5 ms·

Except that miners will simply workaround the downgrade software (as they did in the past) and regular consumers will be the only ones with crippled hardware

Deukhoofd 5y ago
Reading the Nvidia announcement it's not a software upgrade, but a change in hardware. It only affects cards made after late May.
- mrb 5y ago
  Nvidia did not say it will be a hardware limitation. In fact, they will almost certainly implement it in software. For example a "Lite Hash Rate" card will probably have a bit permanently set to 1 in the firmware/eeprom. The driver will read the bit, and arbitrarily enforce the restriction on such LHR card. This solves potential legal issues of retroactively crippling cards already out in the market, since only new cards sold from now on as "LHR models" will have the bit set to 1. But miners will find another software hack (just like they did for the RTX 3060 earlier) to bypass the restriction.
  - rincebrain 5y ago
    IIRC wasn't that software hack based on NVIDIA accidentally releasing a driver version that supported the 3060 but didn't enforce the LHR?
- munk-a 5y ago
  I still think it's pretty likely we'll see a work around, but if that work around is a custom made firmware patch (like it was for the driver update they deployed IIRC) then that will probably mean the chips you purchased have a less rosy long term cost as future driver updates won't be applicable to your altered firmware. If it requires any physical tinkering with the chip then it definitely increases the effective cost by forcing a labour/card cost and opening up the possibility of expected chip defect as you break some proportion of the hardware you purchase in the process of fixing it. That all said - yea some people are totally going to hack that or my name isn't 46 DC EA D3 17 FE 45 D8 09 23 EB 97 E4 95 64 10 D4 CD B2 C2.
  - hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
    100% this in the short term, but in the long term workarounds will become harder to find. Have a look at iOS jailbreak history. I just hope they don’t kill functionality which matters for other meaningful purposes, like deep learning.
    - zeckalpha 5y ago
      There’s not money to be earned by jailbreaking iOS that increases in value the harder it is to jailbreak.
      - hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
        Yes, there is currently a ~$1m public bounty, probably more if you know where to look privately. You’d have to check your ethics at the door in both cases, but they do exist.
- gsich 5y ago
  They said that previously. Then they released an unlocked BIOS by "accident".
smoldesu 5y ago
Nvidia is implementing a hardware fuse system (a-la the Nintendo Switch) to prevent firmware manipulation. I can't speak to how secure these new cards will be, but the Tegra was an absolute pain in the ass to work with. It took a year before people even figured out how the firmware was loaded, much less how to interoperate between custom and official ones without blowing a fuse. To this day, approaching half a decade since the Switch's launch, you cannot coldboot the Switch into custom firmware. Considering Nvidia's history with hardware DRM, I think there's reason to be scared. Plus, they've undoubtedly paid attention to the community as the Switch was exploited, and probably intend to further secure the firmware interface with what they've learned.
- longhairedhippy 5y ago
  I think the big difference here is there is no money behind hacking the Switch, it's an interesting problem to a small(ish) subset of people. There's tons of folks that would make actual hard cash off those hacks which will make them much more invested in finding out how to work around the solution.
  - humaniania 5y ago
    No money in video game piracy? What? https://jolt.richmond.edu/2019/02/09/the-unwinnable-war-on-video-game-piracy/ https://jolt.richmond.edu/2019/02/09/the-unwinnable-war-on-v...
    - munk-a 5y ago
      Eeeeeh, I give a lot less credence to that then I did when I was in college - back then it seemed like everyone was pirating everything (because, facts) but now a days a major consumer for video games is the millennials that have passed the cash vs. free time tipping point of piracy being attractive. Also, reasonably priced services now exist - I used pandora when I was in college and enjoyed it even with how hamstrung and limited it was - now I use spotify and like... why even bother pirating music now? Sure occasionally pirating a big title from Ubisoft out of spite alone is pretty attractive but I mostly just nab things off Steam and leave it at that. Nintendo's anti-piracy efforts are so incredibly misguided - the hardware is the majority cost expenditure for most users and you've already collected that cost so why not try and make your platform not annoying. Allow people to mod games and run indy titles if they so desire. Most of this anti-piracy stuff is just lowering the value to the end consumer anyways.

Deukhoofd 5y ago

Reading the Nvidia announcement it's not a software upgrade, but a change in hardware. It only affects cards made after late May.

mrb 5y ago
Nvidia did not say it will be a hardware limitation. In fact, they will almost certainly implement it in software. For example a "Lite Hash Rate" card will probably have a bit permanently set to 1 in the firmware/eeprom. The driver will read the bit, and arbitrarily enforce the restriction on such LHR card. This solves potential legal issues of retroactively crippling cards already out in the market, since only new cards sold from now on as "LHR models" will have the bit set to 1. But miners will find another software hack (just like they did for the RTX 3060 earlier) to bypass the restriction.
- rincebrain 5y ago
  IIRC wasn't that software hack based on NVIDIA accidentally releasing a driver version that supported the 3060 but didn't enforce the LHR?
munk-a 5y ago
I still think it's pretty likely we'll see a work around, but if that work around is a custom made firmware patch (like it was for the driver update they deployed IIRC) then that will probably mean the chips you purchased have a less rosy long term cost as future driver updates won't be applicable to your altered firmware. If it requires any physical tinkering with the chip then it definitely increases the effective cost by forcing a labour/card cost and opening up the possibility of expected chip defect as you break some proportion of the hardware you purchase in the process of fixing it. That all said - yea some people are totally going to hack that or my name isn't 46 DC EA D3 17 FE 45 D8 09 23 EB 97 E4 95 64 10 D4 CD B2 C2.
- hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
  100% this in the short term, but in the long term workarounds will become harder to find. Have a look at iOS jailbreak history. I just hope they don’t kill functionality which matters for other meaningful purposes, like deep learning.
  - zeckalpha 5y ago
    There’s not money to be earned by jailbreaking iOS that increases in value the harder it is to jailbreak.
    - hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
      Yes, there is currently a ~$1m public bounty, probably more if you know where to look privately. You’d have to check your ethics at the door in both cases, but they do exist.
gsich 5y ago
They said that previously. Then they released an unlocked BIOS by "accident".

smoldesu 5y ago

Nvidia is implementing a hardware fuse system (a-la the Nintendo Switch) to prevent firmware manipulation. I can't speak to how secure these new cards will be, but the Tegra was an absolute pain in the ass to work with. It took a year before people even figured out how the firmware was loaded, much less how to interoperate between custom and official ones without blowing a fuse. To this day, approaching half a decade since the Switch's launch, you cannot coldboot the Switch into custom firmware. Considering Nvidia's history with hardware DRM, I think there's reason to be scared. Plus, they've undoubtedly paid attention to the community as the Switch was exploited, and probably intend to further secure the firmware interface with what they've learned.

longhairedhippy 5y ago
I think the big difference here is there is no money behind hacking the Switch, it's an interesting problem to a small(ish) subset of people. There's tons of folks that would make actual hard cash off those hacks which will make them much more invested in finding out how to work around the solution.
- humaniania 5y ago
  No money in video game piracy? What? https://jolt.richmond.edu/2019/02/09/the-unwinnable-war-on-video-game-piracy/ https://jolt.richmond.edu/2019/02/09/the-unwinnable-war-on-v...
  - munk-a 5y ago
    Eeeeeh, I give a lot less credence to that then I did when I was in college - back then it seemed like everyone was pirating everything (because, facts) but now a days a major consumer for video games is the millennials that have passed the cash vs. free time tipping point of piracy being attractive. Also, reasonably priced services now exist - I used pandora when I was in college and enjoyed it even with how hamstrung and limited it was - now I use spotify and like... why even bother pirating music now? Sure occasionally pirating a big title from Ubisoft out of spite alone is pretty attractive but I mostly just nab things off Steam and leave it at that. Nintendo's anti-piracy efforts are so incredibly misguided - the hardware is the majority cost expenditure for most users and you've already collected that cost so why not try and make your platform not annoying. Allow people to mod games and run indy titles if they so desire. Most of this anti-piracy stuff is just lowering the value to the end consumer anyways.