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Talos Secure Workstation Is Free-Software Centric — and $3100 [Updated]
jones_supa writes: These days, the motivation to use open source software for many people is to avoid backdoors placed by intelligence organizations and to avoid software that has hidden privacy-intruding characteristics. For the operating system and userspace software, open choices are already available. The last remaining island has been the firmware included in various ROM chips in a computer. Libreboot has introduced an open BIOS, but it is not available for newer systems featuring the Intel ME or AMD PSP management features. Talos' Secure Workstation fills this need, providing a modern system with 8-core POWER8 CPU, 132 GB RAM, and open firmware. The product is currently in a pre-release phase where Raptor Engineering is trying to understand if it's possible to do a production run of the machine. If you are interested, it's worth visiting the official website. Adds an anonymous reader about the new system, which rings in at a steep $3100: "While the engineers found solace in the POWER8 architecture with being more open than AMD/Intel CPUs, they still are searching for a graphics card that is open enough to receive the FSF Respect Your Freedom certification." Update: 02/08 18:44 GMT by T : See also Linux hacker and IBM employee Stewart Smith's talk from the just-completed linux.conf.au on, in which he walks through "all of the firmware components and what they do, including the boot sequence from power being applied up to booting an operating system."
Update: 02/08 23:30 GMT by T :FSF Licensing & Compliance Manager Joshua Gay wrote to correct the headline originally appeared with this story, which said that the Talos workstation described was "FSF Certified"; that claim was an error I introduced. "The FSF has not certified this hardware," says Gay, "nor is it currently reviewing the hardware for FSF certification." Sorry for the confusion.
Open =/= Secure
I dont like how this is being used interchangeably here
I have plenty of things to hide and I have broken no laws. I have a right to be secure in my papers. I have the right to hide communications I have made with my associates, especially when it comes to political communications.
You can take your fascist "IF YOU HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE" bullshit and shove it straight up your ass.
Nobody ever said that Free Software = Cheap. "Free as in speech, not as in beer" is often heard. This is Free Software 101 stuff.
As for not imagining anyone spending that kind of money on a workstation, compared to what it'll get you in the Apple Store, some would call it a bargain. Note that it's being called a "workstation" and not a "desktop". For some people, there is a real difference.
if you want an open enough GPU card. It won't have much for GPU performance but it could be all open. Oh and don't forget to only use the fully open FPGA tools or kittens may die.
Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur
Open source can be really expensive. I was interested in the GNU radio project when it was announced but then found out it needed a few thousand dollars in hardware. Yeah your fucking software is free but without the hardware its worthless. Nobody cared about that project until the discovery of the debug feature in $10 RealTek dongles. A receiver that does 22Mhz to 1700Mhz without gaps and close to 3Mhz of bandwidth.
Does it run Microsoft Windows?
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
Does the purchase price come with some sort of bond or insurance if the system doesnt live up to the claim?
Certainly it can be done, but I'm not sure why one would want to do that. Did they mean 128GB? Or 32GB?
I've clicked through the links and I can't find anything that actually says how much RAM you get on this system.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
But ... but ... didn't the Empire outlaw Talos worship?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
No, cows say "Open == secure".
Can it run Crysis at a reasonable framerate?
Oh look, another shitstain of a person who probably whines up a shitstorm whenever some company loses his medical record to hackers or the like, but God forbid anyone try to secure their shit against five-eyed freaks or squinty-eyed chinks, because only terrorists and pedos want to protect their shit from being hacked.
Making some observations from recent events, I've noticed:
1) You can order a computer, and the delivery can be intercepted so that spyware can be installed. Especially laptops, which are difficult for the end user to peek inside.
2) The Intel management engine is essentially an attached microprocessor with complete and total remote control of your system, including access to all peripherals, the network, the disk data, and the ability to wake up and run while the main computer is off.
3) The Intel built-in programmable number generator was built in a way to be unverifiable. Essentially, the system reads physically generated random data and puts it through a hashing algorithm before giving it to the user. If the random number generator section is damaged (say, if someone modified the chip mask films before fab), you will get much less than the advertized 256-bits of entropy, but because the data is hashed there is no way to tell.
Buy American!
Probably not.
There is firmware in the BMC - the hard drives, several other places - are they making the claim that ALL of these have open source code? Open microcode?
I didn't see any mention of Linux Bios.. hate getting information via videos.. You really don't need a separate processor to start up the main one - and it provides huge security holes when you do.
I've wondered what systems the spooks use for their security - there are hints about power 8 - not sure.
and I have broken no laws
Oh, but you have.
I promise you that you have.
Everyone has.
It's been more than a decade since there his been a non x86 cpu that is comparable in performance. Good stuff!
love is just extroverted narcissism
Being located in europe, devices built in the NSA^WUSA are no longer to be considered safe (for those who remember Cisco ...).
Nobody ever said that Free Software = Cheap. "Free as in speech, not as in beer" is often heard. This is Free Software 101 stuff.
As for not imagining anyone spending that kind of money on a workstation, compared to what it'll get you in the Apple Store, some would call it a bargain. Note that it's being called a "workstation" and not a "desktop". For some people, there is a real difference.
For 3100 we could get a quad core Mac Pro with dual graphics cards. This Talos thing is just a bunch of RAM. Does it even come with flash storage?
Do you send your letters sealed in an envelope (possibly a security envelope) rather than writing on postcards?
Why?
The same hardware running closed source software is likely to cost even more...
Software can easily be free of cost, but that's much harder to do with hardware because there is a cost associated with each and every unit produced.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
It's about 1½ times what I paid a couple of years ago to have someone build me an x86_64-based workstation with 8x2 cores (Haswell IIRC), 16GB RAM, a heap-big SSD, and a few other choice goodies.
So... What kind of porn did you say do you like to watch? And what's it worth to you not to have the answer revealed, whether or not you feel like responding to the question?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I've been wanting to buy a reasonably powerful and reasonably priced open machine for a while. You used to be able to get MIPS machines running Loongson CPUs, but they don't seem to be available any more.
Anyone know of anything suitable?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I was originally modding, but I feel compelled to point out that the RAM does not appear to be included in that $3100 - just slots. It's just a motherboard, power supply, and the CPU for $3100.
So what you stated doesn't appear to be accurate in the least.
Additionally, a previous Phoronix article stated they only got remote access for testing this thing - so at present this is basically the equivalent of a Kickstarter promise.
It's an interesting idea if you have enough cash, though.
#DeleteChrome
If all goes well, next year we'll have a truel libre CPU - based on the RISC-V open source ISA. The world needs a hardware equivalent of Linux, and a proprietary chip like IBM's Power ain't it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC-V
http://riscv.org
Truly open source means the whole circuitry.
Okay, seems the $3100 is just for the mainboard + CPU. SO maybe not quite as good a deal as I originally thought.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
You really ARE an idiot.
I still have Mac Mini (Freescale PowerPC G4) which I used for Debian development for half a decade, and which is now idle with a FreeBSD 10.2 install at present, and while I went to Intel and AMD for my last two systems, I'd certainly welcome a return to an affordable POWER system. I've been pretty disappointed in the state of open hardware for a good while.
I was looking at the offer for an OpenPOWER system from Tyan (http://www.tyan.com/campaign/openpower/) but I'd prefer a workstation rather than a rackmount unit. If it can run FreeBSD, then even better. The only rub is the graphics support; if I can stick in an AMD board and have it work with OpenFirmware and the current open drivers, I'd be quite happy.
(Disclosure: IBMer working in Power Systems, opinions my own)
For the BMC, it appears that they're looking to use OpenBMC, a project started by Facebook and now being continued by IBM.
They're also going to use the OpenPOWER firmware stack - Hostboot for system initialisation, Skiboot for runtime firmware/BIOS and the OCC firmware for on-chip thermal and power management. All of this is Apache-licensed.
POWER8 processors do require an external CPU to boot them - either an IBM Flexible Service Processor or a third-party BMC. This is the case with all current Power Architecture server chips, though not with Power embedded (Book 3E) chips. Booting a POWER8 chip is a bit more complex than comparable Intel CPUs in this regard, but as far as I'm aware it's primarily a design choice to put the initialisation complexity in firmware rather than hardware.
Can't comment about the other components of the system - I imagine it'd be fairly challenging to find a hard drive with open source firmware, but I wish them luck... FSF will still certify them as Respects Your Freedom nonetheless, I imagine. I'm still quite excited by this machine, as POWER8 is definitely the best choice for a high-performance libre system.
ThinkPenguin's been working on cheap general user-oriented laptops and desktops for years. The problem is it's not feasible to free X86 completely (despite claims by certain people to the contrary and unfortunately this one person has single handedly taken advantage of the community's strong desire for a 100% free modern and more secure laptop.. and whose claims are getting more and more ridicules... note: the person/company I'm referring is NOT FSF endorsed because he is a fraud) and to do a truly 100% free system is nearly impossible. The RYF hardware gets closer- but isn't technically 100% free either in most cases. There may be some exceptions in relation to particular items like wifi adapters, but larger items like laptops are not truly 100% free (you have hard disk firmware and similar in the current RYF laptops).
There was a talk at FOSDEM (ie TP sponsored) abut an upcoming laptop which has been in development for a while that will be better than what we have with X86 currently (including the best several year old libreboot laptops) and more easily upgradable with long term prospects (ie new CPUs, more memory, better graphics). The design is meant to be cost effective to produce and adapt cheaply to changes in part availability / manufacturing. The first prototype is finished or nearly so (you can find some videos on YouTube).
Hopefully in the coming months we'll actually be able to put in pre-orders as part of a kickstarter or similar campaign to actually get them manufactured.
Specs:
15.6" 1336x768 screen
Full keyboard
2GB memory
ARM CPU (note: AllWinner is cooperating in releasing code despite some criticisms in the Free Software community about violations and the like)
The CPU is dual core and despite being older and lower end you can actually do things like utilize virtual machines. It's actually pretty good for typical computing applications like word processing, email, web browsing, etc. It's not nearly as bad or impractical as it might seem and there will be better/faster options available as time progresses (presuming people get behind the project). These systems are going to be priced closer to what the average person can afford too. It's estimated to cost between $250-500 USD. That's not too bad for something unique and is price competitive to the garbage sold at stores like Walmart.
hah, thanks for the links. i'd heard the term "skiboot" at work in the context of IBM/POWER systems and was wondering what the heck people were talking about...
Explain socat.
I really struggle to identify who would actually be interested in such a thing. Oh, I'm sure such people exist but I'll bet it's a tiny market. This machine is expensive for what you get and despite oceans of argy-bargy, no one has ever made a compelling case for open hardware. Not one that made much sense to me.
Does this system:
1). Have an attractive price point?
2). Will it be one of a long line of compatible systems, or is this a one-off experiment?
3). Are the features compelling (typical speeds and feeds stuff)?
4). What does the "open" actually buy you? Because the purity and transparency angles are not especially compelling to me;
5). For all the argy-bargy, what was the last/worst hardware exploit you heard of? And would this do anything about those? The USB BIOS injection bug? The UEFI resident malware?
My concern is that this system caters to those who like SELinux. And the old NeXT systems. And the Amiga. And BeOS.
If so then this is an experimental system with a short lifespan. And I don't have time for that nonsense.
For 3100 we could get a quad core Mac Pro with dual graphics cards. This Talos thing is just a bunch of RAM. Does it even come with flash storage?
I suspect the comparison to a Mac Pro is not really the point, but no it doesn't come with flash storage. In fact that RAM figure is just the amount that is supported, it doesn't actually come with any.
Yes but still vastly cheaper than the power stuff used to be. Those CPUs have mostly been priced out of anything other than military budgets. I think at one point a very sleazy sales guy was trying to sell me an 8 core power machine for around the price I could get three 64 core opteron machines with four times the memory. For some stuff the former would be faster, but still impossible to justify in dollar terms.
I'm waiting for the Talos IV. I hear it'll be killer.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it! --Longbottle
That's a bit more than what i need for a desktop, but it looks very promising for a server. I'm holding off to see what comes of the A1100, as it's more within my price-range.
> You can take your [...] bullshit and shove it straight up your ass.
So that means your interlocutor *has* something to hide, after all? Pretty unconfortable way of hiding things, but in a pinch...
"Libreboot has introduced an open BIOS, but it is not available for newer systems featuring the Intel ME or AMD PSP management features."
Which are government mandated backdoors.
Intel's even has a on chipset VNC server.
Can always be remotely be re-enabled.
The goal is to make sure men can never get rid of the global feminist police state.
They want to make sure Girls are Never Brides
(no child marraige).
>In the United States, as late as the 1880s most States set the minimum age at 10-12, (in Delaware it was 7 in 1895).[8] Inspired by the "Maiden Tribute" female reformers in the US initiated their own campaign[9] which petitioned legislators to raise the legal minimum age to at least 16, with the ultimate goal to raise the age to 18. The campaign was successful, with almost all states raising the minimum age to 16-18 years by 1920.
>Also: see: Deuteronomy chapter 22 verses 28-29, hebrew allows men to rape girl children and keep them: thus man + girl is obviously fine. Feminists are commanded to be killed as anyone enticing others to follow another ruler/judge/god is to be killed as-per Deuteronomy. It is wonderful when this happens from time to time: celebrate)
>>>I though open source was supposed to be cheap?
There's the problem right there, it's been taken over by people who just want a free version of Windows.
Or whatever the kids are copying this week.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/16/01/20/171226/open-source-gpu-used-for-research
That would be this article?
How do you make the equation "only getting remote access" EQUALS "the equivalent of a Kickstarter promise."?
The company are reasonably well-known (I looked at them several years ago when I was considering replacing my day-to-day laptop with one whose video chip hadn't just got static-fried), and they're very open about saying that they're evaluating options for building an entry into this market (see footnote). So they probably have a total of TWO systems at the moment - the one they're experimenting on, and a second one for testing and promotions and customer evaluation. So, are they going to spend hundreds of dollars shipping one of those two systems around a series of publicity sites, giving them (say) 2 days with the machine, and several times a week having to say "we DID tell you you need a 220V power supply. What, it's not booting ... describe the output form the BIOS ..." you're talking tech support hell, and you'll have crippled your development programme.
The alternative is to set the machine up with remote access via a VPN and displaying the screens remotely on their terminals. Then all hardware issues you have your own technical people on hand. Timing and benchmarking can be carried out just as well. IF the customer has (per my example in the footnote) a data library they want to do a test on, they can send you the hard drive in advance and book a slot on the machine to run their tests next Thursday afternoon.
Hang on - have you ever actually worked on a time-shared system? One where you prepare your job set one week, and get the tapes of the run and the error logs back a few days later? That's what I think of when I hear "workstation".
Footnote
I see workstations like this hauled to site for data acquisition routinely - a few terabytes of new raw data per day, but you need to process it and incorporate it with terabytes of existing data from the surrounding area which has been subject to months of detailed evaluation and interpretation. Someone asked upthread what you'd need to use 128GB of RAM for : seismic data processing will eat that happily. And with a boat for data acquisition running about a half million dollars a day and a crew of 50-odd, you're not going to quibble at tens of kilo-bucks for a workstation or several.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"