Closed CPU's and Fabs Untrustworthy

Anthony Papillion anthony at cajuntechie.org
Fri Jun 17 11:52:38 PDT 2016


On 6/16/2016 11:35 PM, juan wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Jun 2016 18:15:09 -0400
> grarpamp <grarpamp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>> Do AMD CPUs have these yet?
>>
>> The second link was there for a purpose.
>> https://libreboot.org/faq/
>
>
>
> 	Any-way, what's the point of bothering running any sort of
> 	'secure' software on wholly compromised hardware...?
>
> 	I naively admit I wasn't aware of the fact that americunts
> 	(intel/amd) had sunk that low, but then again that's rather
> 	stupid on my part.
>
> 	Question remains, addressed to people interested in
> 	'security' :

There's value in running security software on a compromised system
because it helps to stop /mass/ surveillance. Ultimately, if you are
under surveillance, they're going to get you but they're going to have
to devote some time an effort /to you/. You're not going to get caught
up in the worldwide dragnet.

My personal quarrel with the NSA and other security services isn't that
they watch people at all. It's that innocent people are getting caught
in a dragnet and that information could be used against them later.

> 	Nobody seems to be trying to fix 'our' fundamental problem...?

It's a hard AND expensive problem to address. There aren't a whole lot
of people with processor design skills that aren't already working in
processor design for one of the biggies. And the few that are likely
don't have the money to bring up what it takes to do it. It's not like
this is going to be bootstrapped by a Kickstarter.

> 	All the talk about snowden, tor, 'hacking' and similar
> 	propaganda is...well...propaganda.

It's making people more aware of what's going on and how to protect
themselves. Sure, it's not solving the problem but it is making things a
bit better. Perfect is the enemy of good. If the spooks don't go after
one person because it would take more personalized resources than simply
catching them in a dragnet, that security has worked. We don't need
'perfect'. We need 'good enough'.




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