4 ms·

From one of the reddit threads where someone from System76 was active, the cool thing to me is how they are aiming to slowly offload functions from the motherbo

From one of the reddit threads where someone from System76 was active, the cool thing to me is how they are aiming to slowly offload functions from the motherboard onto foss hardware. That has started just with the fan controllers and sata backplanes, but it sure to progress further and further, and that in particular is what I like about where they are headed. I think open hardware is the future, and those who are able to get there first are going to see increasing gains as time goes on. Of course my engineer friends always talk about how you can never verify down to the chip level, but I think there are ways it can be done, the market just hasn't been pressured to do it... yet. Now if we can just start by getting Amd PSP and Intel ME removed! The first CPU manufacturer to do this is going to gain huge marketshare. (hint hint AMD!)

Cacti 8y ago
Intel sells 100,000,000 chips a year. The percentage of those chips going to people who care about ME, or for that matter have even _heard_ of it, is so astronomically small as to be irrelevant.
- arminiusreturns 8y ago
  I disagree. Enterprises make up a huge part of that market share, and with an increase in cpu sidechannels, they could easily start upping the pressure by asking for non-ME/PSP systems. Of course theyll get told no, but somewhere that metric will grow until it gets the attention it deserves. Even if a battle is uphill it doesnt mean its not worth the fight.
  - TheSmiddy 8y ago
    Exactly, end users do not care but people making their purchasing decisions might.
    - ethagnawl 8y ago
      > people making their purchasing decisions might Board members and shareholders might (some day -- hopefully) care, too.
  - akvadrako 8y ago
    The reason ME is there is for enterprises. So indeed, they do have clout.
    - nickpsecurity 8y ago
      Intel was also a partner of NSA in Trusted Computing and other alliances. It being optional add-on would make sense for enterprise targeting. It being mandatory in everything with no alternatives makes me think they're getting paid by NSA and/or defense contracts to keep it there. The lesks said they paid $100 million to ISP's for adding taps. No way they'd pass up on Intel/AMD/IBM if they already had a good excuse (i.e. cover) for putting it there.
      - arminiusreturns 8y ago
        Its worth remembering Bill Hamilton says they were doing it at the low level chip manufacturer level a long time ago. (I first saw his claims in the comment section of Bruce Schneiers blog). Danny Casalaro, PROMIS, and the octopus, and all that... the point being this is nothing new, just newly pervasive.
- e12e 8y ago
  Part of the problem is that there's not many real alternatives for now. Maybe power9 can help - but really, if you want a laptop today, it'll be with Intel backdoor hw or arm backdoor hw.
xenadu02 8y ago
If System76 starts to be successful why can't I just spin up a competitor and copy everything they do? I don't even need to do the work to copy them, I can just use their open-source designs and software. With zero overhead I can sell everything they make cheaper. How are they not doomed to go out of business?
- quadrangle 8y ago
  Although it exists in a different market, why don't fashion designers go out of business? There's nothing stopping people from producing cheap knock-offs. Some people want the "real deal". In fashion, that's because some consumers are superficial and vain and want to signal their wealth by getting the official stuff instead of using their wealth for something worthwhile. But for a case like System76, some consumers might care about funding the company that is doing the innovation that they appreciate… At any rate, your question applies to all open-source software — how is it not doomed to be unfunded or go out of business? It's much easier to distribute software than to compete with a hardware company!
- NovaS1X 8y ago
  Maybe I'm wrong here, but isn't the whole idea to be pushing forward? If you're only copying their designs, you'll always be one step behind. I'd rather buy from the company pushing the envelope rather than some obvious company just trying to make a quick buck.
- ndnxhs 8y ago
  The clones tend to be low effort and shit quality. The clones usually have shit support when things go wrong and don't have a big name standing behind them. The Pursa i3 is a fully open source 3d printer with countless clones available but still the creators company is the most popular source to get it from.
- quantummkv 8y ago
  Just like RedHat didn't go out of business despite basically giving away RHEL as Centos for free to everyone. People, especially the professionals, want the complete experience, from hardware to support and everything in between. Can you provide the level of support they provide while being cheaper than them? > With zero overhead I can sell everything they make cheaper. Chinese brands do this all the time with Apple. They copy the Apple iPhone designs wholesale including the UI themes, make it cheaper, and yet Apple makes more money than all of them combined.
e12e 8y ago
> Of course my engineer friends always talk about how you can never verify down to the chip level Well, I don't think that is the general case for software, that people will manually assamble a bootstrap assembler from machine code (and how would you verify your editor? Maybe write to floppy and verify the bit pattern via electron microscope?) - and build up from there. Proving an entiresystem secure would be very hard. But to have parts that you can say "if I trust this, then it follows that I can trust all of these things that follow" is very useful. And so it is with hardware, too. Not to mention how useful it is to have a well documented, open platform (even if it's not libre), like eg the commodore Amiga 2000 that came with full schematics of the motherboard, along with measuring points, so it was feasible to find and replace faulty components, write drivers and build third party add-ons.
hlandau 8y ago
>Now if we can just start by getting Amd PSP and Intel ME removed! The first CPU manufacturer to do this is going to gain huge marketshare. (hint hint AMD!) This is impossible. The ME/PSP are instrumental in the boot process; modern multi-core CPUs are complicated to initialise and these chips generally need substantial initialisation before the main cores are ready to execute instructions. This role is not something put in there gratuitously out of malice to stop people removing it. The problem is not with having the ME/PSP as an auxillary core per se, but that it only executes closed-source vendor provided blobs (nor is documentation available to allow an alternative to be made), and more critically that it only executes vendor-signed code, precluding owner control. The ME/PSP are also used to implement DRM, so Intel and AMD are not only not unlikely to ever enable owner control of the ME/PSP, it is likely they are contractually prohibited from doing so. I've previously explained this: https://www.devever.net/~hl/intelme https://www.devever.net/~hl/intelme
- nickpsecurity 8y ago
  "The ME/PSP are instrumental in the boot process; modern multi-core CPUs are complicated to initialise and these chips generally need substantial initialisation before the main cores are ready to execute instructions. This role is not something put in there gratuitously out of malice to stop people removing it." Then they need to put something in that does that instead of always-on, networked backdoor you cant disable. There's a huge gap between what you described and what they're doing. They also used to build complex, custom CPU's without it. So, we know it's unnecessary from their prior products. I'd rather use the space for an extra core, a low-latency GC, TCP/IP offlad, etc. A lot of stuff people or companies might pay for who didnt want or use ME. The enterprises that want ME can buy chips with it.

Cacti 8y ago

Intel sells 100,000,000 chips a year. The percentage of those chips going to people who care about ME, or for that matter have even _heard_ of it, is so astronomically small as to be irrelevant.

arminiusreturns 8y ago
I disagree. Enterprises make up a huge part of that market share, and with an increase in cpu sidechannels, they could easily start upping the pressure by asking for non-ME/PSP systems. Of course theyll get told no, but somewhere that metric will grow until it gets the attention it deserves. Even if a battle is uphill it doesnt mean its not worth the fight.
- TheSmiddy 8y ago
  Exactly, end users do not care but people making their purchasing decisions might.
  - ethagnawl 8y ago
    > people making their purchasing decisions might Board members and shareholders might (some day -- hopefully) care, too.
- akvadrako 8y ago
  The reason ME is there is for enterprises. So indeed, they do have clout.
  - nickpsecurity 8y ago
    Intel was also a partner of NSA in Trusted Computing and other alliances. It being optional add-on would make sense for enterprise targeting. It being mandatory in everything with no alternatives makes me think they're getting paid by NSA and/or defense contracts to keep it there. The lesks said they paid $100 million to ISP's for adding taps. No way they'd pass up on Intel/AMD/IBM if they already had a good excuse (i.e. cover) for putting it there.
    - arminiusreturns 8y ago
      Its worth remembering Bill Hamilton says they were doing it at the low level chip manufacturer level a long time ago. (I first saw his claims in the comment section of Bruce Schneiers blog). Danny Casalaro, PROMIS, and the octopus, and all that... the point being this is nothing new, just newly pervasive.
e12e 8y ago
Part of the problem is that there's not many real alternatives for now. Maybe power9 can help - but really, if you want a laptop today, it'll be with Intel backdoor hw or arm backdoor hw.

xenadu02 8y ago

If System76 starts to be successful why can't I just spin up a competitor and copy everything they do? I don't even need to do the work to copy them, I can just use their open-source designs and software. With zero overhead I can sell everything they make cheaper. How are they not doomed to go out of business?

quadrangle 8y ago
Although it exists in a different market, why don't fashion designers go out of business? There's nothing stopping people from producing cheap knock-offs. Some people want the "real deal". In fashion, that's because some consumers are superficial and vain and want to signal their wealth by getting the official stuff instead of using their wealth for something worthwhile. But for a case like System76, some consumers might care about funding the company that is doing the innovation that they appreciate… At any rate, your question applies to all open-source software — how is it not doomed to be unfunded or go out of business? It's much easier to distribute software than to compete with a hardware company!
NovaS1X 8y ago
Maybe I'm wrong here, but isn't the whole idea to be pushing forward? If you're only copying their designs, you'll always be one step behind. I'd rather buy from the company pushing the envelope rather than some obvious company just trying to make a quick buck.
ndnxhs 8y ago
The clones tend to be low effort and shit quality. The clones usually have shit support when things go wrong and don't have a big name standing behind them. The Pursa i3 is a fully open source 3d printer with countless clones available but still the creators company is the most popular source to get it from.
quantummkv 8y ago
Just like RedHat didn't go out of business despite basically giving away RHEL as Centos for free to everyone. People, especially the professionals, want the complete experience, from hardware to support and everything in between. Can you provide the level of support they provide while being cheaper than them? > With zero overhead I can sell everything they make cheaper. Chinese brands do this all the time with Apple. They copy the Apple iPhone designs wholesale including the UI themes, make it cheaper, and yet Apple makes more money than all of them combined.

e12e 8y ago

> Of course my engineer friends always talk about how you can never verify down to the chip level Well, I don't think that is the general case for software, that people will manually assamble a bootstrap assembler from machine code (and how would you verify your editor? Maybe write to floppy and verify the bit pattern via electron microscope?) - and build up from there. Proving an entiresystem secure would be very hard. But to have parts that you can say "if I trust this, then it follows that I can trust all of these things that follow" is very useful. And so it is with hardware, too. Not to mention how useful it is to have a well documented, open platform (even if it's not libre), like eg the commodore Amiga 2000 that came with full schematics of the motherboard, along with measuring points, so it was feasible to find and replace faulty components, write drivers and build third party add-ons.

hlandau 8y ago

>Now if we can just start by getting Amd PSP and Intel ME removed! The first CPU manufacturer to do this is going to gain huge marketshare. (hint hint AMD!) This is impossible. The ME/PSP are instrumental in the boot process; modern multi-core CPUs are complicated to initialise and these chips generally need substantial initialisation before the main cores are ready to execute instructions. This role is not something put in there gratuitously out of malice to stop people removing it. The problem is not with having the ME/PSP as an auxillary core per se, but that it only executes closed-source vendor provided blobs (nor is documentation available to allow an alternative to be made), and more critically that it only executes vendor-signed code, precluding owner control. The ME/PSP are also used to implement DRM, so Intel and AMD are not only not unlikely to ever enable owner control of the ME/PSP, it is likely they are contractually prohibited from doing so. I've previously explained this: https://www.devever.net/~hl/intelme https://www.devever.net/~hl/intelme

nickpsecurity 8y ago
"The ME/PSP are instrumental in the boot process; modern multi-core CPUs are complicated to initialise and these chips generally need substantial initialisation before the main cores are ready to execute instructions. This role is not something put in there gratuitously out of malice to stop people removing it." Then they need to put something in that does that instead of always-on, networked backdoor you cant disable. There's a huge gap between what you described and what they're doing. They also used to build complex, custom CPU's without it. So, we know it's unnecessary from their prior products. I'd rather use the space for an extra core, a low-latency GC, TCP/IP offlad, etc. A lot of stuff people or companies might pay for who didnt want or use ME. The enterprises that want ME can buy chips with it.