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Comment by zanny | Hacker News Reader

No mention of it, but the pressure should still be on AMD to open source or allow firmware disable of their Platform "Security" Processor.

I would really like to be more enthusiastic for my next build to use something like this, but all my computers are presently trustable in a way new platforms with proprietary coprocessors that haven't seen me_cleaner support cannot achieve.

It really sucks to give Intel money - its not like they support the me cleaner project and are actively antagonistic to third parties disabling their backdoors - but at some point it stops being a matter of principle and becomes one of practicality. I can disable the unwanted parts of the hardware on one platform and not on the other.

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AMD's PSP is ARM TrustZone, there is no way AMD could open it in their current chips, they don't own the IP and ARM is vehemently opposed. Due to the outcry, they are more likely to build their own secure enclave/supervisor processor in the next major rework of Zen, which they would own the IP of.

That would be good. Opposed ARM should get lost.

There are open-source TrustZone implementations (OP-TEE).

AMD could drop Arm and move to a RISC-V based secure enclave. Google is developing OpenTitan as open hardware based on RISC-V.

Have you considered using the POWER9-based Raptor Blackbird uATX board for your next build? The firmware is open, and they advertise it as a feature:

https://www.raptorcs.com/content/BK1B02/intro.html

The Raptor stuff is pretty cool, but the cost puts it well out of practical reach for most of the people calling for opening the PSP. The cheapest Blackboard+CPU combo is $1279.

Does Intel let you disable PSP?

Meanwhile, AMD seemed to in the past[0].

0: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=AMD-PSP-...

They don't have the choice on older chipsets that ME Cleaner has been reverse engineered to work with.

Hence why its practicality. Neither respects user freedom, but the community has reverse engineered the ability to disable the backdoor of one company and not the other.

Is there a Xeon E3 mATX motherboard (C236 or C224 chipset) which supports me_cleaner and has 8 SAS ports? Preferably without IPMI.

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