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Crowd Supply takes this approach of vetting and assisting. 100% of funded projects have been delivered or are on track, 70% of projects are successfully funded.

While it's possible to bend the IME to your own will, it's far more trouble than it's worth. For one, you can get an entire dedicated NAS that uses less power and space for less money than any comparable Intel setup. This approach requires magnitudes less time, effort and expertise. The design of the IME is such that it is suited to be an invisible backdoor that cannot be removed. It is for this reason that the most reasonable course of action is to disable and shutdown the IME after it has finished the system initialization.

Doing this with an Applewatch and an iPhone ? - that's gotta be at least $500, likely much more. So that will never be a an affordable option outside of the 1st world.

Have a look at Heartypatch, orderable now for $95. "HeartyPatch is a completely open source, single-lead, ECG-HR wearable patch with HRV (Heart Rate Variability) analysis. "
https://hackaday.io/project/21...
https://www.crowdsupply.com/pr...

Pleasant side effect, you have 100% control over the data.

I'd say that the Lattice ICE HX FPGA is worth using to learn about verilog. And after that maybe some fpga based ham radio projects like maybe Lime

They still have their equivalent of Intel's IME. Until they gut that ****, I'm not buying new hardware with my own money.

According to SemiAccurate, the AMD security stuff is way better than the Intel stuff.

Why is it better than Intel?

...SemiAccurate questioned AMD about the details surrounding SME, SVE, and the PSP. On the PSP front we were similarly impressed with the answers we got. First and foremost is the simple fact that the PSP firmware must be correctly signed to run. Having the hardware that controls the root of all your platform security running only signed code seems like an obvious, basic, bare minimum requirement for any security related technology. It also seems like something even a 3rd grader would flag as mandatory, but how can we say this politely, INTEL DOES NOT DO THIS. No joke.

http://semiaccurate.com/2017/06/22/amds-epyc-major-advance-security/

Still, if you want hardware that absolutely doesn't have a tricky security system, you should be trying to help the EOMA68 project succeed. I backed their Kickstarter and one of these days I will receive a little mini desktop, running Linux on an ARM core. It's the one made from stacked wood.

https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop

Aye, especially a keyboard and a sane operating system are a must. You'd have to go over my dead body to take away my N900, even though it's getting really long in the tooth (like, no usable graphical browser: MicroB can't handle any SSL anymore, modern browsers can't run in 256 total RAM with only ~100ish left after Nokia's crap), but is good enough that sometimes I do several hours long hacking sessions in the bed without even bothering to get to the big computer a few meters away.

Neo900 is an expensive piece of vapourware with ancient specs. Keyboard attachments for Android dumbphones are useless. Proper replacements are also vapourware (Pyra, Minotaur One. I've gambled $380 for a Gemini, but there are doubts even whether they'll deliver, chances for a proper mainline kernel rivallling those of a snowcone in hell.

I was beaten to this idea months ago!

https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...

Well, N900 is ancient but there's still no upgrade. Neo900 is expensive almost-same-spec vapourware (it gets you 512MB instead of 256MB memory, slightly better CPU and that's it, for $750 when you can get an used N900 for $25), Pyra is ridiculously thick vapourware (new phones are way too thin, Pyra goes the other extreme), Minotaur One looks more reasonable than Pyra but is even more vaporous. Both of these don't pretend to be phones, I think N900's thickness is about the sweet spot.

Nokia's default keymapping was downright retarded -- to get most symbols, you had to press a key combination to pull an on-screen menu then you had to click the symbol; the obvious solution is to assign shift-or-fn combinations to all keys, there's enough of them to cover all of ASCII.

The secure mesh prevent any access to the internal. Any break on the mesh will shutdown the device and lose the SSD key. So no attack on SATA possible as device wont boot again and key is lost as soon as you opened it... see more details on the security features here https://www.crowdsupply.com/de...

yes, Ubuntu and QUBES OS are also available. https://www.crowdsupply.com/de...

Yes you can fake the power but the device has an accelerometer that will shutdown everything if moved when the keyfob is out of range. more details on security here https://www.crowdsupply.com/de...

You can't drill through the mesh. There are some picture on the page here https://www.google.com.tw/sear... The secure controller is designed to prevent drill, die opening and other temperature attacks. Side channel protection is also included. So you will need to sharpen your pencil to find a way in. We also target FIPS 140-2 certification and it will be verified by third parties... A lot more details on the security features here; https://www.crowdsupply.com/de... HDMI and USB data are obviously accessible from the external. We recommend using QUBES OS to isolate peripherals and processes...

Attacking the device is a lot more complicated than using an inductor and cutting. There is an active mesh and a secure controller that protect the key. There is a second Die mesh on the secure controller... also temperature protection, side channel protection... A good read here of all the features put in place : https://www.crowdsupply.com/de...

You really want to read up on what this device does to establish physical security. Very similar to what is built into every POS terminal. Product Spec: https://www.orwl.org/wiki/inde... https://www.crowdsupply.com/de... ==> Enveloping Active Mesh Thanks

If you are motivated to read the one side of the story, I want to invite you to read the other side too. Our update to Joanna's assessment. https://www.crowdsupply.com/de... Enjoy and be critical. While we put a lot of thought into this machine, we by no means pretend to have it all figured out. Community and collaboration will make this product better and will allow you to trust it, when it is all done.

The secure controller on the board monitor the temperature and physical integrity. It will shut down and wipe the key if frozen or opened. see here https://www.crowdsupply.com/de...

WiFi can be disabled. Also you can use Qubes OS and configure VM to protect each resources of the PC. You don't need a custom chip. check the update they posted https://www.crowdsupply.com/de... there is a lot of details.

Devuan is a Debian distrro not shipping system d. I only know about it because it's supported by the EOMA68 project which aims to manufacture computers based around a modular computing standard that is free software friendly. Unlike Intel/AMD: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...

There are companies that sell and support GNU/Linux hardware today. It's not terribly hard to go and find hardware. ThinkPenguin's got hundreds of computers and peripherals that all work out of the box and unlike the majority of hardware on the market come with proper support so you don't have to worry about losing it during an upgrade.

There are also efforts to free us from the treachery of the few proprietary components that remain, but it's a bigger uphill battle. Intel and AMD are working against us instituting proprietary components on core components (ie the CPU). These components contain malicious software including remote control functionality. It's sold as being for corporations, but you can't disable it, you can't remove it, and even if there was a feasible means of reverse engineering it replacement firmware won't load as Intel/AMD are signing these components. We know for a fact that backdoors are being inserted into peripherals and computers alike. Where the US is forcing it into CPUs designed by American companies that ship with all modern laptop and desktop systems the Chinese are incorporating it into keyboard controller firmware (home grown ARM laptops, though there is a OS level component needed as well).

If you want NSA-free computers check out the effort to do that here: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo... (there are already finished prototypes, the campaign is to bring a small number, 250-500 units into production, before a larger roll out, mass production can happen).

We don't even have a complete set of corresponding source code 99.999995% of devices. Besides a handful of routers from ThinkPenguin the closest hope we have for fixing that is EOMA68. By modularizing key components we can cut the cost to design and manufacture devices while playing the companies designing key components like CPUs/SOCs off each other to obtain complete sets of code for all components needed to produce a given device. Crowd funding campaign here: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...

It's already extremely scary that the US and Chinese governments have inserted backdoors into critical components and/or system designs. We need to gain a firm hold on the devices in our possession and right now the only way that's going to happen is if we fund the modular computer project:

https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...

Otherwise it's going to be possible to order companies to do things in the governments interests, in the interests of corporate entities, and in the disinterest of us users. We're already victims of Microsoft, Google, Apple and the government. If we want to begin to undo some of these issues we need to focus on the foundational layers and get sources released for CPUs, keyboard/LCD controllers, wireless chips, and similar. The above project will enable these things by bring down the cost of design and reduce the high initial investment to bring new devices to market that put put the user in control.

"Why are you using a shitty old processor like an A20

answered in the update regarding processor selection - https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...

and exclude the only two good things it has going for it, GbE and SATA?"

answered in depth on the FAQ section - look for "SATA and GbE" and a more in-depth answer on http://rhombus-tech.net/crowds... again search for the keyword "SATA".

Even the old Raspberry Pi 2 is much faster than the A20, being a quad core A7.

only available from broadcom - a hypocritical company that operates on unethical grounds and maintains cartelling business practices, ships proprietary arbitrary untrusted executables that boot the CPU *from* the GPU, and forces children to purchase licenses to watch films, for $2.50. what kind of hypocritical lesson is that, that kids may only educate themselves "so far", but beyond a certain point they can FUCK OFF. great. i think that's a great education. we should all teach kids that they are only allowed to learn up to a certain point and beynd that they're expected to be treated like cattle.

If they wanted to go cheap and Allwinner,

EOMA68 is a hardware standard. read the "processor selection" update as well as the "passthrough card" update.

there's the A80,

uses PowerVR which is known to cause enormous instability problems ever since it came out, on *every* architecture that ever uses it. why would i want to bring out something that i know for a fact would be severely problematic?

H3

not designed for low-power.

or A64.

GPL-violating SDK with a proprietary untrusted bootloader.

sorry dude - don't try to be too clever and sarcastic, and you'll get a much less curt answer. i got too much ground to cover - over 25 forums and increasing.

The FSF-approved Linux distribution (or GNU/Linux, whatever) "Parabola" that they offer won't include the firmware for the GPU, and does all graphics processing and calculations on the CPU. So the GPU is included on the chip but it's not used.

... not quite: again, the phoronix thread had people explain this in some detail, it's 200 comments so i won't go looking for it, i have too much ground to cover, but the key discrepancy in what you said is that the 2D GPU is up and running: we're *not* doing "pure framebuffer". so there's far less load on the CPU than would otherwise be expected. see the very first update, in which i got xf86-video-fbturbo up and running on the Parabola-ARM Gnu/Linux-Libre card: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...

Currently the CPU in the CPU-cards available in the campaign is an ARM 32 bits ("armhf" for Debian systems).

and a Pass-Through Card just to make sure that people don't get the impression that EOMA68 is restricted to Software Libre, ARM processors *or* processors *at all*... https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...

In the future, if things go well, there are plans to launch other CPU-cards that meet requirements of low power, hw and sw freedom (not requiring proprietary firmware blobs to run), etc. Other CPUs have been already considered, including different architectures, like MIPS. The housing (laptop, micro desktop, etc.) can be reused, it's just a matter of swapping the CPU-card -- that's one of the main points of this project.

i did a big evaluation here - bear in mind that this evaluation process has been continuous and ongoing for *five years*: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...

I'm hoping that there's enough interest in the project and goes ahead, that the ecosystem thrives and other CPU-cards based on free designs like OpenRISC or RISC-V will be produced in the future.

OpenRISC was not designed around a harvard architecture so is extremely unlikely to go beyond around... 500mhz, even if it was in 10nm, due to insufficient pipeline lengths. it would be ultra-ultra-ultra-ultra low-power in those geometries but would never be capable of going beyond those speeds without a total redesign.

RISC-V on the other hand has been designed from the ground up around the lessons learned from generations of RISC development.... it's just that it's going to be about 3-6 *years* before a decent SoC is made based around it... there was one that *almost* had what was needed... i think this was discussed on the mailing list... basically if it has PCIe and the expectation that the CPU can be married with a PCIe-based Graphics Card, it's already too late: that's a Desktop system, minimum power consumption 150 watts.

my preferred approach is to work with e.g. Loongson Leemote MIPS64 -that's a tried-and-tested design that has hardware-accelerated support for 200+ x86 instructions and i hear some ARM ones as well, that allows foreign instruction sets to be executed at SEVENTY PERCENT of the actual MIPS64's own clockrate. which is pretty amazing.

Currently the CPU in the CPU-cards available in the campaign is an ARM 32 bits ("armhf" for Debian systems).

and a Pass-Through Card just to make sure that people don't get the impression that EOMA68 is restricted to Software Libre, ARM processors *or* processors *at all*... https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...

In the future, if things go well, there are plans to launch other CPU-cards that meet requirements of low power, hw and sw freedom (not requiring proprietary firmware blobs to run), etc. Other CPUs have been already considered, including different architectures, like MIPS. The housing (laptop, micro desktop, etc.) can be reused, it's just a matter of swapping the CPU-card -- that's one of the main points of this project.

i did a big evaluation here - bear in mind that this evaluation process has been continuous and ongoing for *five years*: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...

I'm hoping that there's enough interest in the project and goes ahead, that the ecosystem thrives and other CPU-cards based on free designs like OpenRISC or RISC-V will be produced in the future.

OpenRISC was not designed around a harvard architecture so is extremely unlikely to go beyond around... 500mhz, even if it was in 10nm, due to insufficient pipeline lengths. it would be ultra-ultra-ultra-ultra low-power in those geometries but would never be capable of going beyond those speeds without a total redesign.

RISC-V on the other hand has been designed from the ground up around the lessons learned from generations of RISC development.... it's just that it's going to be about 3-6 *years* before a decent SoC is made based around it... there was one that *almost* had what was needed... i think this was discussed on the mailing list... basically if it has PCIe and the expectation that the CPU can be married with a PCIe-based Graphics Card, it's already too late: that's a Desktop system, minimum power consumption 150 watts.

my preferred approach is to work with e.g. Loongson Leemote MIPS64 -that's a tried-and-tested design that has hardware-accelerated support for 200+ x86 instructions and i hear some ARM ones as well, that allows foreign instruction sets to be executed at SEVENTY PERCENT of the actual MIPS64's own clockrate. which is pretty amazing.

Agreed. If computing devices running a fully FSF-approved software stack became wildly popular - 3% or more of the computing market - then the major players in proprietary computing and the surveillance industry would move to block them.

Until then, we're too small to care about and the bad publicity from actively blocking us would probably help us more than hurting us.
 

i'm counting on that :) i am sooo looking forward to the streissand effect... :)

but to clarify: it's important to emphasise that this is *NOT* restricted to FSF-approved software. it so happens that because it will be really hard for proprietary OSes to fully support all the Housings *unless* they are based around GNU/Linux driver stacks it's *really unlikely* that there will be any proprietary OSes installed on EOMA68-compliant Computer Cards, it's not totally out of the realm of possibility. but, more than that, EOMA68 is a *hardware* standard. it's perfectly possible to have an EOMA68-FPGA card, or an EOMA68 "DisplayLink" card, or a Pass-through card which i deliberately added to the list just to get this point across. boring name for a really exciting and flexible concept, but i'm a techie, what can i say? https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...

The bigger risk is that the creator mis-estimates some of the financial or technical hurdles in the project and runs out of money before delivering most of the pledge rewards. Up until now, all of my crowd funding pledges have been for games and books.

i'm a software libre developer of over 20 years experience. i've seen open hardware projects rise up and fail. the whole project's run along fully-transparent lines because i loved that i could learn from the mistakes as well as the successes made by the openmoko, openpandora and many many more. i did a comparative analysis (of the laptop-related ones) here https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...

now, when you know that i've held back from committing to several opportunities over the past five years, because the *standard* is more important than profit-maximisation, that i've designed the standard extremely carefully and comprenhsively and am on record as being committed to the standard's success for at least a decade, and you know that i'm a software libre developer with 20 years experience, and you know that i've evaluated a dozen different alternative standards, and decided *not* to go with kickstarter because they're not completely ethical, and many many other things, you should get the general feeling that i'll be not only making *sure* that i succeed at this, but that, thanks to the transparent way in which the project's run along TRULY software libre project management lines, i actually *want* help and for people to review what i'm doing, and to contribute in any way they feel comfortable. or uncomfortable, if it comes to it. if you feel like shouting at me with a genuine concern - something that could jeapordise the entire project - for god's sake get on the mailing list or the IRC channel #arm-netbook on freenode and do so.

regarding technical hurdles: i answered this in another comment (go to http://slashdot.org/~lkcl it's 2 back from this one) with a funny story about a successfully-funded team contacting a battery manufacturer asking them to violate the laws of physics. i've pretty much comprehensively covered all of the technical hurdles that i can think of - and documented them. and invited people to review them. because this really is an open and transparent project. do take a look: let me know if i missed anything. http://rhombus-tech.net/crowds... and google "eoma68" on youtube, review the videos.

Agreed. If computing devices running a fully FSF-approved software stack became wildly popular - 3% or more of the computing market - then the major players in proprietary computing and the surveillance industry would move to block them.

Until then, we're too small to care about and the bad publicity from actively blocking us would probably help us more than hurting us.
 

i'm counting on that :) i am sooo looking forward to the streissand effect... :)

but to clarify: it's important to emphasise that this is *NOT* restricted to FSF-approved software. it so happens that because it will be really hard for proprietary OSes to fully support all the Housings *unless* they are based around GNU/Linux driver stacks it's *really unlikely* that there will be any proprietary OSes installed on EOMA68-compliant Computer Cards, it's not totally out of the realm of possibility. but, more than that, EOMA68 is a *hardware* standard. it's perfectly possible to have an EOMA68-FPGA card, or an EOMA68 "DisplayLink" card, or a Pass-through card which i deliberately added to the list just to get this point across. boring name for a really exciting and flexible concept, but i'm a techie, what can i say? https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...

The bigger risk is that the creator mis-estimates some of the financial or technical hurdles in the project and runs out of money before delivering most of the pledge rewards. Up until now, all of my crowd funding pledges have been for games and books.

i'm a software libre developer of over 20 years experience. i've seen open hardware projects rise up and fail. the whole project's run along fully-transparent lines because i loved that i could learn from the mistakes as well as the successes made by the openmoko, openpandora and many many more. i did a comparative analysis (of the laptop-related ones) here https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...

now, when you know that i've held back from committing to several opportunities over the past five years, because the *standard* is more important than profit-maximisation, that i've designed the standard extremely carefully and comprenhsively and am on record as being committed to the standard's success for at least a decade, and you know that i'm a software libre developer with 20 years experience, and you know that i've evaluated a dozen different alternative standards, and decided *not* to go with kickstarter because they're not completely ethical, and many many other things, you should get the general feeling that i'll be not only making *sure* that i succeed at this, but that, thanks to the transparent way in which the project's run along TRULY software libre project management lines, i actually *want* help and for people to review what i'm doing, and to contribute in any way they feel comfortable. or uncomfortable, if it comes to it. if you feel like shouting at me with a genuine concern - something that could jeapordise the entire project - for god's sake get on the mailing list or the IRC channel #arm-netbook on freenode and do so.

regarding technical hurdles: i answered this in another comment (go to http://slashdot.org/~lkcl it's 2 back from this one) with a funny story about a successfully-funded team contacting a battery manufacturer asking them to violate the laws of physics. i've pretty much comprehensively covered all of the technical hurdles that i can think of - and documented them. and invited people to review them. because this really is an open and transparent project. do take a look: let me know if i missed anything. http://rhombus-tech.net/crowds... and google "eoma68" on youtube, review the videos.

Sounds interesting, but I'd have to see a complete proposal before I'd chip in. I'd want to see the schedule, the budget, the resources, and the success criteria to know if the project succeeded.

most of the information you've asked for, because this is a *genuinely* open and transparent project, is on http://rhombus-tech.net/crowds... - including the BOM, a full risk analysis, and much more. having been around for a long time, long enough to have seen the openmoko fail, and the pi-top team break their promises, and the shit-storm that resulted from the purism team's deceptive marketing, and the difficulties that the openpandora team had with R.F. and firmware: if you have any specific advice, TELL ME. i WANT TO KNOW. best place to do that is the mailing list because then other people can help evaluate your proposals and questions - http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/pipe...

The summary sounds way too grand, so I think I'd want to see it broken down into pieces that are small enough to understand, too.

it's been five years: that's a lot of time to think, plan and get everything lined up. if you're interested in the background as to *why* i am tackling this, it may help to read the background section (first question) http://lkcl.net/articles/eoma6...

"breaking it down into small pieces" it turns out is extraordinarily difficult. the simplest i've found is, "you know like a pause memory pause card? yeah? well this is a pause computer pause card. same benefits as memory cards except now you move the *whole computer*". but even that often is not conceptually enough. after repeating things about 200 to 250 times at hope2016 (and losing my voice on the first day) there's a live video which you can find at https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo... - i managed to get it down to *only* 3 minutes, to cover *a few* of the benefits. the rest (that i have been able to think of over the past five years) are covered here in the "scenarios" section: http://rhombus-tech.net/whitep...

Also important to make sure nothing is overlooked, such as sufficient testing. Be fine if the same organization that helped check the proposal evaluated and reported on the results (perhaps holding the money, too).

well - it's just me, self-auditing with an "always transparent GENUINELY open approach learned from software libre project management of 20 years" unless other people pop up to help. so, you and everyone else on the mailing list will just have to keep an eye on me. and help out with the testing... because it's a software libre project, and i can't do everything, so *need help*. funny and really cool story: a guy called albert contacted me last month, asked if there was any plans to do a french keyboard. i went (internally), "argh, haven't got time, let's point him at the git repo and tell him about the STM32F072 nucleo boards, see what happens" and surpriiise! turns out he's an embedded hardware engineer... so guess what? he's now joined the mailing list and is helping to do french keyboard firmware and much more! https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo... and you can check the mailing list archives as well.

P.S. I think this is a solution to the general problems with all of the crowdfunding systems that I have examined. No accountability or adequate planning.

you're telling me. i spoke to a battery manufacturer last year: we had a bit of a laugh as he explained that a *FUNDED* project for a head-wearable device contacted them and asked him to violate the laws of physics. they'd used a high

Sounds interesting, but I'd have to see a complete proposal before I'd chip in. I'd want to see the schedule, the budget, the resources, and the success criteria to know if the project succeeded.

most of the information you've asked for, because this is a *genuinely* open and transparent project, is on http://rhombus-tech.net/crowds... - including the BOM, a full risk analysis, and much more. having been around for a long time, long enough to have seen the openmoko fail, and the pi-top team break their promises, and the shit-storm that resulted from the purism team's deceptive marketing, and the difficulties that the openpandora team had with R.F. and firmware: if you have any specific advice, TELL ME. i WANT TO KNOW. best place to do that is the mailing list because then other people can help evaluate your proposals and questions - http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/pipe...

The summary sounds way too grand, so I think I'd want to see it broken down into pieces that are small enough to understand, too.

it's been five years: that's a lot of time to think, plan and get everything lined up. if you're interested in the background as to *why* i am tackling this, it may help to read the background section (first question) http://lkcl.net/articles/eoma6...

"breaking it down into small pieces" it turns out is extraordinarily difficult. the simplest i've found is, "you know like a pause memory pause card? yeah? well this is a pause computer pause card. same benefits as memory cards except now you move the *whole computer*". but even that often is not conceptually enough. after repeating things about 200 to 250 times at hope2016 (and losing my voice on the first day) there's a live video which you can find at https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo... - i managed to get it down to *only* 3 minutes, to cover *a few* of the benefits. the rest (that i have been able to think of over the past five years) are covered here in the "scenarios" section: http://rhombus-tech.net/whitep...

Also important to make sure nothing is overlooked, such as sufficient testing. Be fine if the same organization that helped check the proposal evaluated and reported on the results (perhaps holding the money, too).

well - it's just me, self-auditing with an "always transparent GENUINELY open approach learned from software libre project management of 20 years" unless other people pop up to help. so, you and everyone else on the mailing list will just have to keep an eye on me. and help out with the testing... because it's a software libre project, and i can't do everything, so *need help*. funny and really cool story: a guy called albert contacted me last month, asked if there was any plans to do a french keyboard. i went (internally), "argh, haven't got time, let's point him at the git repo and tell him about the STM32F072 nucleo boards, see what happens" and surpriiise! turns out he's an embedded hardware engineer... so guess what? he's now joined the mailing list and is helping to do french keyboard firmware and much more! https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo... and you can check the mailing list archives as well.

P.S. I think this is a solution to the general problems with all of the crowdfunding systems that I have examined. No accountability or adequate planning.

you're telling me. i spoke to a battery manufacturer last year: we had a bit of a laugh as he explained that a *FUNDED* project for a head-wearable device contacted them and asked him to violate the laws of physics. they'd used a high

i'm sorry, but it states clearly in company's articles of incorporation, on penalty of the directors being struck off and imprisoned and/or the shareholders suing them, that they MUST maximise profits, to the absolute pathological exclusion of all else. ... so why is *anybody* surprised at the consequences? what am i missing? this is blindingly obvious to me (to the point where i'm actively doing something about it in the tech sector- see http://crowdsupply.com/eoma68) so why is everyone else simply complaining about the consequences instead of taking action to do something about it? what is it that i don't understand?

It exists:
https://www.crowdsupply.com/pu...

there is some empirical evidence - nothing concrete that can be shared publicly - which tends to suggest that the RSA private key that Intel uses is already known and in use. if nothing else, you should not be reassured that there have been no "gagging orders" that come out of the U.S. Government on a regular basis, preventing and prohibiting companies from telling anyone that "yes we have had the NSA knocking on our door and yes we were forced to give them the RSA private key because otherwise they threatened that whoops, it would be really hard to get export licenses for our processors".

this kind of threat by security services is not outside the realm of possibility: it already happens, and i have met someone who was present at a meeting (with GCHQ) in which this type of threat to destabilise their business model was actually made.

there is a really simple solution, here: don't buy systems with intel processors. that assumes of course that people are making systems for sale that don't have intel processors... and that's exactly what i'm doing. i'm not one for complaining *without* actually doing something about it, so if you'd like to sign up for the crowdfunding campaign which will launch very shortly, you can do so here - http://crowdsupply.com/eoma68

Lastly, most laptops end up discarded not because of damage, but because their
innards are obsolete. His insides are not upgradeable; the bulky case has limited
interior space and is not modular. The materials used are impact resistant but they
have to be made and formed by hand.

The innards are from the Novena project, which appears to specifically allow hardware upgrades. And while the interior space may be limited, do you actually expect future components to be increasing in size?

It's just some piece of nothingness that benefits only a few people.

Then don't buy it. Others apparently feel differently. I'll save you a click. It's sold out.

I'm all for a hardware manufacturer who creates and promotes 100% open hardware with public code provided.....................know any?

yeah, that'll be me.
http://rhombus-tech.net/commun...
https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...

i also have an RYF / FSF-Endorseable CPU Card under development:
http://rhombus-tech.net/ingeni...

just so you know, i currently have a sponsor for the 15.6in laptop, i've been working on it for 14 months now. sponsorship works well for two reasons: firstly, investment is usually profit-driven, so the priority is on maximising the investor's profits instead of getting the product - and even more importantly the modular standard - right. secondly, sponsorship is absolutely fair and honest. i receive what i need to do the job, and the sponsor(s) get to be able to buy (or in the case of my main sponsor, sell) the end product(s).

so if you'd like to sponsor the development of these products, do contact me ok? love to hear from you.

Me too me thinks.

Bookmark these after reading the previous Dell certificate discussion earlier today.

https://www.thinkpenguin.com/

https://www.crowdsupply.com/search?q=librem

http://elinux.org/Embedded_Open_Modular_Architecture/EOMA-68

Nobody is forcing DRM on you, don't buy DRM devices or content. Despite their claimed opposition most of the people around here still buy DRM'd devices and content all the time. Sure they could go with non-DRM devices and content but it's all shit and none of the anti-DRM crowd seems particularly interested in changing that.

If people started spending money and supporting non-DRM devices and content instead then DRM will just go away. With Creative Commons-licensed content, GNU/Linux, various other FOSS packages and even freedom-respecting laptops there is ample opportunity to rid yourself of DRM. But you're all just SJWs, you'll complain on a forum about DRM but ultimately you'll still pay for Netflix and run it on your Windows PC or your Macbook or on a DRM'd Firefox or on your iPhone.

I'm not saying DRM is what is holding everything together but certainly all the non-DRM options are absolute garbage so either commit to changing that or suck it up.

I suggest rallying around vendors like this: https://www.crowdsupply.com/pu...

Honestly I think those guys are a bunch of hypocrites. They make a big deal about openness and evil binary blobs etc. But last I checked I don't see their board design schematics, layout files, CAD drawings for the chassis, etc. available anywhere under an open source license.

Honestly, I don't think anyone has raised the question with them. They have responded very well to the concerns of Qubes users, developers and other communities. Something tells me they would love to emulate the Apple of the 1970s and supply schematics.

Call me crazy, but I respect IHVs wanting to have the ability to patch hardware issues on devices that have already shipped. Remember the Pentium FDIV bug? Intel has had up-datable microcode ever since then for a reason. Having hardware be patchable like that creates binary blobs of out necessity. I guess I'm just too pragmatic or something.

I don't get this part. You're against closed design for motherboards but not for firmware?

The hypocrisy charge doesn't hold. Purism is a tiny startup and they are not going to be able to deliver the whole kit and kaboodle down to the last transistor to you immediately. In the meantime, we can have hardware whose documentation is thorough and therefore FOSS-friendly with no mystery drivers; We can have all open software and firmware on a powerful system if Intel is willing.

I suggest rallying around vendors like this: https://www.crowdsupply.com/pu...

Honestly I think those guys are a bunch of hypocrites. They make a big deal about openness and evil binary blobs etc. But last I checked I don't see their board design schematics, layout files, CAD drawings for the chassis, etc. available anywhere under an open source license. They make a big deal about needing open source to foil NSA backdoors... what about NSA backdoors baked in to the board design? A covert NFC chip can violate privacy just as easily.

Moreover, even if you had all the source code for every single byte of code, how can you trust the binaries that were pre-installed by these guys? Should we really expect every end user to recompile everything and crack open the case and use a flash programmer to reflash everything (flash programmers are spendy by the way.) Also, even if it is open source we won't find all the security vulnerabilities in the code anyway (see heart bleed.)

Call me crazy, but I respect IHVs wanting to have the ability to patch hardware issues on devices that have already shipped. Remember the Pentium FDIV bug? Intel has had up-datable microcode ever since then for a reason. Having hardware be patchable like that creates binary blobs of out necessity. I guess I'm just too pragmatic or something.

There should be a permanent sh!tlist pinned to the top of Slashdot with any vendor that promotes this scheme for "PCs".

Microsoft's long-time disruptive technology shark in the water was that they promoted a platform that was just open enough to let techies (and 3rd party vendors) on a budget customize the systems however they need. This is the essence of a "personal computer", for the MS camp at least. Now MS has jumped their own shark.

Their tepid claims of being FOSS-friendly are being shown as ultimately false. Like Apple, they still won't incorporate open A/V formats into their products and their OSes will tell you an inserted Linux-formatted volume "must be formatted before use". Heaven forbid if I ever give an EXT3 formatted flash drive to an Android user, and they decide someday to look at it with Windows. They are similarly hostile when it comes to Linux multiboot setups. Its wilful negligence that still reigns in Redmond and must be fought with tooth and nail to gain any concession.

And how necessary for security are these firmware-level lockouts?? They are not! Qubes OS employs a scheme that, in combination with a TPM, prevents a computer from being able to reproduce a chosen passphrase if its been tampered-with. No doubt, the MS excuse will be that the consumer or administrator can't be bothered to remember a sentence to verify system integrity.

I suggest rallying around vendors like this: https://www.crowdsupply.com/pu...
Eventually, we should pressure the market to open up the whole damn stack; We will probably be forced to.

If you're in a hurry, System76: https://system76.com/ Otherwise, I'd go for a Purism laptop: https://www.crowdsupply.com/pu... now on pre-order, shipping begins April 2015.

If running Linux is the goal, then I would be tempted a lot by the Purism Librem laptop. Finally, a high-spec laptop that's actually built with Linux in mind.

Of course, I would not get the base configuration. Hard drives are for suckers. And at this point, I would wait for actual hardware to ship so reviewers can touch on the other stuff, such as keyboard, trackpad, build quality, battery life, and fan noise.

Congratulations on your daughter's exceptional academic trajectory. This laptop may be worth considering. https://puri.sm/ https://www.crowdsupply.com/pu... This linux distro may be worth her consideration, as well. https://www.scientificlinux.or... cheers, frequency.dynamics

My current Lenovo (bit long in the tooth) will be the last one. And no -- wiping clean to install Linux/*BSD/whatever doesn't cut it -- DO YOU HEAR ME, Lenovo?

I just don't want to be treated like this in the first place. Lenovo's now in my no-buy list, right up there with Sony and Microsoft.

Time to look up some System76, ZaReason, whatever (heck, even purism). I'm willing to pay premium to be treated as a customer and not as a stupid gullet.

DO YOU HEAR ME, Lenovo?

Why not go w/ the Librem, discussed here a few days ago?

Assuming that the obsolete compute modules are of standard size/pinout (or, more likely, that compute chassis are only produced for phones that ship in sufficiently massive volume to assure a supply of board-donors), this scheme would work; but I have to imagine that a phone SoC would make a pretty dreadful compute node: Aside from being a bit feeble, there would be no reason for the interconnect to be anything but abysmal.

the nice thing about a modular system is that just as the modules may be discarded from the phones and re-purposed (in this case the idea is to re-purpose them in compute clusters), so may, when there are better more powerful processors available, the modules being used in the compute clusters *also* discarded... and re-purposed further once again down a continual chain until they break.

now, you may think "phone SoC equals useless for compute purposes" this simply is *not true*. you may for example colocate raspberry pi's (not that i like broadcom, but for GBP 25 who is complaining?) http://raspberrycolocation.com... - cost per month: $EUR 3. that's $EUR 36 per year because the power consumption and space requirements are so incredibly low.

another example: i have created a modular standard, it's called EOMA68. it re-uses legacy PCMCIA casework (which you can still get hold of if you look hard enough). the first CPU Card is a 2gb RAM dual-core 1.2ghz ARM Cortex A7, which as you know is based on the A15 so may even do Virtualisation. i did a simple test: i ran Debian GNU/Linux on it, installed xrdp, libreoffice and firefox. i then ran *five* remote sessions from my laptop, fired up libreoffice and firefox in each, and that dual-core CPU Card didn't even break a sweat.

so if you'd like to buy some compute modules *now* rather than wait for google project ara (which will require highly specialist chipsets based on an entirely new and extremely uncommon standard called MIPI UniPro) the crowdfunding campaign opens very shortly:

https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...

once that's underway, i will have the funding to finish paying for the next compute module, which is a quad-core CPU Card. after that, we can see about getting some more CPU Cards developed, and so on and so forth for the next 10 years.

to answer your question about "interconnect", you have to think in terms of "bang-per-buck-per-module" in terms of space, power used as well as CPU. a 2.5 watt module like the EOMA68-A20 only takes up 5mm x 86mm x 54mm. i worked out once that you could get something like 5,000 of those into a single full-height 19in cabinet - something mad, anyway. you end up using something like 40kW and you get such a ridiculous amount of processing power in such a small space that actually it's power and backbone interconnect that become the bottlenecks, *not* the Gigabit Ethernet on the actual modules, that becomes the main problem to overcome.

bottom line there's a lot of mileage in this kind of re-useable modular architecture. help support me in getting it off the ground!
https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...

Assuming that the obsolete compute modules are of standard size/pinout (or, more likely, that compute chassis are only produced for phones that ship in sufficiently massive volume to assure a supply of board-donors), this scheme would work; but I have to imagine that a phone SoC would make a pretty dreadful compute node: Aside from being a bit feeble, there would be no reason for the interconnect to be anything but abysmal.

the nice thing about a modular system is that just as the modules may be discarded from the phones and re-purposed (in this case the idea is to re-purpose them in compute clusters), so may, when there are better more powerful processors available, the modules being used in the compute clusters *also* discarded... and re-purposed further once again down a continual chain until they break.

now, you may think "phone SoC equals useless for compute purposes" this simply is *not true*. you may for example colocate raspberry pi's (not that i like broadcom, but for GBP 25 who is complaining?) http://raspberrycolocation.com... - cost per month: $EUR 3. that's $EUR 36 per year because the power consumption and space requirements are so incredibly low.

another example: i have created a modular standard, it's called EOMA68. it re-uses legacy PCMCIA casework (which you can still get hold of if you look hard enough). the first CPU Card is a 2gb RAM dual-core 1.2ghz ARM Cortex A7, which as you know is based on the A15 so may even do Virtualisation. i did a simple test: i ran Debian GNU/Linux on it, installed xrdp, libreoffice and firefox. i then ran *five* remote sessions from my laptop, fired up libreoffice and firefox in each, and that dual-core CPU Card didn't even break a sweat.

so if you'd like to buy some compute modules *now* rather than wait for google project ara (which will require highly specialist chipsets based on an entirely new and extremely uncommon standard called MIPI UniPro) the crowdfunding campaign opens very shortly:

https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...

once that's underway, i will have the funding to finish paying for the next compute module, which is a quad-core CPU Card. after that, we can see about getting some more CPU Cards developed, and so on and so forth for the next 10 years.

to answer your question about "interconnect", you have to think in terms of "bang-per-buck-per-module" in terms of space, power used as well as CPU. a 2.5 watt module like the EOMA68-A20 only takes up 5mm x 86mm x 54mm. i worked out once that you could get something like 5,000 of those into a single full-height 19in cabinet - something mad, anyway. you end up using something like 40kW and you get such a ridiculous amount of processing power in such a small space that actually it's power and backbone interconnect that become the bottlenecks, *not* the Gigabit Ethernet on the actual modules, that becomes the main problem to overcome.

bottom line there's a lot of mileage in this kind of re-useable modular architecture. help support me in getting it off the ground!
https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...

You have to take steps to make progress. You can take something useful and make it more open (like librem) or you could start from scratch and make something very basic that is completely open.

You can take bigger strides towards openness and get something like Novena, but then you make other sacrifices (size, cost, performance).

I guess if you had infinite money you could make a high spec, completely opensource laptop.

interesting that you should say this :) i am taking a different approach. i am also developing a laptop where the goal is to reach FSF-Endorseability *and* high-end specs. i am doing it one phase at a time, as you suggest... however where instead of having infinite money i am instead using creativity and ingenuity (posh words for "persistent bloody-mindedness combined with desperation stroke eye-popping frustration").

sooo, i decided to go the "modular" route, but had to first create a decent hardware standard - one that will still be here in 10 years time but is simple enough for the average person (or a 5-year-old, or an 80-year-old) to use. it's based on an old "Memory Card" standard - you may have heard how PCMCIA is no longer being used? well, the case-work is still around :) so, re-using PCMCIA it is. and all the benefits of "Memory Card", you now get "Computer Card".. upgradeable, swappable, saleable, transferrable, storable "Computer" Card. ... but then, of course, because of that, yaay, you now have to design entirely new casework, not just a motherboard. talking to casework suppliers didn't um go so well, so i have to do it. bought a mendel90 6 months ago... ... but mendel90's don't do injection-moulded plastics, they do 3d-printed filament plastics. and when presented with a potential $USD 20,000 cost for creating injection-moulding (you send your STL files off, someone adapts them, CNCs out two steel halves and then a little *team* of chinese people sit there for weeks on end polishing out all the CNC burrs.... then you find out it's *completely wrong* and have *another* $USD 20,000 to pay... no wonder ODMs quote $USD 250,000 for developing laptops!!!) ... anyway so that's all completely insane, so i thought, "hmm, i wonder if you can create reverse-3d-printed moulds to do injection-mould prototyping" and it turns out that you can. so i could at least - on a low budget - make a few runs out of very-low-temperature plastic (so as not to burst the 3d-printed plastic under pressure), hell i could even use plasticine for goodness sake, just to get a proof-of-concept, *then*.... and this is the hilarious bit.... there's a girl who's been doing LostPLA home-grown aluminium casting.... *using 1500W microwave ovens* :)

http://media.ccc.de/browse/con...

so in theory i could quite conceivably even try doing the casting of the inverse-moulds for plastic injection *myself*, out of landfill-designated aluminium bicycle rims. do watch that talk: julia is surprisingly subtly funny, there were lots of jokes that the audience didn't get (not a native english speaking audience), and a few later that they did.

bottom line it *can* be done... if you make the decision, and damn well stick at it until success. if you're interested to follow along, here's the links:

* micro-desktop (launching very soon) which has the first EOMA68 module: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...
* the 7in tablet (due to go to assembly this week) http://rhombus-tech.net/commun...
* the 15.6in laptop (currently developing the casework) http://rhombus-tech.net/commun...

on the laptop - as yo

Apple still has one thing going for it: Predictable hardware. Even after 15 years or so of OS X, the range of devces is fairly overseeable. If a crew gets Linux to run on a mac, they've like also gotten the drivers and all the extras to run halfway properly.

But that's about the only reason to get a mac to run linux. Besides, I'd pick up this device these days. Awesome project - deserves every support they can get.

Bottom line:
You buy a mac for the awesome hard- and software integration and their sleek product design. Using a mac without its OS isn't that smart, IMHO.

i had 9 of those smartphone / pocket-pc style devices back at the time: the absolute best one was the HTC Universal, as it was more like a hand-held clamshell laptop with built-in 3G. you _used_ to be able to get information about them on handhelds.org but we coordinated through #htc-linux (since taken over by android dummies) and used wiki.xda-developers.com (since taken over by android wannabe modders). [note to xda-developer forum users: i may be being slightly unfair though about the android dummies and wannabes: i apologise in advance to any of you that aren't so stupid as to be able to find and pay attention long enough to read slashdot :) ]

so you're going to have to dig... and you'll almost certainly need to begin with the 2.6 era linux kernel tree, which should give you a very very big hint about what you face, here. to give you an example: the fastest i've ever been able to reverse-engineer linux onto a device was 3 weeks and that was because it already had a [GPL-violating] linux kernel on it, where they had left some clues around and it was possible to poke around in /proc.

beyond that, the fastest i managed - and i could not get PM/wakeup to work because i could not locate the correct RAM/device re-initialisation parameters - was six to eight weeks on the HTC/Compaq Ipaq, i believe it was called the hw6915.

beyond _that_, the _longest_ i ever heard someone taking (and this was because it was worth it) to get full driver functionality was THREE YEARS, and that was for the HTC Universal (aka O2 "XDA III").

please please DO NOT underestimate how much work it takes to do reverse-engineering. these handhelds are actually far more complex pieces of kit, in engineering and in software terms, than any laptop or desktop PC you've ever encountered. the HTC Universal had SEVEN audio output paths for example, and over four audio input paths. there were over 110 GPIO pins on its Intel PXA ARM processor, but these were nowhere near enough, so they had to use an external GPIO IC (we called it ASIC3). but... they actually ran out of GPIO pins on that *as well*, so they ended up utilising the 16 pins of GPIO on the Ericsson 3G GSM modem (only contactable over USB!) in order to control some of the functions such as camera light.

so in many ways you are actually better off designing (and paying to have made) your own device. that is not a joke, in the slightest bit. it will take you less time and will cost you less in lost earnings from having to work full-time on the reverse-engineering. and before you splutter in disbelief, there are people who have done exactly that: Dr Schaeller did the GTA04 fairly recently (fits into a Neo FreeRunner case), and in that way he at least got to pick a) a modern-ish processor b) the best components that were available c) he got CONTROL OVER THE DEVICE DRIVERs, and he didn't have to _guess_ what the GPIO maps and memory maps are.

basically, what i'm trying to say is that if you cannot find a pre-existing project (you didn't mention what devices you actually have) that has done the reverse-engineering, unless you are actually thinking of learning reverse-engineering as a useful specialist marketable skill, either throw those devices into landfill, give them to someone who doesn't mind winceouch, or break them down for parts and sell the components on ebay. check beforehand to make sure that they're desirable parts of course.

of course... i say "throw them into landfill", which is directly and vehemently against our social responsibility, but unfortunately when actually buying these devices we make selfish decisions, not socially responsible ones, not least because they *aren't any alternatives*. now http://phonebloks.com/ is looking to change that in the smartphone space, and i'm looking to change that in the everything-else-device arena (starting here https://www.crowdsupply.com/eo...)