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How do you feel about the Intel management engine, which is a permanent backdoor with total hardware access which is fundamentally impossible to remove? Or AMD'
by utensil4778 2y ago
How do you feel about the Intel management engine, which is a permanent backdoor with total hardware access which is fundamentally impossible to remove? Or AMD's equivalent, or NVIDIA's proprietary driver blobs, or the closed and un-auditable firmware on every computer ever?
Nobody is selling computers that are fully open. Even Framework uses a closed firmware.
In our modern capitalist hellscape, you sometimes have to settle for the least worst option. The BIOS whitelist on older thinkpads is completely trivial to defeat, and apart from that they are incredibly durable and repairable machines. The T530 came out in 2013, and has been my daily driver for near 10 years, after buying it used for $100. I'd say that kind of longevity is more than worth the effort of flipping some bits in a BIOS image.
If you want to draw hard lines like this, then you've ruled out absolutely every machine produced in the last 30 years. Nothing is fully open. You simply have zero options.
- Wuzado 2y agoWhile YMMV, some smaller companies and manufacturers offer boards based on ARM or RISC-V cores. Consider checking out the MNT Reform - likely one of the closest computers that while a bit impractical, fills the openness criteria.
- Rinzler89 2y agoModern ARM designs destined for computing are alo coming with management engine like features, just like Intel and AMD, plus other obscure silicone features and proprietary FW blobs, even more so than Intel and AMD, like DSPs, ISPs, etc. If you want non-obscure HW you'll have to go back to pre-microcode days of processors roll out your own.