Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Vulnerabilities in chips in 37% of smartphones

blog.checkpoint.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 63 posts

Re: Vulnerabilities in chips in 37% of smartphones

#51

Post by tgv »

jacquesm wrote: post #40
tgv wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But unfortunately ignored by the masses...

That's fine. At least they have the choice.

Sure, but the complaint was about drivers for 37% of the phones. That's going to stay, even if chip design and/or manufacturing becomes open source. And Linux for the Desktop kind of proves that: the choice is there, but very few take it.

I work on a website that gets responses from a representative sample of the population (age, gender, education, geographical spread, are all balanced; other factors unfortunately not). Linux usage is about 2%.

Re: Vulnerabilities in chips in 37% of smartphones

#52

Post by [deleted] »

OJFord wrote: post #50
jacquesm wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you wanted an 8xAND gate I would recommend the 74LS30. There, saved you a bunch of money.

I think maybe GP means 'what does it cost to get a simple design on a die say for sake of argument 8xAND', i.e. something very small and simple like that, so that it's all fixed cost.

[deleted]

Re: Vulnerabilities in chips in 37% of smartphones

#53

Post by dlsa »

jacquesm wrote: post #42
dlsa wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone familiar with ASICs? If I wanted a 8 x AND gate, what would that cost, ballpark figure? I'm just trying to get a handle on the costs and figure that might be a good measure.

If you wanted an 8xAND gate I would recommend the 74LS30. There, saved you a bunch of money.

I was asking the question to get a handle on base process pricing and experiences for a design currently utilising 500k LUTs and residing in a fpga. But I didn't want to get too bogged down in details.

Do you still recommend the 74LS30 for that?

Re: Vulnerabilities in chips in 37% of smartphones

#54

Post by mdp2021 »

tgv wrote: post #51
jacquesm wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine. At least they have the choice.

Sure, but the complaint was about drivers for 37% of the phones. That's going to stay, even if chip design and/or manufacturing becomes open source. And Linux for the Desktop kind of proves that: the choice is there, but very few take it. I work on a website that gets responses from a representative sample of the population (age, gender, education, geographical spread, are all balanced; other factors unfortunately no…

> Linux usage is about 2%

Considering the amount of very casual users, the usual paretian distribution, the heavy introduction of mobile OS in accessing the web, and the (witnessed) presence of engineers who adopt the motto "Outside work I want to use a Mac to convince me that no issues ever exist", the number makes some sense. I would have computed double as an estimation.

Re: Vulnerabilities in chips in 37% of smartphones

#55

Post by Mindwipe »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #26
nicce wrote: post #14

Somehow firmware updates should be enforced by consumers. It doesn’t help, that there are so many different smartphone vendors, and the most of them are pursuiting only for sales. New chips are coming constantly, and old ones get forgotten, left unpatched. Is the future of the smartphone market of secure phones only in the hands of big ones (Apple et al)?

What's really needed here is for the tech press to make this a priority when reviewing devices, which they currently don't. Right now consumers aren't aware of how important it is for the device to have drivers in the mainline kernel tree to avoid getting pwned. Not having that should be an absolute bar to a device making it onto anyone's "recommended" list. At which point device makers would prioritize not getting p…

> Right now consumers aren't aware of how important it is for the device to have drivers in the mainline kernel tree to avoid getting pwned.

Customers are actively hostile to updates, because they hate UI changes.

If you want customer uptake of updates to be higher, uncouple them from UI updates.

Re: Vulnerabilities in chips in 37% of smartphones

#56

Post by jacquesm »

dlsa wrote: post #53
jacquesm wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you wanted an 8xAND gate I would recommend the 74LS30. There, saved you a bunch of money.

I was asking the question to get a handle on base process pricing and experiences for a design currently utilising 500k LUTs and residing in a fpga. But I didn't want to get too bogged down in details. Do you still recommend the 74LS30 for that?

No, then you should contact a fab that does shuttle runs and take it from there.

Re: Vulnerabilities in chips in 37% of smartphones

#57

Post by jmnicolas »

xaduha wrote: post #45
jmnicolas wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the vulnerability is in the chip it doesn't matter what apps you install. Even with a bare OS you're vulnerable.

That's the same 'logic' that anti-maskers use. It's not about absolutes, just because something is theoretically vulnerable doesn't mean you need to throw caution to the wind.

I was just saying that installing supposedly "safe" apps gives a false sense of security if your hardware is compromised.

Re: Vulnerabilities in chips in 37% of smartphones

#58

Post by jhgb »

evolvevia wrote: post #11
melony wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are good and reliable, but they are not cutting age. The Toyota to M1's Ferrari. There is no point for Intel to acquire them when right now what Intel needs above all is tech and manufacturing advancements.

MediaTek's latest D9000 is pretty cutting edge. https://www.phonearena.com/news/world-first-tsmc-4nm-chipset... Should also be more affordable than the Qualcomm equivalent.

So this would probably be the first MediaTek chip that isn't crap, then? Whenever I looked at the options in the past, MediaTek was always the "it's cheap alright but don't expect it to be good" option.

Re: Vulnerabilities in chips in 37% of smartphones

#60

Post by dlsa »

OJFord wrote: post #50
jacquesm wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you wanted an 8xAND gate I would recommend the 74LS30. There, saved you a bunch of money.

I think maybe GP means 'what does it cost to get a simple design on a die say for sake of argument 8xAND', i.e. something very small and simple like that, so that it's all fixed cost.

You'd be correct.
Post reply on HN