[Arm-netbook] Pluton: M$ firmware and TPM to be built into your processor...

[Paul Boddie]

On Saturday, 12 December 2020 17:11:28 CET David Niklas wrote:
> Hi,
> It has been a while since I posted. Today I have bad news. Apparently, M$
> has been working with AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm to place a new type of
> TPM into their CPUs, APUs, and SoCs. It's already inside of the new XBox
> processors.
> It runs firmware which is, according to M$, produced by them.
> 
> Here's an official link, and a tech site link for those of you who don't
> want to visit M$'s site.
> 
> https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2020/11/17/meet-the-microsoft-pluton
> -processor-the-security-chip-designed-for-the-future-of-windows-pcs/
> 
> https://www.anandtech.com/show/16269/microsoft-pluton-hardware-security-comi
> ng-to-our-cpus-amd-intel-qualcomm
> 
> I've done some research googling, but at this stage the data on what sort
> of access this new processor has and what it can do is anyones best guess.
> 
> It sounds like the firmware might have unrestricted Internet access: "One
> of the other major security problems solved by Pluton is keeping the
> system firmware up to date across the entire PC ecosystem."
> 
> I hope I'm panicking unnecessarily...

It's just Microsoft being Microsoft, I imagine. Ignore all the people who 
claim "Microsoft has changed" because "Microsoft likes open source" plus all 
the people who even go as far as to deny that Microsoft ever did bad stuff in 
the past [*].

I also imagine that Microsoft doesn't like the look of things like this:

https://opentitan.org/

Which, having looked at it only yesterday, was the first thing I was reminded 
of.

Paul

[*] Bad stuff as in demanding licensing fees for each Intel processor shipped 
regardless of what the processor or system was running, coercing computer 
manufacturers into exclusive agreements that forbade them from supplying other 
operating systems, incorporating other people's software into their operating 
system without permission, and so on.