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ORWL – The first open source, physically secure computer

crowdsupply.com

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Re: ORWL – The first open source, physically secure computer

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't know about this. They should have gone with AMD.

If you want to get away from that kind of thing, right now I think you're options are POWER8: https://www.raptorengineering.com/TALOS/prerelease.php AMD has something similar to the Intel Management Engine: https://libreboot.org/faq/#amd

Not SPARC?

Re: ORWL – The first open source, physically secure computer

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They explicitly address several attacks here: https://www.crowdsupply.com/design-shift/orwl#specific-attac...

None of those are evil maid attacks.

Let me state a section of our product description here, detailing the way we are approaching the "Evil Maids" USB volume boot blocked at BIOS, BIOS access controlled by security key + PIN, Intel TPM is enabled, and we do not enter a passphrase to unlock encryption (unlike software based full disk encryption) In addition, attacks that don’t rely on booting to a USB device are protected by powering off the USB interface when the user keyfob is out of range More details here: https://www.orwl.org/wiki/index.php?title=Resources#Resource...

Re: ORWL – The first open source, physically secure computer

#85

How do they deal with the intel management engine in all intel chips? https://libreboot.org/faq/

Didn't know about this. They should have gone with AMD.

My Rockchip Chromebook doesn't have proprietary microcode, libreboot supported, costs $200. Only proprietary issue is the 3D acceleration

Re: ORWL – The first open source, physically secure computer

#86
> The battery itself is projected to last about six months without being connected to power.

It seems like a lot of the security of the device depends on active scanning (e.g. the LDS clamshell mesh, the IMU, the temp sensor, etc.), which stops working after 6 months. Is the vector of a malicious actor taking the device and waiting 6 months before breaking in considered not worth protecting against?

Re: ORWL – The first open source, physically secure computer

#87
In a rare event, I actually like what I see here. They've clearly studied prior designs in high-security space, likely HSM and smartcard mitigations. The mesh enclosure strategy was adopted by older HSM's. There were potential bypasses that led to even more features, esp membranes and radiation sensors. The best ever made, per Ross Anderson's team of talented IC breakers, was IBM's 4758 whose protections and potential attacks are described here:

https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/SEv2-c16.pdf

Best route is just to clone that thing somehow. IBM themselves already depreciated it in favor of a new product. Might still try to patent sue you or pull some other crap but worst case should be Chinese clones becoming available after new design is published. :) Designers of ORWL should try to copy more of the IBM thing's techniques to close gap between the two.

Far as design itself, I like that it's relatively simple, leverages a secure IC, easy to disassemble, will allow low-level modifications like firmware, and can run standard software. The next step will be a model that replaces the Intel chip with OpenSPARC, OpenPOWER, or RISC-V multicore with added components for trusted boot or I/O protections. Some are available with some coming online. Next step is using crypto to protect confidentiality & integrity of anything leaving SOC boundary so RAM is untrusted. There will be a lot of money involved for initial development and prototyping of even the first, open chip. So, I understand if they're taking it one step at a time. That's cool as long as they keep the advertising honest about risks they're keeping in for compatibility, etc.

Re: ORWL – The first open source, physically secure computer

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to get away from that kind of thing, right now I think you're options are POWER8: https://www.raptorengineering.com/TALOS/prerelease.php AMD has something similar to the Intel Management Engine: https://libreboot.org/faq/#amd

Not SPARC?

Specifically, the OpenSPARC T2:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/systems/opensparc/openspar...

The ASIC implementation was nice:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UltraSPARC_T2

On a 65nm node... very outdated one... it might get 8 threads in 8 cores at 1.6GHz each with hardware RNG, crypto accelerators, and hypervisor support. That's the kind of implementation that would be useless for an open-source, secure workstation, server, or HPC node. ;) Especially if one slightly increased single-core performance or cache when porting it to 45nm.

Forget that, though. Let's see what IBM will charge for their admittedly-faster pile of complicated silicon that only certain people can see which they've already turned into non-backdoored chips for you. ;)

Re: ORWL – The first open source, physically secure computer

#89

How do they deal with the intel management engine in all intel chips? https://libreboot.org/faq/

In order for the Management Engine to really do much, you need to have a network card that the management engine knows how to talk to. If you don't have such a network interface, the ME can't do all that much, and any adverse security risks are near zero. Add to that things like the firmware write line being controlled by a completely separate microcontroller, and the big things that are discussed are completely infeasible. I'd be much more worried about the lack of microcode updates that libreboot users shun in the name of "freedom".

Re: ORWL – The first open source, physically secure computer

#90

> The battery itself is projected to last about six months without being connected to power. It seems like a lot of the security of the device depends on active scanning (e.g. the LDS clamshell mesh, the IMU, the temp sensor, etc.), which stops working after 6 months. Is the vector of a malicious actor taking the device and waiting 6 months before breaking in considered not worth protecting against?

The webpage says it zeroes the key material when the battery runs low. So it'll fail "secure" in that case, presumably.
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