On 1/1/20 1:36 PM, Thierry Laurion wrote:
Le mercredi 1 janvier 2020 13:32:00 UTC-5, Chris Laprise a écrit :
On 1/1/20 5:43 AM, Lorenzo Lamas wrote:
> Hello Thierry,
>
> Thanks for all that you are doing for the community. Do you see a
> possibility of a Qubes Certified Laptop with an AMD CPU?
> Intel is affected a lot more than AMD by the sidechannel
vulnerabilities
> in the last years. The Privacy Beast has a 3rd gen Intel CPU, Intel
> stopped providing uCode updates for 1st gen in 2019, so this year is
> probably the last year they will support 3rd gen. More CPU
> vulnerabilities will most certainly be discovered in the coming
years,
> so there is a need for an AMD based certified laptop, or at least a
> newer generation Intel based laptop, even though that may mean we're
> stuck with PSP or ME.
As much as I like the Insurgo/Purism/System76 offerings, this issue has
weighed on me to reconsider.
The massive amount of side-channel vulnerabilities have shown Intel's
engineering is reckless, and it gets worse. They're still pushing
fraudulent compiler code – detecting and de-optimizing AMD – almost a
decade after it was reported in the press. And they outright refuse to
pay government fines relating to their misconduct – which also included
threatening PC vendors with retaliation if they sell "too many" AMD
units.
Historically, when a behemoth like Intel goes renegade its because they
know their products are superior and the public will accept the
situation as a trade-off. But the only thing that's "superior" about
Intel is their attitude and their ill-gotten revenue.
The biggest problem I see is peoples' willingness to go along with what
is becoming a tradition of anti-competition. Whatever logical fallacies
are put forward to make it seem palatable with CPUs will also undermine
user motivations in other areas.
Completely agreeing. This is why this
<https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/4318#issuecomment-549986749>
needs collaboration to have real solutions in the future.
The relative ease of using another x86 brand with better implementation
and ethics such as AMD makes it a clear choice in the meantime, while
the much more difficult and lengthy task of adopting open hardware is
pursued.
People can wait 18-36 months for a Qubes port to POWER architecture...
That is 18-36 months of being subject to maximum side-channel (and
probably other) risks and signalling a tacit acceptance of Intel's
engineering. And at the end of that period, we still won't have laptops.
Only holding out for the perfect appears to be the enemy of good in this
case; it is the wrong mindset for adding alternatives. Under these
circumstances, there should be absolutely no hint that a robust x86
alternative is somehow passe... but that appears to be the message
coming from vendors.
--
Chris Laprise, tas...@posteo.net
https://github.com/tasket
https://twitter.com/ttaskett
PGP: BEE2 20C5 356E 764A 73EB 4AB3 1DC4 D106 F07F 1886
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