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I'm not sure what gave you this impression: > Basically what they did is do a reverse engineering and replay attack on a boot sequence that is already so convo

I'm not sure what gave you this impression: > Basically what they did is do a reverse engineering and replay attack on a boot sequence that is already so convoluted that the company that built it didn't think that would be possible. That is not at all what was done here, and my apologies if I implied that it is. Indeed, quite the opposite was done: we determined how it actually worked and what the part actually needed -- discarding much of the needless gunk and repeated initialization. So it's not a "boot sequence" per se, it is initialization of various on-die components. Is this AMD-specific? Yes. Is it likely to change in Genoa, Bergamo and beyond? To a degree, yes -- but in broad strokes, unlikely. And because we have the OS (and importantly, its tooling) available where this enablement is taking place, we believe that we will be able to make the necessary changes for Genoa and beyond relatively faster than the extant approach of waiting for a proprietary BIOS.

fefe23 4y ago
Hi Bryan, thanks for the talk. I think we are saying the same thing just from a different point of view. Your approach is very laudable and I have in fact been fanboying it for a while. I wish you the best of luck and profits for your company. I sure hope this approach is more sustainable than my gut feeling told me after viewing your talk. One question, if I may: How sure are you that AMD won't sue you at some point over this? Your ought to be in their best interest but that has rarely stopped legal departments in the past. Where you see an "this is an awesome opportunity for a company, I'll found one", I see an "would I really want to base my business on something that AMD may at any time decide voids the warranty"?
- bcantrill 4y ago
  We have worked very closely with AMD, and they have broadly been very supportive of what we're doing here. As for the more general point of the peril of tightly integrating with partners (AMD is not the only one that we have gone very deep with): yes, it's a risk. But we have consciously decided that we would rather make deliberate decisions and deeply integrate than build a system composed of the lowest common denominators. Relationships are always a gamble (which is why it's important to enter them carefully!) but our belief is that the upside of a tight partnership more than compensates for the risk.

fefe23 4y ago

Hi Bryan, thanks for the talk. I think we are saying the same thing just from a different point of view. Your approach is very laudable and I have in fact been fanboying it for a while. I wish you the best of luck and profits for your company. I sure hope this approach is more sustainable than my gut feeling told me after viewing your talk. One question, if I may: How sure are you that AMD won't sue you at some point over this? Your ought to be in their best interest but that has rarely stopped legal departments in the past. Where you see an "this is an awesome opportunity for a company, I'll found one", I see an "would I really want to base my business on something that AMD may at any time decide voids the warranty"?

bcantrill 4y ago
We have worked very closely with AMD, and they have broadly been very supportive of what we're doing here. As for the more general point of the peril of tightly integrating with partners (AMD is not the only one that we have gone very deep with): yes, it's a risk. But we have consciously decided that we would rather make deliberate decisions and deeply integrate than build a system composed of the lowest common denominators. Relationships are always a gamble (which is why it's important to enter them carefully!) but our belief is that the upside of a tight partnership more than compensates for the risk.