Re: [coreboot] T450S + Coreboot

[Nico Huber]

Hi Mike,

you can be as much biased as you want, and you can express that here. I
have no trouble with that. What I don't like is your choice of words.
For instance with "Undoubtedly, Intel ME is a backdoor," you imply to
know everybody's opinion on the matter. Because I don't think you are
the creator himself, this draws a big WTF? into my brain.

You can say "In my opinion, Intel ME is a backdoor, ..." but you can't
say it's undoubted. I don't only doubt that, IMHO, it is a frontdoor.

You also claim that things are well studied which are not. A replay of
a proprietary program might be open-source technically, but it doesn't
mean that anybody has a clue how it works.

So please, if you want to express your *personal* opinion or "knowledge"
please always state so. And don't make it look like the general under-
standing (especially not when experts disagree).

Nico

T450S + Coreboot

[Mike Banon]

Hi Nico,

You are right, my choice of words has been far from ideal. I apologize
for that. However, to be confident that Intel ME is a backdoor
(personal opinion) - one does not have to be its' creator. I think
there are enough documents describing its' functionality and enough
evidence gathered by the independent security researchers about the
suspicious activities of this hardware module. If it looks like a
duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a
duck?

There are no technical differences between the 'backdoor', and
'frontdoor'. Like a 'conspiracy theorist', 'frontdoor' is a term
coming from the american 3-letter-agencies. 'Frontdoor' is their term
for a 'backdoor' to which only they (currently) have an access. This
article summarizes it well:
https://www.justsecurity.org/16503/security-front-doors-vs-back-doors-distin...
. 'Backdoor' term has a negative reputation, so they would like to
push this 'frontdoor' term forward.

Mike
On Tue, Aug 28, 2018 at 9:20 PM Nico Huber  wrote:
> Hi Mike,
>
> you can be as much biased as you want, and you can express that here. I
> have no trouble with that. What I don't like is your choice of words.
> For instance with "Undoubtedly, Intel ME is a backdoor," you imply to
> know everybody's opinion on the matter. Because I don't think you are
> the creator himself, this draws a big WTF? into my brain.
>
> You can say "In my opinion, Intel ME is a backdoor, ..." but you can't
> say it's undoubted. I don't only doubt that, IMHO, it is a frontdoor.
>
> You also claim that things are well studied which are not. A replay of
> a proprietary program might be open-source technically, but it doesn't
> mean that anybody has a clue how it works.
>
> So please, if you want to express your *personal* opinion or "knowledge"
> please always state so. And don't make it look like the general under-
> standing (especially not when experts disagree).
>
> Nico