hlandau

40 ms·

391.
by hlandau 8y ago
No they haven't. You can't "completely disable" the ME in modern Intel x86 laptops, it is literally instrumental in the boot process. They can turn on the HAP bit and run me_cleaner, this reduces the amount of code which
392.
by hlandau 8y ago
The secondary processor exception exists for legitimate reasons. If you have some machine with 100% open source boot firmware, Coreboot, etc., that's still worth certifying even if some Ethernet chip turns out to have firmware inside i
393.
by hlandau 8y ago
I previously wrote about why this will never happen. https://www.devever.net/~hl/intelme The TLDR is that once they started putting a CPU vendor-controlled management CPU on their chipsets, they realised they could use
394.
by hlandau 8y ago
Purism is a sham. They are openly trying to abuse the RYF process to get a phone with proprietary firmware blobs certified as "RYF", defeating the entire point of the RYF programme: https://puri.sm/posts/libre
395.
by hlandau 8y ago
What's truly hilarious about this is that this EULA can't possibly serve any purpose... since Intel microcode blobs are RSA encrypted and signed. Only Intel CPUs can decrypt and consume them, and they can't be modified. It&#x
396.
by hlandau 8y ago
Only preproduction firmware was affected. Mitigations were implemented in firmware/Linux prior to shipping, and are actually superior to "mitigated" x86. Before POWER9 shipped (but after the last silicon respin), the processo
397.
by hlandau 8y ago
The really horrible truth is, DRM was probably never intended to prevent piracy. I used to think this - then you realise what DRM is actually intended to do. So long as we argue like this, we're not confronting the real motives. There
398.
by hlandau 8y ago
The ME-based DRM provided by Intel isn't inherently limited to securing UHD Blu-rays, and you can expect Google's Widevine, as used by Netflix, to consume this functionality as well. My understanding is that the industry has decid
399.
by hlandau 8y ago
"The" reason the ME was added was enterprise remote management, as far as I'm aware. Of course, once you have a non-owner-controlled microprocessor on the system, you can use it to implement a lot of other value-add functiona
400.
by hlandau 8y ago
Don't assume that hardware-level DRM will go away with the death of optical media. As I understand it, the media industry seems to have adopted a standard position that UHD/4K content should require hardware-level DRM. UHD Blu-ray
401.
by hlandau 8y ago
The use of hardware-level DRM like this appears to be something being pushed with the move to UHD (4K) and higher resolutions, for both discs and streamed content. This seems to be an industry-wide policy that's been adopted; AFAIK, Ne
402.
by hlandau 8y ago
That's not the issue. You can already disable pretty much all of the ME's functions post-boot with HAP and me_cleaner. But for people who take an interest in fully-open source firmware (coreboot, libreboot), it would be nice to be
403.
Why Intel will never let owners control the ME(devever.net)
212 points by hlandau 8y ago|118 comments
404.
by hlandau 8y ago
How can the functionality be implemented independently when the modules must be signed? Complete reverse engineering could at least serve as an effective audit though.
405.
by hlandau 8y ago
me_cleaner does not disable the ME. It is a partial disablement of ME functionality, but some functionality remains enabled. The ME firmware is an Intel-signed proprietary binary blob part of which is instrumental in the system boot pro
406.
ARM: “RISC-V Architecture: Understand the Facts”(riscv-basics.com)
166 points by hlandau 8y ago|118 comments
407.
Confirmed: Speculative register leakage from lazy FPU context switching(seclists.org)
3 points by hlandau 8y ago|0 comments
408.
by hlandau 8y ago
Namecheap also did the same for the same website. I switched away from Namecheap for this reason.
409.
by hlandau 9y ago
My understanding was that The Witness doesn't really have a plot. Was I mistaken? One of the unusually good things about Riven is how well integrated and justified every puzzle was into the world; the storyline and environment genuinel
410.
by hlandau 9y ago
Myst and Riven are fond memories for me. Riven was a real masterpiece, though; after the success of Myst they went to town on it. I never paid much attention to the sequels, since gur raqvat bs Evira onfvpnyyl cerpyhqrf frdhryf, and they we
411.
What John Oliver gets wrong about Bitcoin(blog.erratasec.com)
1 points by hlandau 9y ago|0 comments
412.
by hlandau 9y ago
This seems to contradict the previous assertions that AMD CPUs aren't affected.
413.
AMD ships microcode update to disable some branch prediction(lists.opensuse.org)
242 points by hlandau 9y ago|173 comments
414.
by hlandau 9y ago
The problem isn't the existence of the ME as such. Servers have a BMC which implements similar remote management functionality. People could order servers without BMCs, since they're discrete chips, but they don't. Even Rapto
415.
by hlandau 9y ago
Yes. Twinjet airliners must be able to take off if one engine fails at or after V1.
416.
by hlandau 9y ago
...Actually, while I'm criticising Airbus, it would be amiss not to mention the A400M incident [1] [2]. Unfortunately as a military accident the full report was never made available to the public, but based on the available information
417.
by hlandau 9y ago
I'd be surprised if the AF447 pilots didn't realise the aeroplane had reverted to a set of laws with fewer protections, as that was why the autopilot disconnected in the first place. If the autopilot spontaneously disconnects your
418.
by hlandau 9y ago
IIRC, Boeing 777s (which are FBW) will automatically disengage the autopilot if you start forcing the stick to a different position. The flight envelope protections are implemented by adding a physical resistance to the stick, but can be ov
419.
by hlandau 9y ago
AFAIK there is such a switch: there are switches to disconnect the primary computers on the overhead panel. If those are disconnected, presumably the aeroplane reverts to direct law and flight envelope protections become inoperative. I migh
420.
Why are Facebook and Twitter so bad at parsing RDFa metadata?(ctrl.blog)
4 points by hlandau 9y ago|0 comments

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