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Purism's FSP Reverse Engineering Effort Might Be Stalled

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  • #31
    Originally posted by ssokolow View Post
    Yes... I'm just not sure I'll have the budget to make my main machine and my gaming PC separate machines. I don't currently.

    (I'm still running the Athlon II X2 270 that I bought when my last motherboard had a RAM socket go bad. That was an Athlon 64 X2 5000+ that I bought in 2007.)
    I'm not doing really intensive jobs on my "main PC", so it's not terribly powerful. Even if it is a Ivy bridge fake-I7 (dualcore with hyperthreading) laptop processor in a mini-itx board I do fine for office work, media and compilng the odd OpenWrt firmware from source every now and then.

    Unless you need to throw away the old rig, you can keep it as "main". But then again I think you can figure this out too, I'm probably not seeing the whole picture here.

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    • #32
      Originally posted by onicsis View Post
      For shorrt it's not possible to boot a modern x86 CPU without binary blobs, or without reverse engineering them, which can attract legal consequences.
      This became a major issue since they started integrating "secure coprocessor" bullshit in their devices. If they just had simple dumb stuff doing power management and other tasks that don't require a full OS running inside a separate CPU, then this "it requires blobs to work" would be mostly OK.

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      • #33
        Originally posted by starshipeleven View Post
        Unless you need to throw away the old rig, you can keep it as "main". But then again I think you can figure this out too, I'm probably not seeing the whole picture here.
        I generally only have one PC fast enough for both "main" use and gaming, on which I only upgrade my CPU when part of the CPU-motherboard-RAM triad dies. That's what you're not seeing.

        (The fastest runner-up that I have is an Athlon64 3200+ with 2GiB of RAM and an AGP video card that I use for Win98 and WinXP retro-gaming.)
        Last edited by ssokolow; 12 May 2018, 06:53 PM.

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        • #34
          Originally posted by ssokolow View Post

          I generally only have one PC fast enough for both "main" use and gaming, on which I only upgrade my CPU when part of the CPU-motherboard-RAM triad dies. That's what you're not seeing.

          (The fastest runner-up that I have is an Athlon64 3200+ with 2GiB of RAM and an AGP video card that I use for Win98 and WinXP retro-gaming.)
          And also without AMD's Platform Security(or Spyware) Processor (PSP), most probably a good candidate for a blob free BIOS like Libreboot and performances improvements/tunning.

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          • #35
            Originally posted by starshipeleven View Post
            This became a major issue since they started integrating "secure coprocessor" bullshit in their devices. If they just had simple dumb stuff doing power management and other tasks that don't require a full OS running inside a separate CPU, then this "it requires blobs to work" would be mostly OK.
            From Wikipedia entry for Intel_Management_Engine
            Dell, in December 2017,[51] began showing certain laptops on its website that offered the "Systems Management" option "Intel vPro - ME Inoperable, Custom Order" for an additional fee. Dell has not announced or publicly explained the methods used. In response to press requests, Dell stated that those systems had been offered for quite a while, but not for the general public, and had found their way to the website only inadvertently.[52] The laptops are available only by custom order and only to military, government and intelligence agencies.[53] They are specifically designed for covert operations, such as providing a very robust case and a "stealth" operating mode kill switch that disables display, LED lights, speaker, fan and any wireless technology
            So it possible, this controversial technology (IME included) can be disabled official by computer manufacturer with Intel's legal agreement, but there is a catch. This is available only for the blues eyes.

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            • #36
              Did he really blog and post disassembled/decompiled code and IDA screenshots? If that is correct, then that is incredibly stupid and it is no wonder that they received "a courtesy call".

              Also, he is a canadian national and/or lives in canada. European law expressly allows for reverse engineering for compatibility reasons (as to create a compatible implementation, which is different from creating a copy, which is what he seemingly posted on his blog), and I am not sure whether that is true for Canada.

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              • #37
                Originally posted by onicsis View Post

                And also without AMD's Platform Security(or Spyware) Processor (PSP), most probably a good candidate for a blob free BIOS like Libreboot and performances improvements/tunning.
                I've got an Athlon64 3200+/1.5GB RAM/PCI-E video card setup, a Phenom II x4/8GB/PCI-E setup and my current AMD FX-8130/16GB/PCI-E setup, all of them free of AMD-PSP but none of the motherboards supported by Coreboot much less libreboot. These boards would be a good target for free firmware efforts, as they do not involve management engines and by the time they are all dead from electromigration we should be able to remove most of the PSP/IME shit and verify the portion needed to power up the CPU on the newest boards. Maybe that will be due to pressure on vendors, maybe due to maturation of tools like me-cleaner and easier to build and use Raspberry-pi based hardware flashers.

                Half the problem with using me-cleaner on some laptops is just getting the damned thing far enough apart to have physical access to the firmware chip for flashing in the first place. This problem will never exist on desktop boards bought bare, and with the CPU sold separately you can forget about Intel boot-guard. Thus, getting a fully trustable laptop is becoming one of the worst of problems, and may simply require more use of "burn laptops" tethered to burnphones for some kinds of work.

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                • #38
                  Purism has a license for several Intel products. The Intel EULA clearly states that it forbids the use of their products for reverse engineering.

                  Intel Legal reached out to the director to drop them a note rather than look like the big onus. Purism complied.

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                  • #39
                    Originally posted by starshipeleven View Post
                    It's courtesy as they didn't just go full Oracle on them while they fully could.

                    Still a dick move, but far less than just para-dropping their whole legal department decked with assault gear on Purism HQ.
                    So... they were assholes, but at least they gave Purism an option...

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                    • #40
                      Another copy of the source from Youness Alaoui.
                      GitHub is where people build software. More than 100 million people use GitHub to discover, fork, and contribute to over 420 million projects.

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