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Lenovo vendor locking Ryzen CPUs with AMD PSB

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Re: Lenovo vendor locking Ryzen CPUs with AMD PSB

#131

Post by alerighi »

userbinator wrote: post #123
judge2020 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> RISCV architecture (a free architecture that doesn't include that shit) Surely you can't think the architecture itself is the differentiator. x86 didn't have all of this security 20 years ago, give engineers a few years of time to throw some locks on a risc-v chip and it'll be Enterprise Ready™ in no time.

With the (already?) expiration of x86 patents, I'd love to see a "pure" x86 implementation without any of the user-hostile crap, and see how far the community can take it; but sadly, the RISC bandwagon is diverting attention away from that. A CPU without the user-hostile features but still able to run the massive existing software base would be ideal.

Would be too difficult to implement. x86 is a very big instruction that is impossible to implement with an hardware: both Intel and AMD processors in fact run inside a virtual machine that translates x86 instructions in an internal RISC instruction set that is manageable by the real CPU architecture. If Apple decided to move away from x86 and go to ARM to have their processor, and we are talking about one of the biggest companies, I don't think any community project will ever succeed in doing another x86 compatible CPU.

On the other side RISCV instruction set is far simpler, being a RISC instruction set it decides to not have advanced optimizations in the processor (even better, none at all) and leave the optimization work to the compiler, that not only simplifies the processor, but also reduces the surface of attack of the processor (Meltown, Spectre, and all these attacks are just impossible on RISCV!). Of course that has a performance penalty, but since you simplify the processor you can just put more core in the saved space right?

Re: Lenovo vendor locking Ryzen CPUs with AMD PSB

#132

Post by jkepler »

kube-system wrote: post #91
jacquesm wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's agreement, not disagreement.

I am saying that the market for people who care about these types of things is objectively niche. Large manufacturers build what they build because they fund the research to know what to build. And they are successful at selling them because they were correct. There might be billions of people buying computers, but the set that has any opinion on boot code signing requirements is not large enough to cause any signifi…

True. However, sometimes large buyers, such as governments or enterprises, change their policies towards purchasing requirements. For example, since 2013 France has had an Inter-Ministry Foundation of Free Software[0], which provides the preferred software to be used across France's government, as French law requires preference be given to free software (logiciel libre).

What impact might occur if a government like France were to require in the future only RISC V architectures with free boot loaders, of if the US government or a large corporation required use of measured boot to see at boot-time if the boot code or subsequent OS had been compromised?

With persistent threat actors and the falling price of processing power, I wouldn't be surprised if in the next ten years some larger organizations (or tens of thousands of small businesses) start demanding this kind if IT security from their vendors.

[0] (in French, of course) https://sill.etalab.gouv.fr/fr/software and their repo, https://github.com/disic/sill.

Re: Lenovo vendor locking Ryzen CPUs with AMD PSB

#133

Post by Dma54rhs »

alerighi wrote: post #48

The problem is the AMD PSB functionality in itself. It should be considered malware like the Intel managament engine and thus refused by users. It's a second processor that runs a proprietary firmware signed by the vendor (that the user cannot modify or substitute entirely with a FLOSS alternative) that vendors can use do harm to the user. The AMD PSB can also be used to lock down a processor to enforce secure boot a…

It won't be considered malware because techbros have embraced Apples closed down systems and Microsoft and every other player is just getting up to date. This ship has sailed long time ago.

Re: Lenovo vendor locking Ryzen CPUs with AMD PSB

#134

Post by userbinator »

turminal wrote: post #5

All in the name of "security" of course.

It's been around a decade since Secure Boot first appeared and I remember well the opposition that had, along with a rallying cry based on the infamous Franklin quote. Unfortunately many of the opposition either accepted it or even defected, but the more this "security" stuff appears, the more I like that quote. It's succinct and gets the sentiment across very well.

Re: Lenovo vendor locking Ryzen CPUs with AMD PSB

#135

Post by pjmlp »

alerighi wrote: post #127
judge2020 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> RISCV architecture (a free architecture that doesn't include that shit) Surely you can't think the architecture itself is the differentiator. x86 didn't have all of this security 20 years ago, give engineers a few years of time to throw some locks on a risc-v chip and it'll be Enterprise Ready™ in no time.

RISCV is an open architecture. If a manufacturer does that, simply don't buy the processor from that manufacturer and buy it from another. All your software will still be compatible since it's the same architecture. Otherwise with x86 is more complex: you can choose between Intel and AMD (that has bought the license for the x86 instruction set - not something cheap to get), and both of them had their backdoor process…

Assuming that the software is all available from source and can be recompiled.

Only the base RISC V is guaranteed thanks extensions.

Also you are forgetting that just like Android and ARM, there are other forces at play that don't make it as easy in practice as FOSS advocates wish for.

Re: Lenovo vendor locking Ryzen CPUs with AMD PSB

#136

Post by pjmlp »

orangepurple wrote: post #106
judge2020 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> RISCV architecture (a free architecture that doesn't include that shit) Surely you can't think the architecture itself is the differentiator. x86 didn't have all of this security 20 years ago, give engineers a few years of time to throw some locks on a risc-v chip and it'll be Enterprise Ready™ in no time.

The good news is the main manufacturers of RISC-V are Chinese vendors that allow complete access to low level processor details. They generally don't lock down their products at all.

Bad news is that US doesn't want to have anything with them.

Re: Lenovo vendor locking Ryzen CPUs with AMD PSB

#137

Post by userbinator »

alerighi wrote: post #131
userbinator wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the (already?) expiration of x86 patents, I'd love to see a "pure" x86 implementation without any of the user-hostile crap, and see how far the community can take it; but sadly, the RISC bandwagon is diverting attention away from that. A CPU without the user-hostile features but still able to run the massive existing software base would be ideal.

Would be too difficult to implement. x86 is a very big instruction that is impossible to implement with an hardware: both Intel and AMD processors in fact run inside a virtual machine that translates x86 instructions in an internal RISC instruction set that is manageable by the real CPU architecture. If Apple decided to move away from x86 and go to ARM to have their processor, and we are talking about one of the bigg…

I'm not sure if you're being satirical, but open source x86 cores do exist --- they're around a 486 in terms of compatibility. Look up ao486 for example.

What I'm referring to is the expiration of patents from the P6 era, which would mean all the uop-based stuff is now free to implement.

What a lot of the RISC hype doesn't understand is the huge value in backwards compatibility --- you can have your "100% free" world but it'll forever remain niche. We need to accommodate the proprietary world if we want any chance of freedom winning; and not try to divide the world of computing.

Re: Lenovo vendor locking Ryzen CPUs with AMD PSB

#138

Post by mjg59 »

alerighi wrote: post #48

The problem is the AMD PSB functionality in itself. It should be considered malware like the Intel managament engine and thus refused by users. It's a second processor that runs a proprietary firmware signed by the vendor (that the user cannot modify or substitute entirely with a FLOSS alternative) that vendors can use do harm to the user. The AMD PSB can also be used to lock down a processor to enforce secure boot a…

You're conflating two different things - AMD's Platform Security Processor (PSP) and Platform Secure Boot (PSB). PSP is broadly equivalent to Intel's ME, but lives on the CPU package rather than in the chipset. PSB is equivalent to Intel's Boot Guard, a feature that verifies that the system firmware has a valid signature before letting the CPU boot it.

Both Boot Guard and PSB prevent you from modifying the system firmware (and, say, putting Coreboot on there), but because Boot Guard is implemented in the ME, and because the ME is in the chipset, not the CPU, you can take CPUs out of Intel-based systems and transfer them to somewhere else. If you do the same with a PSB-fused AMD, the firmware on the new board won't be signed with the same key and it'll refuse to boot.

None of this technology provides any real way to prevent you from booting Linux. If vendors wanted to do that, they could already just ship firmware that only supported the Windows signing key and didn't let users enroll new keys. They don't need PSP, ME, Boot Guard or PSB to do that.

Re: Lenovo vendor locking Ryzen CPUs with AMD PSB

#139

Post by mjg59 »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #121
alerighi wrote: post #48

The problem is the AMD PSB functionality in itself. It should be considered malware like the Intel managament engine and thus refused by users. It's a second processor that runs a proprietary firmware signed by the vendor (that the user cannot modify or substitute entirely with a FLOSS alternative) that vendors can use do harm to the user. The AMD PSB can also be used to lock down a processor to enforce secure boot a…

> no longer allowing you to run Linux Is this actually true? openSUSE is supplied with a shim bootloader apparently signed with Microsoft's keys, allowing the OS to boot on any machine with Secure Boot enabled.

Windows is signed with different keys to all other third party UEFI code, so in theory you could ship a system that trusted Windows but not anything else. "Anything else" would include the option ROMs on GPUs, so you'd never be able to plug in a new Nvidia, but if that's a price you're willing to pay you could definitely block Linux today.

Re: Lenovo vendor locking Ryzen CPUs with AMD PSB

#140

Post by YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo »

monocasa wrote: post #122
YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really think PSB doesn't provide any security benefit or "improves security in a meaningful way" you should do more security research.

I was pretty sure that I made it clear that the concept under discussion was using a hardware root of trust scheme like PSB to tie a specific CPU to a particular vendor's boards. As an aside I'm putting a lot of effort into staying civil; I'd appreciate seeing that effort be a bit more reciprocal.

PSB is there to protect you from a compromised motherboard it protects you from malware in your UEFI firmware. It's not even a vendor lock in it's signing key lock in that is used in that manner by AWS, Gcloud and Azure. Compromised UEFI Firmware is a constant point of failure in pentesting of the secure chain of trust. That you as a security researcher are dismissing the fact is honestly just unbelievable.
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