https://blog.invisiblethings.org/2016/09/03/thoughts-about-orwl.html
I am curious as to what made you purchase this faux open source computer
(please reply with detailed info)
The "ORWL" is a fraud - 100% marketing 0% real security/privacy, if I
was you I would send it back and buy a KCMA-D8 or a TALOS 2 depending on
how much performance you need and how much you are willing to spend. (D8
is FSF RYF and FSF RYF is pending for the T2, both have real open source
firmware)
The firmware and hardware is entirely closed source and their marketing
method of "reading it out to prove it hasn't been modified" relies in
the cooperation of the firmware itself thus a modified firmware could
simply send you a "clean" version as you aren't reading directly from a
flash chip.
What "ORWL" mean by "open source hardware" is that they publish the
layout files of the motherboard - thats it - there is nothing open
source about the standard intel hardware they use.
It bothers me that people waste money on these slickly marketed frauds
rather than spend on real libre hardware, some people even whine about
the "overpriced" actual libre hardware but think nothing of spending 2K
on a not really libre purism or what not - truly an example of the power
of a slick marketing campaign.
My lord for the price of an "commercial grade ORWL" using crap standard
(not even xeon) closed source intel hardware one could buy a TALOS 2,
much much faster and for once actually open source hardware (one even
has documentation on the POWER9 CPU and can modify the microcode as they
please, thus entirely owner controlled) - another advantage of it being
that one can use POWER-KVM and POWER-IOMMU virtualization technoogy to
have many separate people using the same server with separate graphics
cards, keyboards, mice, screens etc making the price palatable even for
business desktop use.
(I only include recent hardware in this list, no one wants a X200)
Real open source hardware:
TALOS 2 (FYI this is fairly priced for server hardware in its
performance class, it isn't meant for people who simply want an open
source motherboard, of which a D8/D16 is better suited - it is meant for
those who need extreme levels of performance and security) RYF cert
pending on release
Novena laptop
Real open source firmware motherboards:
(No PSP/ME - can use coreboot with open source silicon init, vs purisms
closed source silicon init coreboot)
KGPE-D16 - FSF RYF
KCMA-D8 - FSF RYF (this is what I use, $250 for mobo $40 for CPU and I
play the latest games in a VM)
Lenovo G505S
If you don't have the cash for a T2 the D8/D16 have a quality
feature-set including OpenBMC for open source remote management, one can
also use them to play games in a VM as they have an IOMMU.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"qubes-users" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to qubes-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to qubes-users@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/qubes-users/1674c727-0f29-5272-02d4-c49e939a5051%40gmx.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
