According to the translation I read, the security-related complaint in CSAC’s post is mainly about Intel Management Engine. And you know what? They’re right. It is a back door, and it is a security risk. Not a new or obscure one, though, and not just for China.
The risks imposed by Intel Management Engine and AMD’s Platform Security Processor have been known for several CPU generations. Obviously, a lot of us are unhappy about this and would like a way to disable them.
Instead, these components have been made more and more integrated with core system functionality, making the prospect of disabling them less and less practical. I fear it may take legislation to give us back control of the computers we supposedly own.
Government comprises many departments and organizations, which do many things. It’s not a single blob of all good or all bad.
I don’t remember saying the contrary. When one part of the government does something, it was still the government.
not all back doors and CPU bugs are government-imposed
Don’t remember saying every single backdoor is government-imposed. Fact is there’s at least one backdoor that is for the government, whether there’s 1 or 5 doesn’t really matter.
I can only speak for myself, but abandoning x86 isn’t something that I could have done if I hadn’t first cleaned my hands of my old gaming habit.
On the technical end, if you’re already using some Linux distro, you’re already half way there. Just use the installation media for ppce64el or riscv64 instead of the usual amd64.
Those suffixes in the installation images denote for which CPU architecture the image’s binaries had been compiled for. In short, yes, they will only install and run on their respective hardware.
Unless you just want to fire them up in a virtual machine simulating the relevant CPU architecture.
According to the translation I read, the security-related complaint in CSAC’s post is mainly about Intel Management Engine. And you know what? They’re right. It is a back door, and it is a security risk. Not a new or obscure one, though, and not just for China.
The risks imposed by Intel Management Engine and AMD’s Platform Security Processor have been known for several CPU generations. Obviously, a lot of us are unhappy about this and would like a way to disable them.
https://support.system76.com/articles/intel-me/
https://hackaday.com/2020/06/16/disable-intels-backdoor-on-modern-hardware/
Instead, these components have been made more and more integrated with core system functionality, making the prospect of disabling them less and less practical. I fear it may take legislation to give us back control of the computers we supposedly own.
The government is the reason why you have backdoors built into your computers and routers.
Government comprises many departments and organizations, which do many things. It’s not a single blob of all good or all bad.
Also, not all back doors and CPU bugs are government-imposed.
I don’t remember saying the contrary. When one part of the government does something, it was still the government.
Don’t remember saying every single backdoor is government-imposed. Fact is there’s at least one backdoor that is for the government, whether there’s 1 or 5 doesn’t really matter.
Jump ship from x86 to something that isn’t hostile to users.
RISC-V
OpenPOWER
I am a braindead normie… How feasible is to even make that switch at this point?
I can only speak for myself, but abandoning x86 isn’t something that I could have done if I hadn’t first cleaned my hands of my old gaming habit.
On the technical end, if you’re already using some Linux distro, you’re already half way there. Just use the installation media for ppce64el or riscv64 instead of the usual amd64.
Can install it on regular processor or does it require new hardware?
Those suffixes in the installation images denote for which CPU architecture the image’s binaries had been compiled for. In short, yes, they will only install and run on their respective hardware.
Unless you just want to fire them up in a virtual machine simulating the relevant CPU architecture.
Well that happens to be what China is pushing for indeed.