"Intel x86s hide another CPU that can take over your machine (you can't audit it)"
https://boingboing.net/2016/06/15/intel-x86-processors-ship-with.html
This article is quite interesting – and scary.
It is very clear that we need to do something about Intels Damagement Engine. But I don't quite know what we can do.
It is clear that we need to raise as much attention as we can.
We could also put pressure on Intel by openly boycotting and telling them to free their ME.
Another option would be to simply avoid Intel (and their x86 processors). We could use truly free processor architectures[1] like RISC-V, OpenRISC or MIPS(?) instead.
Another thing that bugs me is AMD. Do they have something similar to Intels Damagement Engine? What about ARM?
Greetings
-- Erik
----- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_CPU_architectures#Instruction_se...
Hey,
On 20/06/16 14:14, Erik Grun wrote:
Another thing that bugs me is AMD. Do they have something similar to Intels Damagement Engine?
I'm afraid they do. It's called 'AMD Platform Security Processor' [1].
[1] https://libreboot.org/faq/#amd
Regards, T.
On Monday 20. June 2016 17.25.53 Tomasz Nitecki wrote:
On 20/06/16 14:14, Erik Grun wrote:
Another thing that bugs me is AMD. Do they have something similar to Intels Damagement Engine?
I'm afraid they do. It's called 'AMD Platform Security Processor' [1].
Here is a link to previous discussion about this topic:
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/discussion/2016-April/010912.html
For lower-end systems, I've already mentioned things like EOMA-68 in my blog, and it does appear that this will now start crowd-funding in the near future:
http://rhombus- tech.net/community_ideas/micro_desktop/news/Parabola_GNU_Linux_and_XFCE4_running_on_EOMA68_A20/
The relevance here is that EOMA-68 has prioritised chipsets that are supportable using only Free Software and which don't require opaque, proprietary binaries. Indeed, I believe that the initiative aims to get FSF certification, which in this case means a rather strict attitude towards "firmware" bundled with the kernel.
The previous discussion on this list mentioned a lack of alternatives for high-end computing. EOMA-68 doesn't really intersect with that since one of its goals was to enforce a low power budget.
Paul