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I've used FireWire to connect external disks (verdict: as stable as eSATA, much better than USB2) and to pull video from a cable set-top-box (verdict: the cable
by dsr_ 9y ago
I've used FireWire to connect external disks (verdict: as stable as eSATA, much better than USB2) and to pull video from a cable set-top-box (verdict: the cable box was crappy; no problems directly attributable to the FireWire connection.)
The major problem with FireWire, shared with Thunderbolt, is that it offers DMA to external devices: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMA_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMA_attack
- walterbell 9y agoDoesn't USB-C have the same DMA problem? Did eSATA also lose to USB? I don't think it has the DMA problem.
- DiabloD3 9y agoUSB-C refers to the connector, not the protocol standard. USB 3.0 is what you actually meant, since it finally added Firewire-like device-initiated DMA.
- po 9y agoThunderbolt has DMA and it's offered over USB-C so... kind of by proxy. It's not clear to me if a USB-C device doesn't support Thunderbolt (i.e. it only does the USB 3.1 part) if it also is clear of this potential issue.
- rangibaby 9y agoI think people with actual need for eSATA have moved on to PCIe SSDs. USB3 killed everything else at the low end; I remember buying an external HDD with FW800 in the olden days of 2011, then getting a USB3 drive in 2013 which is still going strong and fast (enough).
- Dylan16807 9y ago> I think people with actual need for eSATA have moved on to PCIe SSDs. People that specifically needed their drives to be both fast and external moved to internal drives? I don't understand.
- rangibaby 9y agoExternal PCIe (whatever) is kind of the point of Thunderbolt
- Dylan16807 9y agoPeople use thunderbolt NVMe drives? I didn't know those even existed. Is that meaningfully better than USB with UAS?
- zkms 9y agoOffering DMA to devices can be good actually if you care about performance, and the security issues can be eliminated with a properly set up IOMMU in the mix.
- walterbell 9y agoCan IOMMU securely differentiate between devices on an external bus, such that a hostile device [1] cannot spoof a non-hostile device? [1] https://github.com/ufrisk/pcileech https://github.com/ufrisk/pcileech
- zkms 9y agohttps://www.sstic.org/media/SSTIC2017/SSTIC-actes/protip/SSTIC2017-Article-protip-daubignard_perez.pdf https://www.sstic.org/media/SSTIC2017/SSTIC-actes/protip/SST... answers your question.