9 ms·

Sorry to go straight off-topic but if anyone from AMD is reading, please remove PSP from future and/or give us the ability to remove it from existing machines,

by hd4 9y ago

Sorry to go straight off-topic but if anyone from AMD is reading, please remove PSP from future and/or give us the ability to remove it from existing machines, this is a golden opportunity (with the Intel ME having been shown to be broken recently https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15656931 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15656931 ) you really shouldn't pass up.

dvddgld 9y ago
I assume that if this was on the cards at all they would've done it earlier. Let's keep our fingers crossed though, it could make a big difference in the direction of technology (and thus the world) from here on out.
roblabla 9y ago
They already said they wouldn't open source it (after suggesting they might). I doubt they'll ever think about removing it. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14803373 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14803373
- hd4 9y ago
  Companies have been known to be astute and flexible when it comes to spotting opportunities especially when their competitors are making very publicized mistakes. It remains to be seen whether AMD is one of those.
- monocasa 9y ago
  Being open source doesn't really matter; it's having access to the keys. And they're never going to give those up because it would break the chain of trust for their DRM.
  - phkahler 9y ago
    I don't want their DRM or their DRMed content. I'll gladly buy a computer for my own uses that don't have those "features".
craftyguy 9y ago
Why would they care? The folks asking for this are a tiny (tiny) minority of the market.
- snuxoll 9y ago
  It's a huge potential win for cloud and government contracts. Amazon, Google, Microsoft and the US Government probably aren't too keen on having ring -3 code running in their datacenters waiting to be exploited somehow.
  - microcolonel 9y ago
    > Microsoft and the US Government probably aren't too keen on having ring -3 code running in their datacenters waiting to be exploited somehow. Which is why they have a special configuration for that, sold to them by Intel.
    - Mindless2112 9y ago
      Source? coreboot was initially developed at LANL, a US Government laboratory. It's worth considering why that might be.
      - mschuster91 9y ago
        GP is referring to Intel's High Assurance Program (http://blog.ptsecurity.com/2017/08/disabling-intel-me.html http://blog.ptsecurity.com/2017/08/disabling-intel-me.html) which offered the possibility to disable ME.
      - jabl 9y ago
        Search for Intel HAP (High Assurance Program). It's a magic killswitch that disables the ME, provided officially only to three-letter agencies and such, of course. As for coreboot, keep in mind that it was originally developed long before the ME was a thing. IIRC the original motivation was that BIOS sucks. Which it does, sure, but that's orthogonal to the ME.
- 9y ago
monocasa 9y ago
They're not going to. The PSP has a hand in DRM (it runs 'trustlets' in a container), and DRM can only work through obscurity currently.
- kobeya 9y ago
  And DRM is necessary to AMD’s bottom line because...?
  - jandrese 9y ago
    People won't buy AMD chips if they can't play Blu-rays or Netflix or use commercial software? It's not a thing today, but it's not hard seeing the world go that way in the future once the legacy BIOS uses are finally aged out.
    - kobeya 9y ago
      Blu-rays and Netflix work just fine on my old laptop that doesn't support secure enclaves. The onus is on us to make sure that a future where we are locked out of the devices we own does not come to pass.
      - wolfgke 9y ago
        > Blu-rays and Netflix work just fine on my old laptop that doesn't support secure enclaves. 4k Bluray requires Kaby Lake or newer (I don't know whether it works on Ryzen or not) and HDMI 2.0a with HDCP 2.2.
        Freak_NL 9y ago
        We're not even getting anything over 720p on Linux. 1080p requires Internet Explorer, Edge, or Safari on Windows or MacOS¹. 4k in the webapp requires Edge in addition to the hardware requirements wolfgke lists. 1: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742
        9y ago
ajross 9y ago
Not that I disagree, but you realize that point about ME & PSP (which are separate controllers not part of the main boot CPU) isn't particularly relevant to the linked article, which is about removing the 16 bit BIOS boot path from future firmware? By the time you're running real mode IBM PC boot code, the ME & PSP have long since come alive and sorted things out for boot configuration.

by hd4 9y ago

dvddgld 9y ago

I assume that if this was on the cards at all they would've done it earlier. Let's keep our fingers crossed though, it could make a big difference in the direction of technology (and thus the world) from here on out.

roblabla 9y ago

They already said they wouldn't open source it (after suggesting they might). I doubt they'll ever think about removing it. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14803373 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14803373

hd4 9y ago
Companies have been known to be astute and flexible when it comes to spotting opportunities especially when their competitors are making very publicized mistakes. It remains to be seen whether AMD is one of those.
monocasa 9y ago
Being open source doesn't really matter; it's having access to the keys. And they're never going to give those up because it would break the chain of trust for their DRM.
- phkahler 9y ago
  I don't want their DRM or their DRMed content. I'll gladly buy a computer for my own uses that don't have those "features".

craftyguy 9y ago

Why would they care? The folks asking for this are a tiny (tiny) minority of the market.

snuxoll 9y ago
It's a huge potential win for cloud and government contracts. Amazon, Google, Microsoft and the US Government probably aren't too keen on having ring -3 code running in their datacenters waiting to be exploited somehow.
- microcolonel 9y ago
  > Microsoft and the US Government probably aren't too keen on having ring -3 code running in their datacenters waiting to be exploited somehow. Which is why they have a special configuration for that, sold to them by Intel.
  - Mindless2112 9y ago
    Source? coreboot was initially developed at LANL, a US Government laboratory. It's worth considering why that might be.
    - mschuster91 9y ago
      GP is referring to Intel's High Assurance Program (http://blog.ptsecurity.com/2017/08/disabling-intel-me.html http://blog.ptsecurity.com/2017/08/disabling-intel-me.html) which offered the possibility to disable ME.
    - jabl 9y ago
      Search for Intel HAP (High Assurance Program). It's a magic killswitch that disables the ME, provided officially only to three-letter agencies and such, of course. As for coreboot, keep in mind that it was originally developed long before the ME was a thing. IIRC the original motivation was that BIOS sucks. Which it does, sure, but that's orthogonal to the ME.
9y ago

monocasa 9y ago

They're not going to. The PSP has a hand in DRM (it runs 'trustlets' in a container), and DRM can only work through obscurity currently.

kobeya 9y ago
And DRM is necessary to AMD’s bottom line because...?
- jandrese 9y ago
  People won't buy AMD chips if they can't play Blu-rays or Netflix or use commercial software? It's not a thing today, but it's not hard seeing the world go that way in the future once the legacy BIOS uses are finally aged out.
  - kobeya 9y ago
    Blu-rays and Netflix work just fine on my old laptop that doesn't support secure enclaves. The onus is on us to make sure that a future where we are locked out of the devices we own does not come to pass.
    - wolfgke 9y ago
      > Blu-rays and Netflix work just fine on my old laptop that doesn't support secure enclaves. 4k Bluray requires Kaby Lake or newer (I don't know whether it works on Ryzen or not) and HDMI 2.0a with HDCP 2.2.
      - Freak_NL 9y ago
        We're not even getting anything over 720p on Linux. 1080p requires Internet Explorer, Edge, or Safari on Windows or MacOS¹. 4k in the webapp requires Edge in addition to the hardware requirements wolfgke lists. 1: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742
      - 9y ago

ajross 9y ago

Not that I disagree, but you realize that point about ME & PSP (which are separate controllers not part of the main boot CPU) isn't particularly relevant to the linked article, which is about removing the 16 bit BIOS boot path from future firmware? By the time you're running real mode IBM PC boot code, the ME & PSP have long since come alive and sorted things out for boot configuration.