this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
350 points (97.0% liked)

linuxmemes

21123 readers
2947 users here now

Hint: :q!

Sister communities:

Community rules (click to expand)

1. Follow the site-wide rules

2. Be civil
  • Understand the difference between a joke and an insult.
  • Do not harrass or attack members of the community for any reason.
  • Leave remarks of "peasantry" to the PCMR community. If you dislike an OS/service/application, attack the thing you dislike, not the individuals who use it. Some people may not have a choice.
  • Bigotry will not be tolerated.
  • These rules are somewhat loosened when the subject is a public figure. Still, do not attack their person or incite harrassment.
    • 3. Post Linux-related content
  • Including Unix and BSD.
  • Non-Linux content is acceptable as long as it makes a reference to Linux. For example, the poorly made mockery of sudo in Windows.
  • No porn. Even if you watch it on a Linux machine.
    • 4. No recent reposts
  • Everybody uses Arch btw, can't quit Vim, and wants to interject for a moment. You can stop now.

    • Please report posts and comments that break these rules!

    founded 1 year ago
    MODERATORS
    poopsmith
    zephyr
    rtxn
    350
    Gone build my own Hardware with diodes and RISC-V (feddit.de)
    submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/linuxmemes
    20 comments fedilink hide all child comments
     
    you are viewing a single comment's thread
    view the rest of the comments
    [–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

    I haven't kept up with it, but OpenCores is a balwark against this type of thing. FPGAs, while not as efficient as fab silicon, AFAIK lets one implement CPUs, interconnects and peripherals without any predefined channels to target for subversion. The NSA or other boogeymen couldn't craft a backdoor for your FPGA CPU, since the FPGA is just a 'blank slate' until programmed so they have no idea even what to attack beforehand. The chip could be literally anything once programmed. FPGAs by design have to faithfully implement the basic gates, with no jiggery-pokery, otherwise it would be evident immediately that something was up. Right?

    [–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

    I honestly do not know. Couldn’t the FPGA hide a backdoor routine on some kind of ROM?

    [–] teruma 10 points 1 year ago

    Sure, but it wouldn't be a backdoor into your ROM.

    [–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    FPGAs are mostly proprietary products with proprietary technology inside. Many also have "hard" IP blocks for various things sometimes including a "hard" ARM based computer subsystem.

    If you are getting one and flashing your own CPU to it it will be harder to attack, but definitely not impossible. There have been vulnerabilities in FPGAs before.