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Is it just me, or does the inclusion of a Microsoft Pluton HSM (and of course the AMD PSP) inside the SoC make this a no-go for security critical stuff? I'm s
by sneak 3y ago
Is it just me, or does the inclusion of a Microsoft Pluton HSM (and of course the AMD PSP) inside the SoC make this a no-go for security critical stuff?
I'm sure systems vendors will love putting these in Windows laptops (a growing market with a bright future, I'm sure) but I can't imagine hackers having much use for these things.
- wmf 3y agoIt's just you. It's unlikely that Pluton is actually evil but MS keeps creating bad PR by refusing to document it.
- rhaway84773 3y agoIf not creating documentation is leading to bad PR why doesn’t MS just create the documentation instead? Occam’s razor would suggest it’s because accurate documentation would create worse PR. That’s not reassuring at all.
- feitingen 3y agoMicrosoft has a long history of refusing to document stuff. They also have a long history of being evil, so it's probably not interesting for them to document it to seem less evil.
- hypercube33 3y agoDocumentation may be feared since it could be used to attack the Xbox or surface devices' security. Plus their documentation mode has been moving to "make the customer do it" with their GitHub docs - at a conference they were giving away swag to people who would write articles for them.
- pjmlp 3y agoIt is documented for OEMs.
- ilyt 3y agoHistorically anything MS wanted to have in hardware was to make it more PITA to install windows alternatives. It's extremely likely it is.
- monocasa 3y agoNot any more than the existing PSP I'd imagine.
- jakobson14 3y agohttps://gabrielsieben.tech/2022/07/25/the-power-of-microsoft-pluton-2/ https://gabrielsieben.tech/2022/07/25/the-power-of-microsoft... the documented applications of pluton are far more horrifying than the PSP
- hhh 3y agoWhy would it?
- roenxi 3y agoArticle says: > Another cool use of low power, always-on DSPs is using ultrasound sonar to detect humans. AMD’s ultrasound runs at above 20 KHz but below 35 KHz, letting it get through the microphone and speaker’s band pass filters. Then, it can use Doppler shift to distinguish human movement from static objects in the same way that a look-down radar filters out ground clutter. This chip sounds pretty creepy, although I doubt it'll be possible to escape from this sort of thing. The US spies will be loving these feature trends.
- jimbob45 3y agoMicrophone on the chip or via an attached peripheral?
- monocasa 3y agoAlmost certainly attached peripheral.
- hypercube33 3y agoI was just reading about the use of this and the company it looks like these are from (mobile so I don't have the name handy but it looks like Lenovo T14 g4 uses it) one of the "features" is to auto lock the machine and another is for auto monitor finding so it can lay out the desktop magically based on where it thinks monitors are to the laptop. Kinda neat. I'm not sure how it'll work for most offices based on the demos though. It looked like it could just decide if a monitor was right or left but most monitors are above AND right/left on mounts.
- kibibu 3y agoNow your Windows laptop can frustrate both humans and canines
- silvestrov 3y agoThis will be torture for dogs. I is like a 5 kHz tone for humans. All laptops with a 5 kHz tone would be returned as defective. In the 90's harddrives often had a 7200 Hz whine which was enourmously annoying. Todays harddrives are silent compared to the old ones.
- pjmlp 3y agoPluton is required for future Windows versions, exactly because of security in markets where full integrity hardware and software is required.
- bboygravity 3y agoBecause security markets would use (future) Windows?!??!?
- oblio 3y agoDon't they use Windows in the US military? They get the source and Microsoft most likely won't do stupid stuff.
- pjmlp 3y agoContrary to urban myths, modern Windows is much more secure than random GNU/Linux distributions. The only Linux based OSes that are on pair with it are ChromeOS and Android.
- sofixa 3y agoIt really depends on how you define and measure security. A Windows install's attack surface is massive with tons of legacy crap there for backwards compatibility that is very hard to secure properly. Having a TPM and hardware attestation can only get you so far. A random Linux distribution can be a very minimal one, and can have sandboxing too, which is what I presume what you equate to security.
- pjmlp 3y agoI define security by actually taking the steps to make it happen. Linux sandboxing isn't on the same level as Windows 11 Professional, as it doesn't do user space drivers for most stuff, runs drivers in their own sandbox and has critical kernel components running on their own sandbox. All coupled with hardware attestation zones via TPM, SGX and now Pluton.