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Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now

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2016/01/21 2:33 "Alberto Salvia Novella" <es20490446e@gmail.com>:
>
> Joel Rees:
>
>> It supports neither your peculiar assertion that microcode is not
>> executable nor your equally peculiar assertion that microcode is not
>> and has not been a cause for concern.
>
>
> Polynomial (http://tinyurl.com/hdtpa7g):

You know, a url contains useful information in and of itself. I appreciate
that urls get long and code points out of the basic plane make them hard to
read and encoded server internal indexing really isn't interesting, but at
least it would tell us in this case that what you are taking out of context
is supposed to be from stackexchange.

> > Let's assume for a moment that you could overwrite microcode in a
> > useful way. How would you make it do anything useful?

The poster you are quoting part of does know somewhat about his topic, but
these two sentences together should cause you to think carefully.

Useful is not useful?

Clearly he is thinking of more than one kind of usefulness.

> > Keep in mind
> > that each code simply shifts some values around in the internals of
> > the hardware, rather than a real operation.

If "simply shifting values around in the internals of the hardware" is not
doing any "real" operation, how would the results of any "real operation"
ever get out of the arithmetic or logic units?

Putting an address on the address bus in-and-of-itself neither reads nor
writes data, but putting an address on the address bus is part of both
reading and writing data.

"Modern" CPUs have plenty of spare register space, most of it undocumented.
Register space can be used to record something of state, allowing
instruction streams to be self-parsing.

How many elements of the stuff that enables malware do you want me to point
out? Sure, you're not going to write a backdoor entirely in microcode, but
you can use rogue updates to slip bits and pieces of microcode in to
instructions that allow a backdoor to run and get around the walls.

And not all rogue updates come from 3rd parties.

Read the links Anders posted.

> Mark Shuttleworth (http://tinyurl.com/pk8zwmv):
> > Declarative firmware that describes hardware linkages and
> > dependencies but doesn’t include executable code is the best chance
> > we have of real bottom-up security.

In some ideal world, you could pre-define all the customizations an
integrator or end-user could want in code that gets shipped in the kernel,
and provide a declarative interface to select the tweaks an integrator or
end-user wants.

>From where I stand, it requires the kernel developers to know an awful lot
more about what every possible thing an end user or integrator might want
than is humanly possible.

--
Joel Rees

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Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now Alberto Salvia Novella <es20490446e@gmail.com> - 2016-01-14 21:20 +0100
  Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now deloptes <deloptes@yahoo.com> - 2016-01-14 22:50 +0100
  Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now Zlatan Todoric <zlatan@riseup.net> - 2016-01-14 23:30 +0100
    Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now Ric Moore <wayward4now@gmail.com> - 2016-01-15 02:10 +0100
    Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now Michael Haney <thezorch@gmail.com> - 2016-01-15 02:50 +0100
      Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now Zlatan Todoric <zlatan@riseup.net> - 2016-01-15 12:10 +0100
        Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now Alberto Salvia Novella <es20490446e@gmail.com> - 2016-01-15 16:40 +0100
          Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now Zlatan Todoric <zlatan@riseup.net> - 2016-01-15 17:10 +0100
            Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now Alberto Salvia Novella <es20490446e@gmail.com> - 2016-01-15 17:20 +0100
              Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now Joel Rees <joel.rees@gmail.com> - 2016-01-19 13:50 +0100
                Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now Alberto Salvia Novella <es20490446e@gmail.com> - 2016-01-19 17:00 +0100
                Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now Anders Andersson <pipatron@gmail.com> - 2016-01-19 17:10 +0100
                Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now Joel Rees <joel.rees@gmail.com> - 2016-01-20 14:10 +0100
                Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now Joel Rees <joel.rees@gmail.com> - 2016-01-20 14:40 +0100
                Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now Alberto Salvia Novella <es20490446e@gmail.com> - 2016-01-20 18:40 +0100
                Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now Joel Rees <joel.rees@gmail.com> - 2016-01-21 16:00 +0100
                Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now Alberto Salvia Novella <es20490446e@gmail.com> - 2016-01-22 17:40 +0100
                Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now Joel Rees <joel.rees@gmail.com> - 2016-01-22 19:00 +0100
                Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now jdd <jdd@dodin.org> - 2016-01-22 23:20 +0100
                Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now Joel Rees <joel.rees@gmail.com> - 2016-01-23 01:30 +0100
                Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now Joel Rees <joel.rees@gmail.com> - 2016-01-29 02:20 +0100
                Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2016-01-23 11:20 +0100
                Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2016-01-24 05:40 +0100
                Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2016-01-24 12:30 +0100
    Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now shawn wilson <ag4ve.us@gmail.com> - 2016-01-15 11:00 +0100
      Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now Svante Signell <svante.signell@gmail.com> - 2016-01-15 11:40 +0100
      Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now Zlatan Todoric <zlatan@riseup.net> - 2016-01-15 12:10 +0100
    Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2016-01-15 15:10 +0100
      Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now Zlatan Todoric <zlatan@riseup.net> - 2016-01-15 15:50 +0100
  Re: Libre graphics could become the standard if we push right now Paul Johnson <baloo@ursamundi.org> - 2016-01-15 10:00 +0100

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