Technology

Has the linux community solved the Pluton problem yet? Meaning... actually been able to verify that you can check the microcode in the 'always network enabled crytopgraphic key verifier' part of the chip that is functionally below ring zero... can it actually be verified that Pluton chips can have that layer of them wiped?

EDIT: Answering my own question here later in the day, answer seems to be: not wiped, but most likely effectively neutralized.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Pluton-TPM-CRB-Merged-Linux-6.3

Looks like Mr. Matthew Garret figured out how to expose the TPM2 Command Process Buffer, which should mean that anything spooky going in or out of it would ... probably, eventually be noticed by the linux community.

I've had quite the uh... exciting life thisnpast year and missed this news, had to refresh myself on some of the details.

Not 100% sure if the actual microcode governing what goes on inside the Pluton module has been able to be voided, cleared or reverse engineered and rewritten... but basically the spooky DRM of your entire computer type shit only works with Windows + Pluton.

And, also thanks to Mr. Garret, a whole bunch of bullshit UEFI shenanigans from computers that ship with Windows on them that is intended to prevent you from turning such a machine into a bare metal Linux machine... thanks to Mr. Garret there are workarounds and fixes for this on what seems to be most modern hardware.

Still, best option, imo, is to build your machine yourself (the old ways never die), or these days you can purchase a small but growing number of PCs, laptops and other devices that actually just come with either no OS or some linux distro installed, from various linux centric organizations.