4 ms·

Intel CSME (formerly ME) and AMT ST (formerly PSP) have many properties that are / would be desireable for someone who is/was building a backdoor (DMA, TCP/IP s

Intel CSME (formerly ME) and AMT ST (formerly PSP) have many properties that are / would be desireable for someone who is/was building a backdoor (DMA, TCP/IP stack that can use onboard ethernet without the host OS being aware, closed source, unremovable, etc). Keep in mind that even if there has not been a backdoor deliberately added, there absolutely have been serious exploits in ME and PSP, and even for those who are not worried about the government, these security coprocessors still pose grave risk to data privacy and security, potentially handing "ring -3" access to non-government hackers. While I personally share your belief that these are probable backdoors, it is important to remind skeptics that they pose a grave security and privacy threat even outside the context of a government backdoor conspiracy. There's a great talk on the risks posed by the capabilities of these security coprocessors by an extremely well-versed individual at Google who was (leading? involved at a high level?) working on Google's efforts to neutralize these dangerous subsystems at Embedded Linux Con in 2017: https://youtu.be/iffTJ1vPCSo https://youtu.be/iffTJ1vPCSo

charcircuit 4y ago
>DMA, TCP/IP stack that can use onboard ethernet without the host OS being aware, closed source, unremovable, etc You do know a wifi card has the same capabilities, right? There are many processors in your computer that can talk to the rest of the system in a privileged way. >there absolutely have been serious exploits in ME and PSP, Such as? I wouldn't call any of the found vulnerabilities serious. >that they pose a grave security and privacy threat even outside the context of a government backdoor conspiracy. Okay, but you need to balance those problems with the very real security benefits this allows Intel to offer.
- fsflover 4y ago
  > You do know a wifi card has the same capabilities, right? WiFi card has no full access to everything, including CPU, RAM. On my machine, it’s isolated into a dedicated, hardware-virtualized VM (Qubes OS). > Okay, but you need to balance those problems with the very real security benefits this allows Intel to offer. Such as?
  - 7to2 4y ago
    Exactly. Even if we assumed for the sake of argument that wifi cards have complete access to the system, that in and of itself does not excuse CPU vendors to broaden the attack surface and prevent owners from narrowing it back down. I can't wait for riscv systems to take off. Hopefully we'll get more than the two horrible choices we have now and, hopefully, they won't be able to abuse the market in the same way. Screw both intel and amd for deliberately putting us all at risk.
    - anonym29 4y ago
      >Screw both intel and amd for deliberately putting us all at risk. Keep in mind, if these are government backdoors, it's likely Intel and AMD were compelled to put them in, there's a gag order on the existence of the program, and there's a gag order on the first gag order. It could be a situation where Intel and AMD really had their hands tied, so to speak.
      - 7to2 4y ago
        That's why I'm rooting for riskv processors, so that we can get the equivalent of reproducible openSSL binaries. US chips that are found to be irreproducable can be rightfully ignored.
    - charcircuit 4y ago
      What's special about RISC-V? How does companies not having to pay for using an ISA in a processor having anything to do with whether they implement other processors inside of their processor?
      - snvzz 4y ago
        Being compatible with the standard ISA is itself a benefit.
      - anonym29 4y ago
        It's not that RISC-V guarantees truly transparent firmware and microcode; as you correctly point out, it does not. What RISC-V offers is the possibility of truly transparent firmware and microcode. This comes as a refreshing alternative to x86, which guarantees that firmware and microcode, including those of security coprocessors (e.g. Intel CSME & AMD ST, formerly ME and PSP) will not be transparent.

charcircuit 4y ago

>DMA, TCP/IP stack that can use onboard ethernet without the host OS being aware, closed source, unremovable, etc You do know a wifi card has the same capabilities, right? There are many processors in your computer that can talk to the rest of the system in a privileged way. >there absolutely have been serious exploits in ME and PSP, Such as? I wouldn't call any of the found vulnerabilities serious. >that they pose a grave security and privacy threat even outside the context of a government backdoor conspiracy. Okay, but you need to balance those problems with the very real security benefits this allows Intel to offer.

fsflover 4y ago
> You do know a wifi card has the same capabilities, right? WiFi card has no full access to everything, including CPU, RAM. On my machine, it’s isolated into a dedicated, hardware-virtualized VM (Qubes OS). > Okay, but you need to balance those problems with the very real security benefits this allows Intel to offer. Such as?
- 7to2 4y ago
  Exactly. Even if we assumed for the sake of argument that wifi cards have complete access to the system, that in and of itself does not excuse CPU vendors to broaden the attack surface and prevent owners from narrowing it back down. I can't wait for riscv systems to take off. Hopefully we'll get more than the two horrible choices we have now and, hopefully, they won't be able to abuse the market in the same way. Screw both intel and amd for deliberately putting us all at risk.
  - anonym29 4y ago
    >Screw both intel and amd for deliberately putting us all at risk. Keep in mind, if these are government backdoors, it's likely Intel and AMD were compelled to put them in, there's a gag order on the existence of the program, and there's a gag order on the first gag order. It could be a situation where Intel and AMD really had their hands tied, so to speak.
    - 7to2 4y ago
      That's why I'm rooting for riskv processors, so that we can get the equivalent of reproducible openSSL binaries. US chips that are found to be irreproducable can be rightfully ignored.
  - charcircuit 4y ago
    What's special about RISC-V? How does companies not having to pay for using an ISA in a processor having anything to do with whether they implement other processors inside of their processor?
    - snvzz 4y ago
      Being compatible with the standard ISA is itself a benefit.
    - anonym29 4y ago
      It's not that RISC-V guarantees truly transparent firmware and microcode; as you correctly point out, it does not. What RISC-V offers is the possibility of truly transparent firmware and microcode. This comes as a refreshing alternative to x86, which guarantees that firmware and microcode, including those of security coprocessors (e.g. Intel CSME & AMD ST, formerly ME and PSP) will not be transparent.