this post was submitted on 04 May 2024
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[–] MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 9 points 6 months ago (1 children)

You mean you're assuming that it will come with a backdoor in the hardware? Will that matter if the bootloader is FOSS?

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Like.... the Intel ME?? And no BIOS seems to allow the switch to disable it, even though that was literally required after the NSA sued Intel?

[–] MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

Coreboot disables most of Intel ME on x86 except the parts required for essential functions. It certainty cripples external access to Intel ME.

I believe it is a fair assumption that for embedded architectures like ARM and RISC-V, a FOSS bootloader will likely deal with state-sponsored backdoors if they haven't been infiltrated themselves. This does not take into account baseband attack vectors because I simply don't know much about wireless, but I'd imagine someone working on these projects likely has their eye on the funny stuff the NSA is likely to try here. RISC-V is FOSS, the NSA cannot legally require anybody to include a backdoor into the architecture itself.