It looks like the microcode is also encrypted. But perhaps that encryption could be reverse engineered from silicon? The Silicon Zoo tutorial noted that Pentium

It looks like the microcode is also encrypted. But perhaps that encryption could be reverse engineered from silicon? The Silicon Zoo tutorial noted that Pentium I-era chips were "easily viewable" [1], probably with optical microscopes. So perhaps some parts of some newer Intel processors can be done at home. So, the "plan of attack" (ha!): * decap an Intel CPU and scan it * decode the microcode encryption * figure out how the hardware RNG works with the microcode (it's AES? ok.) * and then analyzing the system of microcode and hardware for robustness and security. Yeah, this is hand-wavey and probably incredibly implausible. But it seems like an interesting and challenging project or three. [1] http://siliconzoo.org/tutorial.html http://siliconzoo.org/tutorial.html