kabdib »

ashitlerferad wrote: post #10
darpa_escapee wrote: post #8

ARM architectures also suffer from this. You'll be hard pressed to find a board that doesn't require a propriety board support package somewhere in the stack. Ironically, it is usually the bootloader that is/requires a blob or it is the DTB. I remember being in middle school and reading Stallman's articles on the dangers of a TPM-oriented push by manufacturers. As cliche as it is, Stallman was right. The push for pla…

There are plenty of boards that run using mainline u-boot and mainline Linux, you can often ignore the vendor BSP. You are right about ARM though, TrustZone is another DRM-oriented aspect of ARM-based SoCs.

The boot ROMs on these things are proprietary, though. The vendors I've talked with have been extremely coy about what's in them (got an overview from Marvell once, spent a day looking at code on a projector screen and getting a walkthrough. They could have hidden much).

Re: Freedom and security issues on x86 platforms

#58

Post by mordocai »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #42

Unbelievable. Yet again, we have a post on finding x86 alternative that's most FOSS friendly. Yet again, the author is unaware of or ignores the only architecture that's open, has GPL cores, and an ecosystem. That's SPARC. Oracle's T1 and T2 cores are open-source to study. More appropriately, Cobham-Gaisler's Leon3 HW is dual-licensed under GPL and commercial. The Leon4 is 4-cores. SPARC ISA is open. Open Firmware ex…

I'd imagine people don't bother looking at an oracle technology and just assume it is closed or unsupported due to the ways they generally operate.

That doesn't make it right to do this, but that'd be my guess.

I certainly didn't know SPARC was open until your comment.

Re: Freedom and security issues on x86 platforms

#59

Post by loeg »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #42

Unbelievable. Yet again, we have a post on finding x86 alternative that's most FOSS friendly. Yet again, the author is unaware of or ignores the only architecture that's open, has GPL cores, and an ecosystem. That's SPARC. Oracle's T1 and T2 cores are open-source to study. More appropriately, Cobham-Gaisler's Leon3 HW is dual-licensed under GPL and commercial. The Leon4 is 4-cores. SPARC ISA is open. Open Firmware ex…

All existing SPARC hardware is very old at this point and has horrible energy efficiency and poor performance compared to the other options, including POWER8 and ARM.

Re: Freedom and security issues on x86 platforms

#60

Post by 5ilv3r »

darpa_escapee wrote: post #8

ARM architectures also suffer from this. You'll be hard pressed to find a board that doesn't require a propriety board support package somewhere in the stack. Ironically, it is usually the bootloader that is/requires a blob or it is the DTB. I remember being in middle school and reading Stallman's articles on the dangers of a TPM-oriented push by manufacturers. As cliche as it is, Stallman was right. The push for pla…

My dtb is generated from a dts at kernel compile time... Chromebook land is fun.
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