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I think AMD and ARM have similar features though. ARM with TrustZone for example, hiding the "secure world" from knowledge by the "normal world".

by jug 10y ago

Philipp__ 10y ago
Yeah I thought so, but I hoped competition would make things different, where one of leaders would go like full transparent, without these "spy" sectors, and it would give it edge over others. And it's not about securing, it's about control! Who owns the thing I bought, that I use. It's not only they can watch, but now they can control whole computer. That's what bugs me the most. :(
- Natanael_L 10y ago
  See the USB Armory, which gives you the keys to control the TrustZone system (or rather, you give your public key to it so that it will only run code YOU signed).
tremon 10y ago
Trustzone in itself is not closed though, and FAFAIK is not a separate engine. Trustzone is more like IOMMU on steroids, and runs on the main processor (it relies on hardware support to fence off system resources).
- digi_owl 10y ago
  And i think the variant found on Qualcomm SOCs were recently cracked open.
  - qb45 10y ago
    If you mean CVE-2015-6639 The Widevine QSEE TrustZone application in Android 5.x before 5.1.1 LMY49F and 6.0 before 2016-01-01 allows attackers to gain privileges via a crafted application that leverages QSEECOM access, aka internal bug 24446875. then it's not strictly TrustZone that have been cracked, but some software running within, already patched. TrustZone itself is a hardware mechanism, basically a new level above the usual user/kernel modes. But sure, this hack reportedly gave possibility to run arbitrary code as "trusted" and mess up any other software running on the CPU, trusted or not.
    - digi_owl 10y ago
      I may have gotten it confused with something else. I think it said something about Qualcomm private keys having been extracted.
      - qb45 10y ago
        Seems to be the same event. http://www.slashgear.com/android-soc-security-keys-extracted-qualcomm-trustzone-in-question-31442245/ http://www.slashgear.com/android-soc-security-keys-extracted... I don't know what those keys were and whether they were indeed "Qualcomm private" or per-device or something else. Google quite uselessly returns only news about this hack.
pjc50 10y ago
Trustzone is different, although it can be used to wall things off from the user (and their viruses) it's more of a secure hypervisor, or way of constructing a TPM-equivalent that shares chip resources. If you have control over the boot process on an ARM chip, you don't have to enable Trustzone.
Natanael_L 10y ago
At least you have the option to get an ARM SoC where you're the one in control, see the USB Armory.

I think AMD and ARM have similar features though. ARM with TrustZone for example, hiding the "secure world" from knowledge by the "normal world".

by jug 10y ago

I think AMD and ARM have similar features though. ARM with TrustZone for example, hiding the "secure world" from knowledge by the "normal world".

Philipp__ 10y ago

Yeah I thought so, but I hoped competition would make things different, where one of leaders would go like full transparent, without these "spy" sectors, and it would give it edge over others. And it's not about securing, it's about control! Who owns the thing I bought, that I use. It's not only they can watch, but now they can control whole computer. That's what bugs me the most. :(

Natanael_L 10y ago
See the USB Armory, which gives you the keys to control the TrustZone system (or rather, you give your public key to it so that it will only run code YOU signed).

tremon 10y ago

Trustzone in itself is not closed though, and FAFAIK is not a separate engine. Trustzone is more like IOMMU on steroids, and runs on the main processor (it relies on hardware support to fence off system resources).

digi_owl 10y ago
And i think the variant found on Qualcomm SOCs were recently cracked open.
- qb45 10y ago
  If you mean CVE-2015-6639 The Widevine QSEE TrustZone application in Android 5.x before 5.1.1 LMY49F and 6.0 before 2016-01-01 allows attackers to gain privileges via a crafted application that leverages QSEECOM access, aka internal bug 24446875. then it's not strictly TrustZone that have been cracked, but some software running within, already patched. TrustZone itself is a hardware mechanism, basically a new level above the usual user/kernel modes. But sure, this hack reportedly gave possibility to run arbitrary code as "trusted" and mess up any other software running on the CPU, trusted or not.
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    I may have gotten it confused with something else. I think it said something about Qualcomm private keys having been extracted.
    - qb45 10y ago
      Seems to be the same event. http://www.slashgear.com/android-soc-security-keys-extracted-qualcomm-trustzone-in-question-31442245/ http://www.slashgear.com/android-soc-security-keys-extracted... I don't know what those keys were and whether they were indeed "Qualcomm private" or per-device or something else. Google quite uselessly returns only news about this hack.

pjc50 10y ago

Trustzone is different, although it can be used to wall things off from the user (and their viruses) it's more of a secure hypervisor, or way of constructing a TPM-equivalent that shares chip resources. If you have control over the boot process on an ARM chip, you don't have to enable Trustzone.

Natanael_L 10y ago

At least you have the option to get an ARM SoC where you're the one in control, see the USB Armory.