
An Open Letter to Intel [Updated] - signa11
http://www.cs.vu.nl/%7East/intel/
======
signa11
Updated part:

Note added later:

Some people have pointed out online that if MINIX had a GPL license, Intel
might not have used it since then it would have had to publish the
modifications to the code. Maybe yes, maybe no, but the modifications were no
doubt technical issues involving which mode processes run in, etc. My
understanding, however, is that the small size and modular microkernel
structure were the primary attractions. Many people (including me) don’t like
the idea of an all-powerful management engine in there at all (since it is a
possible security hole and a dangerous idea in the first place), but that is
Intel’s business decision and a separate issue from the code it runs. A
company as big as Intel could obviously write its own OS if it had to. My
point is that big companies with lots of resources and expertise sometimes use
microkernels, especially in embedded systems. The L4 microkernel has been
running inside smartphone chips for years. I certainly hope Intel did thorough
security hardening and testing before deploying the chip, since apparently an
older version of MINIX was used. Older versions were primarily for education
and newer ones were for high availability. Military-grade security was never a
goal.

Second note added later:

The online discussion got completely sidetracked from my original points as
noted above. For the record, I would like to state that when Intel contacted
me, they didn’t say what they were working on. Companies rarely talk about
future products without NDAs. I figured it was a new Ethernet chip or graphics
chip or something like that. If I had suspected they might be building a spy
engine, I certainly wouldn’t have cooperated, even though all they wanted was
reducing the memory footprint (= chip area for them). I think creating George
Orwell’s 1984 is an extremely bad idea, even if Orwell was off by about 30
years. People should have complete control over their own computers, not Intel
and not the government. In the U.S. the Fourth Amendment makes it very clear
that the government is forbidden from searching anyone’s property without a
search warrant. Many other countries have privacy laws that are in the same
spirit. Putting a possible spy in every computer is a terrible development.

