So now RAM will also have firmware blobs [ARGH!]

cracauer@

cracauer@

Developer
www.techpowerup.com

Rivals Samsung and SK hynix Join Forces to Standardize LPDDR6-PIM Technology

Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are working together to standardize "Low Power Double Data Rate 6 (LPDDR6) - Processing in Memory (PIM)" technology according to a report from Business Korea. This collaboration seeks to accelerate the development of low power memory products. The cooperation is...
www.techpowerup.com www.techpowerup.com

And it gets worse. You might ask - how can RAM have firmware when it doesn't know what processor architecture it is getting stuffed into. That's easy: just put an extra processor on the RAM module.

That's a complete nightmare for secure computing. The in-RAM-module processor could carefully look for desired patterns and then strategically exchange contents delivered to the system processor until select circumstances. It would be trivial to subvert random numbers.

DOES NOT WANT
 
cracauer@ said:
www.techpowerup.com

Rivals Samsung and SK hynix Join Forces to Standardize LPDDR6-PIM Technology

Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are working together to standardize "Low Power Double Data Rate 6 (LPDDR6) - Processing in Memory (PIM)" technology according to a report from Business Korea. This collaboration seeks to accelerate the development of low power memory products. The cooperation is...
www.techpowerup.com www.techpowerup.com

And it gets worse. You might ask - how can RAM have firmware when it doesn't know what processor architecture it is getting stuffed into. That's easy: just put an extra processor on the RAM module.

That's a complete nightmare for secure computing. The in-RAM-module processor could carefully look for desired patterns and then strategically exchange contents delivered to the system processor until select circumstances. It would be trivial to subvert random numbers.

DOES NOT WANT
Click to expand...
There is a very simple solution to this. Dont buy new hardware, dont use it, dont chase trends, dont be an idiot.
 
cracauer@ said:
Then you deal with all the hardware vulnerabilities and not updated BIOSes.
Click to expand...
Not if you are very selective with your hardware. There are several motherboards from MSI and Intel that support core boot bios and even Intel ME removal. RISC-V is also an option if you are ready for compromises. As you probably know, privacy is all about the compromises. So getting a slower RISC-V system that is super secure is the tradeoff i am willing to accept. But again, thats just me.
 
Ohhh, I can smell what the CCC will have to show at the congress. This is gonna be great.

Last year "Someone" (as if nobody would guess) placed spyware on the phones of Kaspersky people, only to see the exploit chain (with 0days) burn up in public.
 
Even cables have chips these days (and have for at least a decade or two).

There are several possible solutions. One is to make sure the external network is well sealed, and doesn't allow data to enter or leave (except data we like, for example if it is chocolate-flavored). Another one is to buy all your hardware as an integrated system from a trusted supplier. And neither Amazon nor Alibaba are trusted suppliers, nor is Ebay or tables at the flea market.
 
Crivens said:
Ohhh, I can smell what the CCC will have to show at the congress. This is gonna be great.

Last year "Someone" (as if nobody would guess) placed spyware on the phones of Kaspersky people, only to see the exploit chain (with 0days) burn up in public.
Click to expand...
Or becomes the next exploding pager
 
cracauer@ said:
www.techpowerup.com

Rivals Samsung and SK hynix Join Forces to Standardize LPDDR6-PIM Technology

Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are working together to standardize "Low Power Double Data Rate 6 (LPDDR6) - Processing in Memory (PIM)" technology according to a report from Business Korea. This collaboration seeks to accelerate the development of low power memory products. The cooperation is...
www.techpowerup.com www.techpowerup.com

And it gets worse. You might ask - how can RAM have firmware when it doesn't know what processor architecture it is getting stuffed into. That's easy: just put an extra processor on the RAM module.

That's a complete nightmare for secure computing. The in-RAM-module processor could carefully look for desired patterns and then strategically exchange contents delivered to the system processor until select circumstances. It would be trivial to subvert random numbers.

DOES NOT WANT
Click to expand...
Not how I read this. This is Processor-in-Memory (PIM) model so that you can avoid memory i/o for things like search. A DRAM can read a whole row at once but it ladles it out n bits at a time to the CPU due to memory bus width limits (why the first access takes a few cycles but further sequential accesses each take 1 cycle). By processing right in the memory you only avoid this bottleneck for data that doesn't match your search criteria (or whatever your LLVM wants). "Standardizing" likely means they agree on the PIM instruction set or some such.

This is not going to replace standard memory. At least not for a few years (by which time we may come down from our current AI hope cloud)!

[Edit: I recall posting about in-memory-processing on comp.arch 25+ years back though I can't find the article right now. Back then it was considered very unlikely....]
 
I can't even afford DDR5 I might have to sell my house to afford memory in the future.
Maybe I will wait for DDR6-Lite.
Now with AI Quantum Fusion Accelerator included.
 
AI has boosted the price of DRAM by a factor of ten.

I have no need to buy more in the near term,

I’m building a PC for my grandson and am appalled at the cost of a modest 32gb of DDR5
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top