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Is it time for open processors?

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Re: Is it time for open processors?

#171

Post by nine_k »

lazyjones wrote: post #104
fghtr wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

QubesOS is dealing with the problem you describe. It implements security through isolation. But the vulnerabilities in CPU break everything.

The approach is helpful, perhaps not very practical (do I maintain N different browser installations in my qube for N different tasks, or is it a single installation where malware can therefore affect all qubes?). But remember that OS and libraries have plenty of bugs too.

I suppose that an OS running transparently on an actual cluster of many independent cores, not linked even by a common L2 cache, could allow to separate security domains much more reliably.

Single-thread performance would suffer, though, unless you're ready to pay quite a lot. And it's still hugely important in many cases.

Re: Is it time for open processors?

#172

Post by dragontamer »

StreamBright wrote: post #168
dragontamer wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that we open up a government agency dedicated to the testing of CPU chips, and enforcing strict regulations? The FAA and its set of safety regulations are written into US law. That's why airplanes are trustworthy and safe: more safe than other countries on the average. https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/safety/ https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/a... Or do you think the US just MA…

I am suggesting that other engineering disciplines produce much safer products without opensource and open design. How it is achieved is another question. Bridges are not safe because of any government agency but because mechanical engineers design them to be safe.

> Bridges are not safe because of any government agency

Building a bridge is one of the most heavily regulated things in the USA.

For details, see: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/nbis.cfm

Every single bridge in the USA is documented, listed, inspected and regulated. There's even an entire division of the US Military that helps out: The Army Corps of Engineers. So its multi-agency, multi-department, and even includes military service members.

Bridge Building might be the only thing more regulated than Airline safety in this country.

> because mechanical engineers design them to be safe.

Civil Engineer btw. Not Mechanical. And Civil Engineers need to pass a strict level of training and licensing to practice in the USA. Granted, this is on a State-by-State basis rather that on a national basis (like Bridge-building).

But its still a government regulation, even if its State-wide instead of Federal.

https://www.nspe.org/resources/licensure/how-get-licensed

All 50 states require 4-years of work experience before you earn the title of "Professional Engineer". And that's the title you need before you can lead something like a Bridge-building project.

Not only are bridges highly regulated, but the people who are allowed to build bridges are highly regulated, at both the State and Federal levels.

----------

Now I'm not saying we enforce the highest regulation standards upon our CPU manufacturers. I'm basically saying "Stop coming up with bad examples". The incredibly safe examples you have brought up so far (Airline safety and Bridge Building) are the result of years of Government regulation and laws.

Re: Is it time for open processors?

#173

Post by hajile »

simias wrote: post #127
Certhas wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? The operating system is the device driver/HAL. The Browser is the operating system. The webpage is the application.

Because not all webpages are meant to be applications. HN need not be an application. Google search results need not be an application. GMail and Facebook might be for better interactivity. At least 90% of the websites I browse everyday are static text with a few pictures (who still feature copious amounts of javascript to work around the limitations of HTML/CSS and to track me and serve me ads). Would you consider i…

HN is fast enough on an old 600MHz A8 processor from 8 years ago. In fact, multimedia aside, basically every static site that doesn't overdo the CSS will be fairly fast on fairly old processors.

Gmail or Facebook aren't the problem. People could be convinced to use desktop apps for them fairly easily (just like they do on their phones). The issue is all the other one-off apps. Users can't be bothered to go and download some random app, so the company runs that app in the browser. You simply cannot fight that level of market pressure.

Re: Is it time for open processors?

#175

Post by hajile »

qznc wrote: post #87
simias wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd pay good money for an open and simpler platform to run my security-critical tasks that don't require top performance. Auditing a modern high-end CPU is probably a huge task even if you have access to the HDL because of how complex they are. A simpler design (RISC, no out-of-order execution, basic branch prediction and prefetching...) ought to be fast enough with modern lithography to browse the web, send emails a…

Russia has the Baikal CPU based on MIPS. China has Loongson also MIPS.

China is invested in almost everything. Phytium or Rockchip for ARM (large and small respectively). FeiTeng Galaxy FT-1500 runs openSPARC. ShenWei Sunway series runs Alpha. Suzhou PowerCore runs openPOWER. I can only imagine they have a bunch of work going into RISCV too.

Re: Is it time for open processors?

#176

Post by itchyouch »

mar77i wrote: post #117
amelius wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the approach? Are they starting a new fab? Or will they simply lower costs by batching multiple projects together?

They work on their collection of processes to produce these things, as to basically have non-proprietary way to produce chips from scratch. The other thing I know is that the guy at least has been involved in other layers of production, namely generation and validation of circuitry. The website I posted links a few pdfs for more info.

I think the challenge will ultimately be the scale and price at which open processors would be available at for the target market. It isn't just a processor, but will potentially need a motherboard, chipset, and various hardware configurations depending on the customer.

There would need to be significant player buying these processors to make them viable for some smaller entities to be able to piggy back and purchase as well.

Re: Is it time for open processors?

#177

Post by thinkloop »

Another important piece is being able to verify that the manufactured hardware meets the open specs they claim to (and wasn't tampered with, or contain errors). Something like an md5 check for hardware.

With open software you can read the code, compile it and run it << zero trust. With hardware you can read the spec, but must trust the implementation.

Re: Is it time for open processors?

#178

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

lambda wrote: post #157
pjc50 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is overlooking how unpopular IA64 was. "Leaves branch prediction and speculative execution up to the software" means that in practice you need to either use the Intel compilers or hand-optimise your software to get the benefits, while simply recompiling your legacy software with GCC or LLVM ends up being disappointingly slow.

Oh, yeah, I'm aware of many of the reasons that IA64 failed. Intel could have solved this problem by contributing to GCC and LLVM instead of keeping their optimizations proprietary. Then they would also be more easily auditable as well.

> instead of keeping their optimizations proprietary

There were no magic secret optimizations to release. It just straight up did not work. They had to add back dynamic branch prediction, and even then the load store latency was such trash that they had to put ginormous L3 caches on it to get even close to reasonable performance.

Re: Is it time for open processors?

#179

Post by allemagne »

d--b wrote: post #170

Remember heartbleed... While open cpu is a great idea, it's hard to say that an open cpu would have avoided the meltdown or spectre problem. The meltdown/spectre vulnerability was there not because people didn't pay attention, it's because nobody thought of these optimization features as potential vulnerabilities. And honestly it's hard to blame anyone, these were really smart hacks!

The article does mention this:

>Finally, even if we end up with entirely open processors, that will not bring an end to vulnerabilities at that level ... Open hardware may give us more confidence in the long term that we can retain control of our systems, but it is certainly not a magic wand that will wave our problems away.

The author is arguing more from a freedom/control perspective from what I understand. When it comes to these kinds of vulnerabilities, an open CPU might be easier to patch or easier to disable the affected components of.

Apart from that, maybe crowd-sourcing and open-sourcing the eventual fix is faster or better than a private org. That doesn't necessarily seem like something the author is saying, but it seems like a reasonable factor to consider. I can see arguments either way that I'm not really qualified to defend.

Re: Is it time for open processors?

#180

Post by hajile »

dragontamer wrote: post #23
StreamBright wrote: post #11

I don't see how an open processor would any better than a closed one.

Do we really know that AMD is immune to Meltdown aside from trusting them? I mean, I reasonably trust AMD here. I don't see any reason why they'd lie about it. Plus, everyone in AMD seems super-confident that they're immune to the Meltdown issue due to how they implement speculative cache loads. But such analysis is purely within AMD's circle of engineers. None of us outside of AMD can verify their claims.

That's simple enough. Execute meltdown and see if an unknown answer pops up. If it does, then you've accessed something you aren't permitted and some degree of meltdown is possible.
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