- arm-netbook - Mailman test

Re: [Arm-netbook] Verifying firmware
by Raphaël Mélotte 23 Aug '16

23 Aug '16

> > Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 21:55:31 +0100 > From: Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton <lkcl(a)lkcl.net> > To: Linux on small ARM machines <arm-netbook(a)lists.phcomp.co.uk> > Subject: Re: [Arm-netbook] Verifying firmware > Message-ID: > <CAPweEDw6dqih5=B-bod2iNU1KzpNFD9NDOhkCu7cHgUrqr2Y1g@mail. > gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 > > --- > crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68 > > > On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 9:19 PM, Raphaël Mélotte > <raphael.melotte(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > Hello, > > > > First of all I have been following the crowdfunding and mailing list > since > > the first of august (I have been using another email adress) and I have > to > > say I really like every aspect of this project and I highly respect and > > admire the ideology that goes with the project. > > thanks. it's not quiiite "ideology" - there are genuine sound and > practical business reasons for doing what we're doing. let me put it > another way: when we get to mass-volume levels would you *like* us to > be "yet another proprietary software peddler"? :) > > > > I haven't been able to pledge until now but I will make sure to do so as > > soon as I can and before the crowdfunding ends. I really want to test > what > > an EOMA68 laptop would look and behave like, and I want to replace my > tiny > > Raspberry pi server with another EOMA68 (I will also be willing to buy > more > > powerful computer cards if they ever get created). > > cool. they will. > > > Since the EOMA68 is entirely free, > > the *standard* is open (properly open), the source code is libre, and > the hardware is 99% libre, aiming for 100%. > > > I was thinking that *theoretically* it > > should be possible to read and verify every firmware, and/or binaries > > present to run the chip (I don't really know how to call it so I will > call > > it "microcode"). > > the only "microcode" - using the phrase you use - that we know of is > the eGON Boot ROM, which hno has extracted and > part-reverse-engineered, more info here: > http://linux-sunxi.org/EGON#eGON.BRM > > > More and more people are worried about the microcodes that > > are run on our hardware and being able to verify what is actually > running on > > our machine (when it boots for example) would be comforting. It seems to > me > > that it's the first time the source code for every microcode in a > computer > > will be available, since some projects tried to do so in the past, but > never > > achieved to run 100% without proprietary code (purism, novena, ...). > > there are actually plenty - many of them early beaglebone designs > especially those around the AM Sitara series - but it's the first that > could be deployed usefully in mass-volume scenarios as opposed to > "engineering only" boards. > > > From a security point of view, open source code > > no it isn't... *libre* source code is... > > > is the best option since it > > allows to check if the code being run isn't malware. However, if I don't > > verify the code present on my machine, how will I know it is the same > code > > as the source that was analyzed and that it is not malicious code ? > > well if you can't do it, at least someone else can. > > > That's > > why I'm asking if it would be possible to read the microcodes present on > the > > chip, and check them against the online source codes (kind of a checksum > ?). > > no idea. > > > That way we would be able to know if the code had been tampered with, be > it > > during shipping, after being infected by a malware that was somehow able > to > > change the boot code or some firmware, an evil maid attack, etc. > > well, we picked an "unbrickable" processor precisely so that you > could download binaries / source from a *trusted* source and re-flash > everything. > > > Just to be clear I'm not being paranoid to the point where I would > suspect > > some bad guys inserting malware in my machine during shipping (I guess > the > > country I live in is "libre" enough to not do that, > > you _are_ joking, right? :) it's *well known* that the NSA unboxes > Cisco products and other routers, installs replacement firmware *AND > CHIPS*, then boxes them back up and sends them on their way. there's > even photographs online of them carrying out these practices. > > > > but that's surely not > > the case for everyone everywhere in the world), and I will probably not > try > > to verify every firmware on the chip, but since this is one of the first > > truly free system I was asking myself if it would be possible. > > yes. > > > I also understand that as of today, checking every code on a system is > more > > an utopia then a doable thing (you'd also have to check firmware from > your > > keyboard, mouse, webcam, USB flash drive, and pretty much everything you > > connect to the main board) > > true... but here you *can* check the STM32F072's firmware (which > controls the keyboard, mouse and PMIC), and you can re-flash on every > boot should you so wish... bear in mind that's going to wreck the > on-board flash at some point, but you can do it. > > > > and may be pointless, but I'm also confident that > > in the future (maybe distant, maybe not) we will have to be able to do > so if > > we want to keep our digital life private, as everything we do is more and > > more linked to the digital world, and malware techniques are becoming > more > > and more creative (see for example BadUSB). > > yep.... not a lot that can be done about that. shoving 240v AC down > a 5v DC line is guaranteed to be disastrous, no matter what the piece > of electronics is. > > > I'm not a computer scientist and although I do my best to learn how > software > > works, I don't understand everything about hardware and I may be missing > > some important point that makes my idea impossible to realize. That's why > > I'm asking it here since you know far more about it then me. > > > > Also please forgive my written expression: I'm doing my best to express > my > > ideas clearly, but English isn't my native language and I sometimes don't > > know how to express myself to be best understood. > > doing pretty well so far > > > Anyway, I sincerely hope this project becomes a great success, and that > you > > will be able to make it grow even more. > > thanks. > > > > Thank you for your precise answer ! (As every of your answers I saw on the mailing list) Ideology probably wasn't the right word, of course I wouldn't like you to be "yet another proprietary software peddler". By the way if I got it right, you say 99% of the hardware is open because only the mali GPU isn't documented ? (but we won't use it) That is awesome ! I really didn't know that NSA was already intercepting shipments before they arrive to their destination, now I'm even more convinced that we need libre hardware for everyone. What I forgot to ask was if it was possible to read and possibly reflash firmware from the userspace, or would it require some special hardware to be connected directly to the chip like when flashing libreboot ? Anyway I guess I will find out by myself as investigate more about it. PS: I miss-configured my subscription to the mailing list and couldn't reply directly to your message. I hope this reply will get where it has to be, linked to the right thread.

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Libreboot and EOMA68
by Paul Boddie 23 Aug '16

23 Aug '16

I found this message... http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libreboot/2016-08/msg00048.html ...via the Libreboot site... https://libreboot.org/ ...which currently features the following text: "Please back the EOMA68 libre laptop. They are seeking RYF endorsement from the FSF and the FSF have published an article about them already. All they need is to win backing for the project, so that they can start shipping. If they succeed, we want to integrate the firmware for it into libreboot. See this mailing list post." The message itself includes this: "If you can afford to buy one, please back that campaign. I will be doing so too. We're working on integrating a new build system in libreboot which should make uboot and other boot firmware besides coreboot easier to merge. EOMA68 is the first non-coreboot target that I'm interested in for the next release of libreboot." Paul

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EOMA68 RYF certification, FSF, explanation
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 22 Aug '16

22 Aug '16

https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/fsf-ryf-background this update is mostly for archive / historical purposes so that it can be referred to in the future, for anyone wishing to understand why software libre is an important integral part of a business model. most notably i managed to find that article about the intel / valve-steam collaboration. also really important was paul's post as it gave a different perspective. i'm tracking down leads so that when i go to visit allwinner i can propose a few things for them. l. --- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

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Congrats!
by Joakim Seeberg 20 Aug '16

20 Aug '16

A long time ago I made a donation for one of the revisions of EOMA68. And it has been fun following the development. And just now I placed an order for a laptop kit and one EOMA68. Fantastic that you got this far Luke, congrats! -- Kind regards Mvh. Joakim

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2 ideas
by Wolfgang Romey (hier) 20 Aug '16

20 Aug '16

Hello Luke, two ideas: Have you ever thought aboat contacting Fairphone? They have similar goals. Maybe you could write an guest-article on their blog. - It would be great, if you could partner with them in the future for producing the Card with their fair substances and fairer working conditions. Would it be possible to get a card wit preinstalled nextcloud? Wolfgang -- Wolfgang Romey Krokusstraße 37 47249 Duisburg geraspora: https://pod.geraspora.de/people/9002a1416a4e4a9d loadaverage: https://loadaverage.org/hier tox: wolfgang_romey(a)toxme.se Bitte Anhänge nur in freien Formaten. Die Nachricht ist signiert, der öffentliche Schlüssel wird auf Anfrage zugeleitet.

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We hit $100K!
by Matt Campbell 19 Aug '16

19 Aug '16

I just checked the EOMA68 crowdfunding campaign page and noticed that we're up to $100,225. Now we just need a final push to raise the remaining $50,000 in the last week. Matt

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Another post in HackerBoards
by Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo 19 Aug '16

19 Aug '16

http://hackerboards.com/open-source-com-and-carriers-become-3d-printable-co… -- Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo <manuel.montezelo(a)gmail.com>

2 1

Another blog post about the campaign
by Paul Boddie 19 Aug '16

19 Aug '16

Hello, I finally got round to writing a blog post about the campaign which you can view at the following location: http://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=1314 I've tried to keep up with some of the discussions, and I hope I've managed to avoid misrepresenting anyone's position, but I felt that having read some of the misunderstandings around EOMA68 (some potentially deliberate, I suspect), it would be nice to discuss them all in a single article and to make people aware that the campaign is still taking place and worth supporting. Paul P.S. I think I'd feel like a narcissist for replying to the thread bearing my own name, but I'd still like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who sent their good wishes at that time - Luke, Manuel, Alexander, Russell, plus any others - and special thanks are due to my brother for supporting me in what has been a difficult time. Hopefully, like EOMA68, I have recovered from adversity (or have at least gone a fair way down the path of recovery) and will be able to participate a bit more in future.

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EOMA68-A20 schematics review / comparison needed - simple task.. just needs eyes
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 18 Aug '16

18 Aug '16

ok i need to do a schematic / PCB upgrade to add an extra address line to the current EOMA68-A20 PCB to be able to access 2GB of RAM instead of the current limit of 1GB. i've looked at the cost of the 2x DDR3 x16 RAM ICs and they're nuts: $9 **EACH** whereas 4x DDR3 x8 RAM ICs are $3.95 giving a total of $12 for the 2GB RAM. this is why the cubietruck has 4x DDR3 x8 whereas the cubieboard2 only has 2x DDR3 x16. to pull this off i therefore need to copy the cubietruck's schematics and make them exactly the same. so far i've spotted that there's an extra address line marked "SCS1" to pin AA4 on the EOMA68-A20 schematics (Page 5), that's marked "SA15" on the Cubietruck schematics (Page 1). what *really* needs to be done with as many eyes on it as possible is to just go over both schematics and play "spot the difference". * Page 1 of the CT schematics needs to be compared to Page 5 of the EOMA68-A20 ones * Page 4 likewise needs to be compared to Page 10. http://hands.com/~lkcl/eoma/allwinner/a20/A20_Cubietruck_HW_V10_130606.pdf http://hands.com/~lkcl/eoma/allwinner/a20/DS113-V2.2-2014-07-24.pdf now, i'm designating this page for notes: http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner/a20/DDR3_review/ feel free to edit or if difficulties reply here and i'll add the discrepancies for you. thx all. l. --- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

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Fwd: Tarrin Lupo's Youtube interview EOMA68 LUKE on Saturday 13 August.
by lkcl . 16 Aug '16

16 Aug '16

awesome fun interview during a thunderstorm a couple days ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GspUDdNlsng FYI EOMA68: The Computer that keeps your data...YOUR data. Take that, NSA! https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop "EOMA68: My Dream Machine": http://retro-freedom.nz/blog/ 2016/06/30/eoma68-my-dream-machine/ [image: logo] *🌿NSA-Free Computer is HERE! 🌿No Spyware 🌿 ▶▶▶ 3D Printed (っ'з')っ Crowd-Funded By You, Citizens of this Planet...Namaste! ❤* *, Edward Snowden "Gnu" T-shirts now available so you can WEAR your Support! 12 Great Colours Available. Check it Out!* https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop

1 0

Resource for quantifying the relative performance of the A20
by Matt Campbell 15 Aug '16

15 Aug '16

Of course, there's no substitute for trying an A20-based board and finding out if it's good enough for the tasks you need to do. And Luke's recent videos suggest that it is indeed good enough for several common tasks. But I can't be the only one who's curious about how the A20 compares to other processors, especially various x86 processors. This is where UnixBench (https://github.com/kdlucas/byte-unixbench) comes in handy. It's an open-source system benchmark suite for Unix, going back a couple of decades. Someone took the time to run UnixBench on a variety of computers, including the A20-based Cubieboard2, and published the results here: https://enchufado.com/proyectos/unixbench.html Of course, that doesn't factor in graphics performance, but I thought it might still be worth sharing. Matt

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Shipping costs again
by m016fec3 15 Aug '16

15 Aug '16

As I wrote, I now understand, what "shipping costs" means: a pledge to secure worldwide shipping. As others, I see no reason, why people in the usa should not make a pledge for that. But the situation may change in the future. As everything is (will be) free in the board, the laptop and the pc, there in no reason, why the boards and everything else are in the future not build in another countries, for example in germany. Then there would be much smaller shipping costs. So help to get the project of the ground. Wolfgang

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EOMA68-A20 PCB3 (power board) GPL KiCAD design
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 15 Aug '16

15 Aug '16

http://www.mlab.cz/WebSVN/listing.php?repname=MLAB&path=%2FModules%2FPowerS… jakub thank you very much for all this work, i've been trying to reach you for weeks to see how you're getting on :) i've added http://rhombus-tech.net/community_ideas/laptop_15in/pcb3/ to keep track of this sub-project. l. --- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

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EOMA68-A20 binary search on working / stable mainline linux kernel...
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 15 Aug '16

15 Aug '16

okaay so after 4.7.0 was discovered to be unstable, i've gone backwards to 4.0 mainline and that's working perfectly (well, i say perfectly: USB-ETH ASIX88772 sends out zero data and/or can't *receive* data) - no crashes after 10 minutes. soo... eeenterestiiing... next one to try: 4.4 l. --- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

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Speedy Devuan
by m016fec3 14 Aug '16

14 Aug '16

Hallo Luke, could you test GCompriz again on speedy devuan? Maybe it too is running faster. Wolfgang

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EOMA68 passed 1000 pledges
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 14 Aug '16

14 Aug '16

woow, we now have 1004 people backing the campaign, i'm amazed. --- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

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Hacker News comment thread on EOMA68
by Matt Campbell 13 Aug '16

13 Aug '16

I just discovered this thread, very late, and I doubt that any of the original participants are watching it now, but it might still be worthwhile to read it and see what people are saying. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12231522 Matt

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Posts on diaspora* and gnusocial
by m016fec3 13 Aug '16

13 Aug '16

https://loadaverage.org/notice/8409397 https://pod.geraspora.de/posts/5120606 Wolfgang

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EOMA68 STM32F072-NUCLEO azerty keyboard update
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 12 Aug '16

12 Aug '16

https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/french-keyboard-su… oleeeee, one AZERTY keyboard demo, thank you to albert :) l. --- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

1 0

FSF-Blog-Post about the EOMA68-Project
by m016fec3 12 Aug '16

12 Aug '16

Hi, there has been a b log-post about the EOMA68-Project on the fsf/licensing-blog: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/support-the-libre-tea-computer-card-a-c… In the post it reads: "We encourage you to back the Libre Tea Computer Card. We'll have to do another evaluation once it is actually produced to be sure it meets our certification standards, but we have high hopes. Their funding deadline is August 26th, so don't delay!" Wolfgang

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EOMA68 - FSF blog on its way
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 12 Aug '16

12 Aug '16

http://www.fsf.org/blogs to keep an eye on --- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

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Question about money raised by crowdfunding campaign / achieving the goal
by Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo 12 Aug '16

12 Aug '16

Hi, There has been a bump in the last few hours and the campaing went up to over 70k, yay \o/ Reading the article on liliputing [1], I saw this, which surprised me: "The campaign has raised over $60,000 so far, which is less than half way to the goal of $150,000. But Leighton tells me that if he raises around $100,000 he expects to be able to begin production of the items people are ordering: the higher dollar amount was chosen under the assumption that more people would be making pledges for higher-priced items." But my understanding of how crowdsupply works is that they only get the money from the pledges if the campaign goal is achieved. As an example, and again "AFAIUI", if the campaign had been set up so that there was a "base goal" of 70k$ and one or several "stretch goals" up to 150k, the money would have been collected at this very moment (when it just reached 70k); but as things stand with how the campaign was set up, it's an all-or-nothing at 150k. So, in the case that the goal is not achieved, what's the plan to begin production if the money cannot be collected? Cheers. [1] http://liliputing.com/2016/08/new-options-added-emoa68-pc-card-crowdfunding… -- Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo <manuel.montezelo(a)gmail.com>

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Just reached 75.000!
by m016fec3 12 Aug '16

12 Aug '16

Just reached 75.000! hopefully going on. Wolfgang

3 3

Keyboard news
by Albert ARIBAUD 10 Aug '16

10 Aug '16

Hi all, For those following dev on the EC, I've just tested transposing the matrix rows and columns, which worked as expected, that is, exactly the same as before transposing (including ghosting), but doing 40 GPIO accesses for a whole scan instead of 64. The only problem I hit was specific to the NUCLEO: I had already replaced keyboard GPIOs PA2, PA3 and PA5, which are used on the NUCLEO, with PA13, PA14 and PA15, but I only just noticed that PA13 and PA14 are also used (for ST-Link/V2.1) so I had to change again, this time for PA8, PA9 and PA10 which are unused as far as I can tell from scrubbing the NUCLEO reference manual. I'll push the changes tomorrow. I have not started implementing priority policy or ghost jamming yet, because I'm still thinking over how to implement both in the most economic way. Amicalement, -- Albert.

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EOMA68-A20 web browser performance
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 10 Aug '16

10 Aug '16

https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/web-browser-perfor… especially this was for you, wolfgang, as you asked about web browsers. i did an honest appraisal showing how there are some ways to improve things. l. --- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

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