On Tue, Jan 08, 2008 at 08:01:56AM +0000, Stuart Henderson wrote: > On 2008/01/07 16:44, bofh wrote: > > On Jan 7, 2008 11:39 AM, Sunnz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > > > Just wondering... what could be the worse thing that could happen if > > > the firmware is badly written, say for a wireless device? Could it be > > > possible to bring the whole system down? Or would it just crash the > > > device itself, as if the hardware had a defect? > > > > > > http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2007/09/19/david-maynor-publishes-details-of-macbook-wifi-hack > > > > You have kernel level access. > > That is not in firmware, it's in the driver.
Stuart makes an important disctintion here. In case anyone is not clear on this, these little firmware blobs get squirted into some hardware and that's where interaction with the system ends. They effectively replace onboard EPROM/Flash, and for practical purposes can be considered part of the hardware. This is very different from a driver, which interfaces with the kernel. Therefore they are part of the OS. BLOBs in drivers leave you with an untrustworthy system. -- Darrin Chandler | Phoenix BSD User Group | MetaBUG [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://phxbug.org/ | http://metabug.org/ http://www.stilyagin.com/ | Daemons in the Desert | Global BUG Federation
