[coreboot] Thinkpad ECs (H8)

[ron minnich]

w.r.t. the git question, I cloned it too and poked around, doesn't seem to
be anything there
save a few empy branches and a log with one entry.

ron

On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 1:33 PM Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli <GNUtoo at no-log.org>
wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I just learned about (and watched) a presentation[1] that is about
> backdooring the Thinkpad ECs.
>
> This information might help with the task of writing a free software EC
> firmware[2].
>
> The information is also very useful to get a better ideas of the
> threats due to having a non-free EC firmware.
> I for instance missed the EC ThinkLight issue, when thinking about the
> security of i945 Lenovo laptops:
> -> The EC code is non-free
> -> There is a long wire that goes from the EC to the ThinkLight (That's
>    a potential antenna, according to the talk the Thinkpad EC
>    microcontrollers speed is around 10Mhz so it seems doable)
> -> Since The i945 Thinkpads are often bought second hand, a broken EC
>    light isn't suspicious if you don't know about this issue.
>
> The talk contains a link to an EC firmware dumper[3]. Unfortunately
> after cloning the it, the git repository contained no code at all.
> Maybe Ralf-Philipp could comment on that?
>
> In the QA, it is also said that it's possible to talk directly to the
> EC hardware to dump the fimrware (and not the EC firmware), from the
> computer. The IO addresses he's mentioning look like EC addresses.
>
> I then wonder if it's also possible to flash it in the same way.
> In that case the fimrware should better be able to power on the
> computer, else some sort of external flashing/recovery would be needed
> (as it is for coreboot).
>
> The talk also contained a link to the original firmware "commented
> assembly".
> I've no idea if it's safe to look at it, but it's better not to do it
> until we know for sure that's it's legally safe.
> The SFLC (Software Freedom Law Center) might help with that.
> The people who looks at it might be prevented from writing legal free
> software firmware for such EC if they do, so beware.
>
> The talk also mention that the H8(The Thinkpad EC) have good
> documentation.
>
> References:
> -----------
> [1] 27c3-4174-en-the_hidden_nemesis.webm
> [2] http://blogs.coreboot.org/blog/tag/h8s/
> [3] http://coderpunks.org/ecdumper
>
> Denis.
> --
> coreboot mailing list: coreboot at coreboot.org
> http://www.coreboot.org/mailman/listinfo/coreboot
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