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Precursor, a mobile open-source electronics platform for developing secure apps
- 0df8dkdf 6y agoWhat OS can this run? Linux?
- coder543 6y agoWith 16MB of RAM, Linux seems unlikely to be useful. It's probably easier to think of this as a more powerful, more open, more portable Arduino with hardware crypto accelerators, a display, keyboard, WiFi, and some GPIO pins to plug in additional hardware. They specifically mention that it will be easy to write Rust applications that run on Precursor, but it seems likely to me that there will be other options. (It seems likely that the default "OS" will be based on the Xous microkernel that they're writing: https://github.com/betrusted-io/xous-core https://github.com/betrusted-io/xous-core) Since the main processor and crypto accelerators are all contained in an FPGA, the adventurous could change the balance of CPU features that are available. It only has a single CPU core partly because of the massive crypto accelerators, from what I understand, so someone could eliminate those and have a multi-core CPU if they wanted. With 20% of the FPGA still free, it might be possible to stick in a second (maybe smaller?) core anyways? I'm not sure.
- Taniwha 6y agoThis is Bunnie Huang and Xobs' open source/open hardware BeTrusted platform, now open for Crowd Funding - be in quick
- seg_lol 6y agoIt doesn't look like it has a camera or a GPS? Both of these would be really useful in a secure device.
- coder543 6y agoIt has some I/O pins for expansion, so GPS could definitely be added. A camera might require a little more creativity, maybe still possible?
- upofadown 6y agoThis could serve as a portable air gapped system for PGP stuff. An upgrade from something like a Yubikey in that it has a keyboard and screen.
- fsflover 6y agoRecommended by Snowden: https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1308450536711168001 https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1308450536711168001