> Unfortunately anyone who takes their security or privacy seriously will be totally unable to use this. Every AMD chip contains a likely backdoored system called AMD Secure Processor

This is fear mongering to the extreme. Intel has the exact same type of system embedded in their processors called Intel Management Engine. You can't escape this problem by buying Intel.

I notice you provided a lot of sources, but none for the claim "a likely backdoored system". Your post reads like something a bad Intel astroturfing shill would say.

Totally agree. And these "maybe they are backdoors" have not actually been demonstrated in the wild yet (apart from Intel's AMT that most people don't have to worry about). If you want to fearmonger, at least do it with demonstrated issues not just "maybes". So a much bigger security issue is buying a laptop from anyone at all at this point that isn't a Mac or a Surface, i.e. directly from the OS vendor. Lenovo does shit like this: http://www.zdnet.com/article/lenovo-rootkit-ensured-its-soft... (which also references the earlier Superfish shit they pulled). Sony has done shit like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk... Dell et al: http://www.zdnet.com/article/researchers-find-insecure-bios-...

The Intel one has a known technique to disable the ME, the AMD one does not (for the moment).

However, disabling it is not trivial, needing to open your laptop and solding skills, also special equipment to read/write modified firmware.

You don't need soldering skills (at least for the device I use), but I agree it's not trivial. However, a nontrivial fix is still a significant improvement over a nonexistent one.

Apologies I have edited my post to explain Intel have the same likely backdoored system too.

Looking at [4] tells me that no modern, relevant CPU supports what libreboot needs/requires, so while not a good point it doesn't help deciding between AMD or Intel - and those are, for better or worse, the only relevant CPUs for laptops/desktops.

The intel one can can finally be disabled: https://puri.sm/posts/purism-librem-laptops-completely-disab...

So the same as Intel Management Engine?

Does this exist on Epyc platforms that don't use a traditional chipset?

This is bad, but seems like more of an incremental issue than anything. Can you audit every line of source in your system? No closed source drivers or firmware on any devices? No devices on your network with vendor controlled firmware? You log all network I/O through a passive tap? For the average user targeted by a state actor this makes little difference.

The PSP is part of the processor die so it is included in Epyc.

Isn't Intel doing pretty much the same thing? Seems like it's just a part of operating a modern computer :(

No psp_cleaner yet?