Intel Working On Thunderbolt Security Levels For Linux, Firmware Updates

[starshipeleven]

They're not mythical.

Outside Apple devices they are. There is a handful of devices with that port. Even Apple does not use thunderbolt in all their PCs.

There are like 2 pcie cards supporting thunderbolt (from ASUS and HP) that also connect to specific headers on the mobo (I guess for GPIO connections) and both need you to sacrifice a displayport from a GPU if you want to able to pass through that to a screen.
And it does not work outside of a list of compatible (intel) boards.

From what I see, USB 3.1 and future revisions seems to be the way forward for most.

[Zan Lynx]

They're not mythical. The Apple displays with Thunderbolt have very high performance Ethernet and USB on them. The Razer Core external GPU case works really well.

Intel has 40 Gbps Ethernet which I'm told is essentially Thunderbolt masquerading as Ethernet, although I'm not sure if you can connect one to a Thunderbolt port. It's all ridiculously high speed serial data transmission.

[carewolf]

Given Thunderbolt devices are rare underperforming overpriced mythical beings, it is probably safer to just disable Thunderbolt completely than trusting Intel.

[Zan Lynx]

If you're using Thunderbolt then you're using Intel at the moment. I don't know if AMD or others have any plans to build anything like it.

So then you're using an Intel CPU with Intel networking, with Intel GPU likely, etc, etc. If you can't trust Intel then why are you using their stuff?

If you want to be paranoid like that you should have supported the Raptor Engineering $3,500 Power-9 Talos system, which would have had completely open designs and firmwares. But oh well, too late now.

[reavertm]

Given recent development "Intel working on security levels for Linux" sounds like something to be afraid of.

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel Working On Thunderbolt Security Levels For Linux, Firmware Updates

Intel is continuing to improve the Thunderbolt support within the Linux kernel...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Thunderbolt-Security-Levels