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Unrelated to the link but related to Apple's CPU foray: Any thoughts or info on the security implications of a first generation CPU design? Is it safe to assum
by mandragon 6y ago
Unrelated to the link but related to Apple's CPU foray:
Any thoughts or info on the security implications of a first generation CPU design? Is it safe to assume that a design focused on cutting edge performance may have compromised on security in some form? Does the fact that this is first gen indicate opportunity for hackers to discover low hanging fruit vulnerabilities possibly to the benefit of nation state or private actors?
I feel like the long term path for silicon will converge on extreme compartmentalization of general purpose computing hardware inside chips, designed from the ground up to achieve physical process isolation purpose built per task, with highly secure hardware IPC all on a single high perf die.
Interested to learn what Apple has done to build a "more secure" CPU design. edit: A quick web search yields relevant results on this topic already, e.g. work by Chinese based Tencent Security.
- stouset 6y agoThis isn't a first-generation CPU design. It's just another iteration of the ARM chips that Apple has been building since acquiring PA Semi 12 years ago.
- mandragon 6y agoCorrected: First generation chip purpose-built for Mac.
- happycube 6y ago... the first one that shipped. I suspect they've been building things like the A12X mini DTK for a few years now.
- mandragon 6y agoApple's site says it is their first "chip" designed specifically for Mac: https://www.apple.com/mac/m1/ https://www.apple.com/mac/m1/ I may be making a few semantical errors, regarding "first gen", et al
- nicoburns 6y agoThey're not technically lying, but you're better off thinking of it as 90% their iphone/ipad chip with a few tweaks for mac rather than a completely new design.
- rsynnott 6y ago_Very_ few tweaks in this one, probably. In particular, note the two screens limitation. You know what else is limited to two screens...?
- EricE 6y ago"first gen" usually insinuates, among other things, concepts like unproven, untested, extra risk, etc. The M1 is part of a technical lineage that is over 10 years old at this point. It's hardly "first gen" from what people usually intend when using the phrase "first gen". This also is Apple's 4th rodeo in changing the instruction sets that Mac's run on, and since the last transition their tooling, expertise in frameworks, compilers and other aspects of their ecosystem have also matured significantly - as evidenced by all the reports of the incredibly seamlessness of Rosetta 2 for the vast majority of applications (including terminal apps like Homebrew which still boggles my mind). I figured there would at least be one or two earth shattering issues - but surprisingly no, seems to be pretty transparent for the vast majority of use cases. It's pretty mind boggling when you really think about it.
- nicoburns 6y ago> I suspect they've been building things like the A12X mini DTK for a few years now. They have. And they've been shipping the chips in iPads.
- bpye 6y agoThe DTK did reveal one interesting detail though. It didn't support virtualisation which would indicate that the M1 is their first generation part with virtualisation support, so there definitely have been some fairly large changes, even if it's not fair to call it a first generation part in it's entirety.
- stouset 6y agoIt's not purpose-built for Mac. All available indications are that it's the same chip as they've been shipping in devices for years, just "harder better faster stronger". This is barely different than AMD releasing yet another line of Zen chips or Intel shipping a new Core i9.