this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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    [–] [email protected] 62 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Will you be making your own silicon too? Because there’s nothing stopping the risc-v processor manufacturers from slipping in extra logic while making the die.

    [–] [email protected] 25 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?

    [–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

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

    [–] [email protected] 5 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.

    [–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

    I tried this once in college, and even at a simplified scale, it was ridiculously difficult. The single course was half a semester's worth of units, just on its own.

    [–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

    And this is why we have to use discrete transistors and a spare house.

    [–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

    As long as it plays Doom I'm fine with that. What's the TDP though? Guess I'll have to buy a new PSU.

    [–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

    Hopefully there will be several manufacturers to choose from, maybe even from countries that hasn't incorporated secret government spying through companies by law. It's not the manufacturers I'm afraid will incorporate back doors.

    [–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

    thats what the diodes are for

    [–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Fine, discrete transistor logic.

    [–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

    Discrete tube logic or nothing! 😆

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

    oh boi i too love heating the whole zipcode block when compiling firefox on my tube CPU

    [–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

    Better heat the whole state and compile it on your Minecraft redstone CPU inside the Java VM on that tube based CPU.

    [–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

    If privacy is a concern, discreet transistor logic.

    [–] [email protected] 48 points 1 year ago
    [–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I definitely did not read that as diodes at first.

    I need to go to bed

    [–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)
    [–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago
    [–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

    can't sleep, diodes will eat me