Alternate Instruction Set

Re:Alternate Instruction Set by corebuffer on Monday May 31, 2021 @03:13PM (#27347244)

Related: a defcon talk about it (DEF CON 26 - Christopher Domas - GOD MODE UNLOCKED Hardware Backdoors in redacted x86) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmTwlEh8L7g

Website collecting info on thin clients, which many are VIA, if anyone gets interested in exploring it from a recycled unit: https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/

EDIT: also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17727140 - Christopher Domas: Hardware Backdoors in X86 CPUs

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Alternate Instruction Set by blueflow on Monday May 31, 2021 @05:14PM (#27348075)

Now seeing the whole context, i feel incredibly betrayed - This was not a backdoor, but behavior documented in the datasheet. I didn't realize this 3 years ago! If this was academics, Domas' work would be plagiarism, with the 2004 datasheet being unquoted prior work: http://datasheets.chipdb.org/VIA/Nehemiah/VIA%20C3%20Nehemia... (Page A-10 in the appendices)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Alternate Instruction Set by mhh__ on Monday May 31, 2021 @06:36PM (#27348840)

Wasn't his thing about accessing it not finding it, though? We all know Intel CPUs have management engines, running doom on one would be a feat.

[ Parent | on HN ]