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AMD Has No Plans To Release PSP Code (twitch.tv)
AMD has faced calls from Edward Snowden, Libreboot and the Reddit community to release the source code to the AMD Secure Processor (PSP), a network-capable co-processor which some believe has the capacity to act as a backdoor. But despite some signs earlier that it might consider opening the PSP code at some point, the chip-maker has now confirmed that there hasn't been a change of heart yet. "We have no plans on releasing it to the public," the company executives said in a tech talk (video).
Another chip manufacturer that cannot be used for trustworthy IT infrastructure. Who's next on the chopping block?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You are kidding right? The base band chip in mobile phones would make intel and amd look like amateurs with what samsung and qualcomm can do.
Seems odd that anybody would go down the route of obscurity, given the recent exposure of Intel AMT, and the problems it is causing.
it would seem to be required to allow the DRM “features” to work as intended
Odd to "protect" the use of DRM, given the track record of successful hacks against DRM. Even worse to compromise the security of the entire system for its sake.
I see nothing that could possibly go wrong...
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
There's two reasons I can think of offhand why they wouldn't want to release the sourcecode:
1. They don't want to make it any easier than necessary for hackers to find a way to exploit this
2. They don't want the general public to know exactly how much any system using this hardware compromises their privacy and personal security
As-is, I'd say that any computer using this technology is about as compromised as it can get, nothing you'd ever do on it would even be remotely secure, not unless it was never, ever connected to any network that has any route to the public Internet. The only way they could make something like this worse would be to somehow prevent any OS other than Windows to run on it, ensuring that you never, ever have any control over anything that isn't trivial.
In the past I've said "computers aren't fun anymore", but when I said that previously I meant it in a totally different way than I do when I say it now; between hardware manufacturers, designing in hardware that allows for outside surveillance and control of a computer you ostensibly own, and shithead companies like Microsoft, who produce entire operating systems with surveillance-and-control completely integrated into every piece of code, computers are now worse than "no fun anymore", they're spiritually cancerous. As if that isn't all bad enough, now Microsoft is attempting to annex and subvert Linux, too, trying to bring it's further development under their control, and running half-assed versions of it under Windows, effectively removing all the advantages, security, and privacy.
If I even cared anymore I guess I'd go play with microcontrollers. Until, that is, they manage to ruin that for everyone, too.
4. There is zero commercial advantage in releasing the source.
I'm not so sure about that. I think with proper marketing AMD could turn it into a major commercial advantage. Imagine the ad campaign...
AMD chips don't spy on you, and we can prove it.
Intel is hiding behind lawyers and refusing to come clean.
Which one do you want inside your computer?
(Unfortunately, "proper marketing" and "AMD" are rarely used in the same sentence.)
The key sequence to access my Slashdot bookmark in Firefox is Alt-B-S. I don't believe this is a coincidence.