AMD PSB Vendor Locks EPYC CPUs for Enhanced Security at a Cost - <AUTHOR> https://www.servethehome.com/amd-psb-vendor-locks-epyc-cpus-for-enhanced-security-at-a-cost/ <comment><USER3> Manufacturers push the term "gray market" to imply that resold goods are somehow bad and people who sell them are participating in something like an illegal black market. Reselling equipment is a normal part of doing business. There's nothing gray about it.

There is no separate market for new products that have been bought from manufacturers and resold. It's just one market. We don't need to refer to something that doesn't exist, so we don't need a special term for it.

The term "gray market" is linguistic manipulation to benefit manufacturers at the expense of customers, society, and the environment. Let's stop using the term.

For products that have been used, we have a "second-hand market".

<comment><USER4> In Europe there is indeed a market for new products that have been bought from manufacturers and resold right away, that's what's called a grey market. This happens because suppliers tend to use different pricing in countries with a different purchasing power, in order to extract more consumer surplus.

It's not uncommon that if you buy the cheapest product in a webshop in Northern Europe you will find it has a Polish user manual when it arrives. It's not illegal to do that (although suppliers would probably like it to be).

The same happens with servers, just compare USD and EUR prices on the Dell website.

<comment><USER5> It should not be considered a grey market. But it should be considered illegal to grossly vary prices inside the EU region. It's an extremely anti consumer practice and all it does is, as you say, extract more money from the consumers.

<comment><USER4> There actually are rules that say you cannot charge different prices depending on the location of the buyer, but suppliers trivially manage to circumvent that by making a tiny change and giving it a different SKU.

Although I understand the sentiment, I'm not sure I would like additional legislation to try to prevent that. Even if you do manage to make that water tight the end result will probably mean higher prices for the consumers in countries with low purchasing power.

<comment><USER5> At no point will the manufacture or distributers sell at a loss unless it's for strategical reasons. Perhaps the prices will go up in the countries with lower purchasing power, but it's bound to go down in the countries with higher purchasing power. That may or may not be intentional, but it's clearly possible to sell it at the low price, so they could just do that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So this basically seems like the AMD equivalent of Intel Boot Guard, except that the keyfusing seems to be done on the CPU, not the PCH.

What I'm hearing here is that Dell, HP, etc. are designing their firmware to keyfuse any unfused CPU it sees to their firmware automatically, silently, and without any prompting whatsoever. And that AMD apparently has no problem with this.

In no way, shape or form is this a reasonable design. A boot prompt before basically quasi-destroying (for many purposes) a CPU would be the only reasonable thing to do. "This operation is irreversible and will render the CPU unusable in other machines", etc.

I'm wondering if Dell etc. could be sued for this.

>Outside of x86, IBM POWER10 is making a push for enhanced security, so the will need to have a silicon root of trust to enable their security feature set.

If this were true, this would make POWER10 dead-on-arrival in terms of being something Raptor is willing to ship. Comments made by Raptor don't suggest this and suggest they will be able to ship POWER10 eventually, so it doesn't seem likely.

Keyfusing is an excessively brittle technology, can't support key rollover (you're stuck with one key forever, or at best can change it only a couple of times, depending on the size of OTP), and is basically unusable for owner controlled (not vendor controlled) secure boot.

<comment><USER7> Having such a prompt doesn't really alleviate any of the concerns in this article. I still have to worry about that when buying a second hand CPU, except now I'm even less sure, because sure the CPU came out of a Dell, but maybe the owner never fused it.

<comment><USER8> If the CPU doesn't perform as advertised you can always return it. The only hope here may be putting enough pressure on Dell and whoever else to make their components worthless on the second hand market.

I've been involved in more than one purchasing decision where the ability to resell the parts was factored into the sticker price.

<comment><USER9> > If the CPU doesn't perform as advertised you can always return it.

For second-hand CPUs? Not likely.

<comment><USER8> Nope, very likely. In Kansas at least it is explicitly impossible to disclaim an implied warranty or suitability for a particular purpose. Most other states are actually de facto the same -- how can you sell something without it addressing some need of the purchaser?

If it doesn't fulfill that need, even second hand, you can get your money back.

<comment><USER9> Ali Express doesn't care about your local laws. Neither does Craigslist, nor eBay. If you're buying a Dell from Dell, then sure, but that's never been the problem anyway.

<comment><USER8> If someone sells to you they must operate under your state's laws. You can easily bring suit against them in small claims or real court, but you probably won't even need to do that as you can just get a chargeback.

What you are suggesting is absurd. Craigslist, Ebay, Paypal, and the people selling using those platforms are above the law?

<comment><USER9> I can see how you'd think that if you'd never tried to do any of these things, but in reality there's what the law says and then there's what you can actually get the law to do. Those are sometimes very, very different things. This is one of those times.

It sounds like you might not be familiar with any of the platforms in question. But no, you can't do either of those things to the kinds of people who deliberately sell defective parts on ebay and Craigslist. Or at least, you won't once you figure out what's actually involved.

I would say beside as opposed to above, but it sums to the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The "this is for security" argument would make sense if they only locked CPUs that were sold by the vendor together with the motherboard, or if they had an action that an administrator could affirmatively take to lock the CPU.

But automatically, permanently "poisoning" any CPU that's inserted into the socket after a single boot? That sounds like it's being done for economic reasons.

They want to turn the used CPU market into a sketchball market for lemons so that everyone is so scared that they only buy board+CPU combos directly from the vendor rather than trying to save a few pennies here and there.

<comment><USER11> I don't know, when you think about what makes easier (cheaper) for the vendor, this way they just have to assemble the CPUs into the motherboards and ship the systems like they always have.

I can't see that the market for enterprise system is heavily affected by grey market CPUs. Their customers are by and large buying these systems built & configured, and racking them up as they come.

It'd be nice if there was a jumper you could set on the motherboard to stop it claiming a CPU though (maybe there even is?).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Its not really vendor locking by design. It locks to a signing key. That key COULD be shared between vendors or even a single vendor could have multiple incompatible keys.

It provides a mechanism to prove the entire boot process hasn't been tampered with, but I wish AMD provided a way to run these fused processors in a generic way without the security chain, with it just reporting that there isn't a secure root of trust. However I assume they are afraid of that allowing malicious code to fool deeper parts of the system without the system administrator knowing.

So good for security, but bad for e-waste and second hand sales.

<comment><USER13> >So good for security, but bad for e-waste and second hand sales

I concur, but it's true for even consumer devices like smartphones. Once the software updates stop, if security is the key then the devices are e-waste. Many times, I wish there was an International law which forces manufacturers to unlock their device when they stop pushing software updates to their device, so that alternate firmware can be installed. Of course this is just a wishful thinking, even those who abandoned their smartphone segment entirely(MS) didn't do this, So why would those who run profitable business out of planned obsolescence do it?

<comment><USER14> It almost seems that a law like that would be something out of a sci-fi or cyberpunk universe.

<comment><USER15> We live in a cyberpunk universe. The only think it got wrong was aesthetic.

<comment><USER16> Instead of grunge everything is covered in RGB LEDs. Literally almost everyone my age has RGB LEDs everywhere. All over their rooms and not to mention keyboards.

<comment><USER17> Bright neon-colored lighting is a big part of the cyberpunk aesthetic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If I put a cpu in a server (Dell, HP, whatever), and that CPU then doesn't function in other equipment, than that cpu is _broken_. That's not an exaggeration in any way.

So, the server maker then owes me a new cpu (of the same model obviously) that does work.

It'll be interesting to see the legal fallout from this, as purposely breaking customer owned gear is not going to end well.

<comment><USER19> No one owes you anything if the CPU functions exactly as advertised.

If you don't want a platform-secured CPU, don't buy one.

<comment><USER20> Nobody advertises irreparable damage. This testing lab found out the hard way and then had to follow up with the vendors to get an explanation.

<comment><USER21> This entirely depends on individual's perspective.

As Chris mentioned, this is exactly what Big Corp™ wants. They'll be the ones buying it too, and would likely pay extra for such a feature. They're the target market for these vendors.

Thus, sure, for those looking to buy second hand, this is indeed advertising irreparable damage. But for Big Corp™, this is advertising security (in my opinion quite rightly so), and ensuring their data isn't stolen.

<comment><USER22> And what happens when old hardware is resold? How can anyone trust any future excorp hardware?

<comment><USER21> Well you don't. But corportations don't really care about that as much as they care about their data.

Admittedly it feels like AMD could have created something that allows the chip to be reset providing you have the original signing keys.

<comment><USER20> They should at least disclose to all prospective buyers that a current chip cannot be reset, and how to tell which firmware CA it's stuck on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I am beyond sick of this "security" justification being used for everything. At the end of the day, the only thing really being secured are the greedy vendor's profits.

<comment><USER24> Well, the market is free for someone to offer a processor that doesn't care about "security" (whether it is or isn't the excuse you deem it to be), and we could see if that offering is successful. Maybe there's a new role for something like that. Cursing the situation won't do any good.

<comment><USER25> You mean that's going to surely happen, because the server CPU market has traditionally been easy to enter due to low R&D costs, steady avaibility of qualified engineers, cheap manufacturing equipment and customers eager to adopt unknown brands? /s

<comment><USER24> Well then, maybe you have to live with some inconveniences and higher costs than you would like, because of the natural market dynamics?

You pointed out all those factors to say that they're reasons why CPU OEMs should be able to make all your dreams about price, quality, speed, open hardware come true?

<comment><USER25> It was about the market being difficult to enter. If you disagree, prove me: I hereby pledge to buy one CPU (needs to be a custom design) + mainboard designed and manufactured by supernova87a, and am willing to pay 800 US$, due 3m after delivery, conditional: It runs my Linux &Windows software like a, and performs at least equally or better than a, then-new system costing up to 400US$ (for cpu+mb, so today something like a Ryzen 1600). This agreement expires on 1.1.2025 0:00 UTC. Your call, do you agree? - Edit, also for balancing reasons: What do I get from you if you fail?

(Since I know you're not getting a x86 license that's an easy call for me - <USER2> know for sure you're unable to tap into that market)

<comment><USER26> how about 800 million dollars US, it will be the same result.

<comment><USER25> You're right, but: In the unlikely case a random person on the internet succeeds (who knows what happens in the next 5 years, or who s/he is?), I am out of 800US$. For something that I think is a good idea. In case of 800m US$, well, I'm a little bit embarrassed to admit that I can't afford that right now ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> These kind of DRM-like 'security' features starting being implemented first with phones and consoles and then has spread throughout the entire industry like a cancer.

Many of the features of the AMD PSP could be implemented as hardwired logic, no need for a CPU for that. And thus no chance of malware being able to run undiscovered.

It's like Orwellian doublespeak, in fact the Platform Security Processor might well be making the entire system less secure. Because we cannot inspect the content of the eFuse ROM how do we know if a state level adversary has placed code in there to weaken the system security?

Note: On the nVidia Tegra platform the eFuse ROM can contain executable code to patch the boot-up process, as Nintendo has done with the Switch console. It's likely that AMD has such similar functionality.

So the PSP could be cracked, and then CPUs can be eFused with malware before shipping the server, and nobody would know that there's an easily exploitable vulnerability now present.

I guess one of the real purposes of the PSP is to protect AMD's security and prevent the user from unlocking disabled cores, boosting clock frequencies, retrieving HDCP keys, etc. on both CPUs and GPUs. So it's partly to prevent the owner from doing what they want with the hardware.

<comment><USER27> AMD should realize they are tarnishing their own brand reputation with the inclusion of the PSP and the recent CPU lockdown.

Even though it's a server CPU that's affected by the lockdown, stories like this are definitely not well received by the enthusiast and gamer communities and draw attention to such anti-features like the PSP. Knowing that there's a special processor inside the CPU specifically designed to prevent you from unlocking cores, etc. would NOT be good PR for AMD at all. I am using a Ryzen system right now and I regret buying it, I wish I went with Intel instead. At least the management engine has been cracked, unlike AMD's AFAIK.

It's about time we looked into a legal response to this behavior, just as with John Deere farm equipment, it will likely not stop unless fines are imposed or some kind of consumer boycott occurs.

Regarding the CPU lockdown, even Intel wouldn't do such a thing. Surely isn't it anti-competitive to lock the CPU to a specific system in this way? What would the EU think about this regarding e-waste and recycling? And I believe in Australia the ACCC would crack down very hard on such shenanigans?

<comment><USER27> AMD, you removed the TrueAudio block from your older Radeon GPUs, couldn't you cut the PSP and implement some of its functionality using logic instead of a CPU? So the first thing to boot will be an x86 core, as it did in the old days. A physical jumper can be used to disable the security functions and remote attestation (to a server on the LAN) can be used to determine if CPUs are running in secure mode or not? Thus satisfying the needs of corporate users?

Removing the PSP will eliminate the negative PR it creates together with the associated security risk of having a secret part of the CPU where malware can hide.

On GPUs HDCP functionality can be implemented with ROM-based microcontrollers as it did on older hardware?

<comment><USER27> In many jurisdictions the product has to be 'fit for purpose', should the PSP be cracked and a hacker able to use it to _assist_ malware wouldn't that make AMD's product not fit for purpose???

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> How many exploits/breaches in the wild due to open s3 bucket, default admin passwd to database, poorly written webshit code, plaintext password, etc. ? And how many prevented by secure boot, boot guard, memory encryption, ME, PSP etc. ? Other than obvious money reasons for Dell, people seem to be vastly overestimating their threat models. And even for the secure chain of trust, there are ways to do so where the owner has the key, not the vendor. See heads for example.

<comment><USER29> Or, those scenarios just don't make the news as frequent as script kiddie stuff. We only learned about what NSA has been up to because Snowden happened.

<comment><USER30> If I want to protect against the NSA I'm worried about them using Intel ME, AMD PSP and other black boxes to hack me. I don't worry that much about them sneaking into my data center or house and physically changing my hardware.

The security you lose from having a black box in your CPU is much greater than the security you win by virtue of being (theoretically) protected against unsigned bootloaders and rogue hardware.

<comment><USER29> I merely provided NSA as an example of how advanced attack vectors might go unnoticed for decades.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is bullshit. Unless it clearly says at boot 'continuing will permanently prevent your CPU from being used in a non Dell computer y/n?' they are asking for a lawsuit for damaging hardware

<comment><USER22> In fact Australian Consumer Law flat out holds them liable for costs due to problems a seller could have reasonably foreseen

<comment><USER31> Do consumer laws apply to businesses in Australia? Because afaik, in the EU regretfully a lot of laws that protect consumers against abuse from vendors, do not apply to B2B/enterprise transactions.

On the other hand, there have been people who have warned about the dangers of CPU vendors putting Management Engines in their products, which are outside of the control of end users (by design). One of those concerns was the ability to rig sales or even kill off second hand markets markets all together. Apparently, this have already become a reality now.

I'm not surprised it's sold as security feature, just as terrorism and child pornography have been magic words in other fields. But at the end of the day, vendors stand to substantially increase their control on sales and with it their profits, with features that may only be significant in edge cases. That smells a lot like an antitrust issue to me. That all vendors are likely try to move in this same direction, as an opportunity to make more profit, doesn't make it any less devious. All the more reason for antitrust investigators to start looking into this.

<comment><USER32> > Do consumer laws apply to businesses in Australia? Because afaik, in the EU > regretfully a lot of laws that protect consumers against abuse from vendors, > do not apply to B2B/enterprise transactions.

Yes. Consumer protections apply to everyone. Within Australia, those protections are considered the "bare minimum" that must be implemented by every business, across the board.

Certain industries have other protections they must implement atop of those.

<comment><USER31> If that's true, and I have to admit that's a big surprise for me, then I'm glad to hear that. At least for Australia.

I'm not even sure if the following is uniform across the EU, but I have always assumed (maybe even been told) that it is. Where I come from (The Netherlands), (afaik) when you do business with another business then consumer protection laws don't apply.

The rational appears to be that as a business you don't need the same kind of protection as a consumer. It's considered the risk of doing business, and companies suing each other in court (e.g. for fraud) is considered to be less unbalanced than it would be for private individual (consumer) against a company, in terms of (financial/legal) means.

In reality there probably are different (less savory) historical reasons behind it too, maybe even the preservation of the "natural power distribution" (euphemism for the already wealthy to stay that way) between smaller and larger businesses. That's at least how I have heard it being justified politically. Meanwhile, good luck suing a large company if you're a smaller business yourself. Either way, as I already implied, I think that's more or less by design.

Great if Australia is more egalitarian on that subject. If not for all of nature tring to kill me at every second there, I'd seriously consider immigrating over this xD

<comment><USER32> There is some nuance with the Australian laws, but for the most part, the protections exist: [0]

When you buy goods or services for your business which are:

\+ under $40,000

\+ over $40,000 and normally bought for personal, domestic or household use or consumption

\+ vehicles and trailers used mainly to transport goods on public roads

your business will be considered a consumer and entitled to certain remedies under the consumer guarantees if something goes wrong.

\---

As an EPYC CPU doesn't cost more than $40,000 per unit (closer to $8,000 from what I've found), it would fall under the guarantees.

Australian laws are still skewed in favour of the larger companies, but one place where the law tends not to fall down is consumer protections.

[0] [https://www.accc.gov.au/business/business-rights- protections...](https://www.accc.gov.au/business/business-rights- protections/business-rights)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> It should be illegal to lock devices like that. Pure corporate greed. It is sad that as soon as AMD restored its glory they gone for a cheap cash grab. It should be easy to tell that device is running unsigned boot loader without blocking it (e.g. a jumper on the motherboard). If attacker is able to switch a jumper, then you have bigger problems than a boot loader. Community should nip this in the bud and out AMD.

<comment><USER34> Did you even read the article? AMD is shipping everything unlocked, it's the OEMs that can choose to active this feature.

Certainly it's a debate whether such feature should exist in the first place, but presumably OEMs are the driving force behind this, so they see a need.

<comment><USER35> This is the work of AMD together with the OEMs.

AMD wins because it destroys the secondary market, driving up the prices they can charge for new CPUs.

The OEMs win because once you've put your CPUs into Dell servers, you can't just buy different servers and move your CPUs over (e.g. to reuse CPUs from servers that broke in other ways or were decomissioned for other reasons), so you have a higher hurdle when switching to a competitor. Payment from AMD could also be involved, because I think AMD has more to win here.

You as a CPU buyer, or a buyer of services that cost more if CPUs cost more (aka everything), lose, as does the environment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This may well be a case of the vendor does this, they get a better price as removes all aspects of reselling the CPU's on and the whole grey market risk - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_market](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_market)

Large vendor, such details may mean a few dollars saving on the CPU's and that will add up. For many it won't be an issue, more a gotcha for the second hand market upon those thinking they can buy and part it out. So down the line, this is going to make some second hand CPU's a real gotcha unless these chips have identifiable visible marking.

</comment><comment><USER37> That seems absurd, why not just clear the secure area (or make it inaccessible until cleared) if the processor detects a different firmware instead of not booting?

Looks like they might be doing this intentionally to get some sort of financial gain: perhaps the plan is that this would lead to less used AMD chips being resold and thus more AMD chips bought from AMD itself and more profit for AMD?

Even then, why would Dell play along? Is AMD contractually forcing them to create a firmware that locks the chips? What about the massive liability of customers demanding refunds or suing them because the Dell firmware irreparably damaged their CPUs?

</comment><comment><USER35> If this was about actual security, not destroying the secondary market, the obvious solution for this would be providing a way to "factory reset" the CPU using a pin that is normally physically disconnected.

An attacker that breaks into your datacenter to physically reset the CPU could also swap it, so once you have physical access, the security argument doesn't hold. OEMs/recyclers could simply plug each CPU into a testing/resetting jig that has this connected, or mainboards could have a jumper for it.

Disgusting.

Edit: I wonder if this will enable a new category of ransomware. "Pay us (half the current value of your CPUs) to get your firmware signed with the key that we just locked all the CPUs in your fleet to".

</comment><comment><USER38> Why does this require to blow fuses? Just store a secret into the CPU that can only be unset if the same secret is provided again. It could be totally reversible, as long as you know the secret, that way the lock could be removed when decommissioning the system.

With a tiny bit more fancy crypto one could also generate per-system unlock keys so that a vendor doesn't have to reveal his master lock or something like that.

Unlocking bootloaders is a solved problem on android. Why introduce a worse solution that creates vendor lock-in?

<comment><USER39> > _Why introduce a worse solution that creates vendor lock-in?_

Obviously in order to create vendor lock-in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I don't understand what this secures, with the exception of Dell's profit.

If it locks the CPU to a certain manufacturer, all an attacker has to do is get an identical new system and swap the CPUs.

Besides, what matters is the data on the storage. Is it encrypted with keys stored on the CPU? If it's not, how does this help?

<comment><USER41> I may be wrong, but as far as I understand the most likely scenario it protects against is a tampered bootloader. Someone could inject malware in there and then the whole chain of trust of secure computing breaks.

<comment><USER40> Ok, that makes sense.

What does not make sense is that it's not optional.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I honestly don't see why the CPUs couldn't from the factory contain a public key from AMD, and from there AMD issues certificates to firmware vendors to sign their firmware with. This would allow the CPU to 'verify' the certificate chain of the firmware that is being used without locking it to a specific vendor. This decreases security a little because the leakage of a single signing certificate means you can malicious firmware on any device but it seems like its much more consumer friendly.

</comment><comment><USER43> Does this defend against any additional attack surface that wasn't already defended by the UEFI Secure Boot standard?

<comment><USER44> Yes, UEFI Secure Boot defends against OS/bootloader malware while this defends against flashing malware into the UEFI firmware itself.

<comment><USER45> Wait so if i flash malware into the firmware, i should also have a spare fresh EPYC CPU i could install?

<comment><USER46> Yes, I think that would be a valid way to bypass the protection.

With physical access you can bypass just about any protection given enough money and time. In a data centre context, the damage you can do is rapidly minimised by rapidly increasing the amount of capital and time required to access more of the DC.

The more important change is that without this feature, malware could theoretically install itself into the firmware without requiring physical access. Now it should be just about impossible to break the chain of trust without a person physically tampering with the machine.

Note: I should mention that I think this is such a massive double edged sword (maybe double edged shield is a better term). This lets you build a threat model that accounts for everything up to physical access. This however also has such a massive opportunity to be an incredibly anti-consumer feature that I fear to see how it will be used. I wish they would have required a physical switch to enable/disable the feature. I do however understand how adding such a feature could complicate its implementation quite a bit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> This sounds reasonable. I mean to bypass this lock our criminal would have to ... replace the CPU and continue attack like nothing happened. Totally infeasible, inconceivable even! proving this was introduced for safety and not Vendor_lock-in!!!1

</comment><comment> non-entity I get why its done, but all this locking down of modern systems is making me rapidly lose interest in computing.

</comment><comment><USER48> I can think of two scenarios where this security feature is helpful.

First, somebody breaks into a server room, replaces the motherboard with a compromised one, and notices mid replacement that they forgot a processor. (Since the processor locks during first boot, it is of no use if the supply chain is compromised before the first boot. On the other hand, I would imagine somebody willing to break into a data center to replace a motherboard would also be willing to do all kinds of other shenanigans, like bringing another processor.)

The second scenario is, somebody thinks about buying a used instead of an new processor.

<comment><USER49> Well, the security key of VM is stored in the CPU, so you can't replace CPU unless you can enter the console, copy the data out and re-encrypt it with key from another CPU.

While if you can do this, you don't need to replace mother board/CPU anyway because you already pwned them and copy/modify the data whatever you want.

<comment><USER50> > Well, the security key of VM is stored in the CPU

What security key? Do you mean the memory encryption key? We're talking about a powered off machine, so that's irrelevant.

<comment><USER51> Memory and Virtual Machines

<comment><USER50> Please explain better.

The article talks about virtual machines as a _subset_ of memory encryption. It also specifically says "ephemeral keys". Not ones that would be preserved across a shutdown.

What is encrypted on a powered-off server that the CPU knows the key to?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I'm not as sketched out about this as if it were single socket workstation ryzen/threadripper CPUs. In the market from $1000 to $6000 workstation desktops where enthusiasts and people with specific requirements (or just 10, 15, 20 years of experience building x86-64 PCs themselves) would want to build their own desktop from individual components ordered off Newegg.

I doubt more than a single digit percentage of 'serious' dual socket (64-128+ core) rackmount server customers are going to be buying their own barebones motherboards and CPUs and assembling it themselves. They're going to buy it from a Dell, HP or a Supermicro integrator or similar. If you're buying a $12,000+ server with 128 cores and 512GB to 4TB+ of RAM and some fast NVME storage it's highly unlikely you're putting it together yourself.

Any massive hosting/cloud scale operations that want to DIY their own EPYC systems from pieces will be doing it through a Taiwanese integrator, such as those that supply the ecosystem components for open compute platform server motherboards. And as such they'll also not encounter any technical issues or procurement issues with this. At the point where you have two $3000 CPUs on a motherboard that costs $1200, the full firmware/motherboard/CPU integration and qualification process is very different than putting a $399 ryzen into a $300 board.

<comment><USER53> Not yet. We will in 5 years time when their resale value meets our budgets.

I work in a rather budget-constrained lab environment. "Beg, borrow, steal" is the order of the day. Just today I was pricing out pre-loved Gen8 HPs. In 5 years time I could be exactly the hypothetical the article outlines.

This isn't today's problem - it's a problem we're creating today. We'll hit it when your examples start retiring them and my example are eager to recycle them.

<comment><USER52> Yes - and no, I know lots of people including myself who have things like older dual socket Dell R710 as home test hypervisor servers. Also a very tiny percentage of people will bother to ever upgrade the CPUs on them.

For home lab stuff... When people buy a $200 used Dell R610 off ebay with two 8-core CPUs they most likely expect to use it in the exact same CPU configuration. Maybe add RAM. And probably use their own choice of SATA 6Gbps SSD in the drive trays instead of whatever old, possibly unreliable used spinning drives might come with it.

I have a 4U, quad socket Dell R910 with 32 total cores and 256GB of RAM that I got for $350. I'm absolutely not going to go messing around with replacing the CPUs on it with something I've purchased from ebay. When it's too old or slow, or I'm tired of having a 500W electrical load in my garage, I'll replace it with another thing that's come off a 3-4 year lease cycle.

<comment><USER54> I have never purchased a used server and aruck with the included CPU's, they're either power hungry beasts or bottom-rung SKU's. All of my 12th gen PowerEdge servers at home run E5-2450L's (they're all -EN platforms), for example. The one exception is the R210 II I use as a firewall/router.

<comment><USER52> By percentage the number of 1U/2U servers sold with ultra power efficient CPUs is fairly low. When people buy those new they will absolutely be going for CPUs that are 85W to 130W TDP per socket, times two sockets.

As a person that's formerly worked for a server manufacturer for a number of years I would say that the mid to upper performance range of the CPU market is 80%+ of the servers by volume. The other 10% is either the very low power models, and the top 10% of the units sold by volume are the very most expensive CPUs available at the time.

If you buy a used 1U Dell R610 with two six-core CPUs and 64GB of RAM, nobody should be surprised that a 120VAC watt meter at the wall shows it idling at 150W power consumption, with cpu load at 0.00... [surprisedpikachu.gif]

<comment><USER54> I mean, they don't have to be the ultra-efficient ones - but for my home lab use I want < 100W idle usage and even my R520 can handle that with the 2450L's (Ivy Bridge-EN could do this without the L suffixed SKU's, but HCC chips in that family were more expensive when I was buying).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> This would be better if there were a physical-only method to factory reset the CPU, instead of blowing fuses.

</comment><comment><USER56> What problem is this trying to solve? Is there that much of a black market for data center CPUs?

<comment><USER57> BIOS (UEFI) level rootkits

<comment><USER58> I managed to get that much from the article but I still feel I'm missing a few pieces here. Are UEFI rootkits an actual concern, like are they common in the wild? Why should the responsibility of detecting them rest with the processor? How is this related to the Secure Encrypted Virtualization?

<comment><USER59> > Are UEFI rootkits an actual concern, like are they common in the wild?

If one segment needs to worry about UEFI rootkits, it's cloud vendors. Very dedicated (nation-state sponsored) attackers could burn/use a zero-day hypervisor escape to installs a UEFI rootkit that tampers with the processor's integrated HSM (as said in the article, tampering with it has already happened and the exploits have been patched by AMD). As I understand it, If a vendor uses full memory encryption, the above exploit could lead to decrypting and exfiltrating other customers' data.

<comment><USER60> Cloud vendors should be using coreboot, not UEFI.

<comment><USER61> One of the cloud vendors _created_ UEFI.

<comment><USER60> Then they know full well how bad it is!

*Jokes aside, I think Intel created UEFI (for Itanium?), not Microsoft?

<comment><USER61> The consortium has AMD, Intel, and Microsoft listed as contributors, so even if they didn't initially create the thing, they had a hand in it. The executable format used for UEFI is PE, which is telling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.

</comment><comment><USER63> Sorry to be blunt, but am I correct that this is a measure against tampering with servers by Chinese intelligence during the customs process? In that case, are the CPUs themselves signed or could they be replaced after modifying the motherboard?

Because otherwise it's really hard why the website would claim that every end user would be enthused about these lock-ins. Sort of weird statement.

<comment><USER11> No, it's about stopping BIOS-level rootkits from being installed when someone remotely compromises the machine.

<comment><USER47> No, its about shutting down secondary server hardware market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The article was updated with new info from HPE:

"HPE does not use the same security technique that Dell is using for a BIOS hardware root of trust. HPE does not burn, fuse, or permanently store our public key into AMD processors which ship with our products. HPE uses a unique approach to authenticate our BIOS and BMC firmware: HPE fuses our hardware – or silicon – root of trust into our own BMC silicon to ensure only authenticated firmware is executed. Thus, while we implement a hardware root of trust for our BIOS and BMC firmware, the processors that ship with our servers are not locked to our platforms. (Source: HPE)"

</comment><comment><USER64> I thought this type of system would provide a way to revert to factory defaults with a side effect of erasing all keys. So the processor would no longer be secure, but would at least still boot. Maybe this clearing can be done through the BIOS/UEFI on the original Dell system.

</comment><comment><USER65> One time programmable fuses are rather terrible. I'd rather have an old UV resettable fuse that would also clear the key space. Or perhaps a set of contacts to reset the fuse, like a jumper or lands that should be connected with a pencil.

</comment><comment><USER66> Is there any way to "fix" the processor afterwards? Maybe send it to AMD to be reset? If I'm buying a multi thousand dollar processor, I'd feel better if I could reuse it in other systems if needed.

<comment><USER53> If they're setting OTP on the die, all AMD could offer would be a warranty replacement at best. There's no etching new fuses into a packaged die.

<comment><USER67> They could blow the key to an "insecure" state, and then have a jumper on the motherboard to allow insecure booting.

<comment><USER53> That's about the only way I see out of this, yeah. No fuses blown is obviously a specific state (works as expected everywhere). All-fuses blown needs to be a specific state too (say the trustroot is dead and it's now "just a cpu").

You couldn't just fail to that state (it'd be inappropriate for its primary use-case), as long as there's some way to get there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> This is just waiting to be abused. No software or firmware (or even silicon!) is 100% secure; if at any point someone figures out a way to flip a fuse (maybe something like creating a short by overloading two adjacent fuses or abusing reads via power supply gliching) and then make the CPU unusable for everyone...

Hell, next step might be ransomware that fuses your CPU and unless you pay them they will reboot them so you can't use them any more until you buy their signing key.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> TL;DR: Put an Epyc cpu in a Dell once, and it will never work again in any other vendor's motherboard? Is that right?

<comment><USER57> It's not necessarily just Dell, they're just the first to use the feature.

It also won't necessarily work in other Dell motherboards, just ones using the same key as the first.

It's strange Dell would blow the fuses by default, though.

<comment><USER69> Could even enable some sort of region lock too? Selling CPUs at different prices to different markets for example?

<comment><USER70> Not really. AMD is only selling unlocked CPUs, and the "locking" is done the first time it boots in a given motherboard. So crossing regions wouldn't be any more of an issue in the future than it is now, you "just" need to ensure your motherboard and CPU come bundled together. Or you need to ensure you get an "unlocked" CPU, which is what retailers provide via AMD.

This will greatly complicate the future second-hand market, though. Buying used Epyc CPUs off of ebay in 5 years will become _very_ sketchy for example.

<comment><USER71> You could have some crude region locking if SGI US signs with a different key than SGI EU, and US servers will only run on 60hz power supplies and EU servers only run on 50hz (some pinball machines use this to reduce transatlantic resale) it's not hard to measure, but it would need an extra power supply pin and a zero crossing circuit. DC systems would have a different signing key. Japanese systems wouldn't be able to move across their 50/60Hz divide, etc.

Used SGI to not pick a real vendor.

<comment><USER70> That only region locks the motherboard. The CPU would only be locked _after_ it has been used in the motherboard, not before, which necessarily means you already have the CPU in question. So there wouldn't be any barrier to CPU movement across regions.

As in for your example there isn't anything stopping you from buying a CPU from anyone, including US retailers, and using it in an SGI EU motherboard. The CPU itself isn't locked when new, this signing key locking isn't baked into the CPU at the factory. It happens when you plop it into the socket & fire it up for the first time.

<comment><USER71> > As in for your example there isn't anything stopping you from buying a CPU > from anyone.

I can't buy a used cpu from an SGI US customer and put it in an SGI EU motherboard. I can buy a new CPU from anyone though, but then I can only sell it in-region.

<comment><USER70> > I can't buy a used cpu from an SGI US customer and put it in an SGI EU > motherboard.

Correct, but that's less a region thing and more this just poisons _all_ used CPUs.

As in you don't even know if an SGI US CPU will work in a different SGI US motherboard. There's no particular reason to assume all SGI US motherboard models will have the same signing key. Within the same model that'd almost certainly be the case, but if it's a different model, especially different chipset, I don't know why they would necessarily strive to keep the key the same across different firmware branches.

> I can buy a new CPU from anyone though, but then I can only sell it in- > region.

Er, why? Nothing about this stops you from re-selling CPUs however you want. Or are you still talking about the used market here?

<comment><USER71> I'm not reselling a cpu without plugging it in and testing it. If it's DOA when my customer got it, and I didn't test it, I need to take it back etc. Of course, if it gets locked when I test it, now it's more likely to be DOA for my customer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> Some enterprising enthusiasts will find a way around this i hope

<comment><USER23> Hopefully the keys get leaked someday, as often eventually happens with such DRM-ish schemes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Amidst all the hype for firmware security, one point missing in these discussions is how many points of failure these guys have added. 1) Intel/AMD for ME/PSP 2) Dell for bios signing keys 3) MS for secureboot keys 4) American Megatrends, Phoenix, etc., companies that people don't even know exist, who actually write the bios code. If the threat model is nation state attacks, there is plenty of surface area here in the circus.

</comment><comment><USER73> I'm looking forward to the malware/ransomware that permanently locks CPUs to an attacker-signed BIOS.

</comment><comment><USER74> This will be an interesting mess on eBay.

</comment><comment><USER75> "Vendor-Locks" perhaps?

</comment><comment><USER76> If you dont provide this, Enterprise Vendor wont be buying AMD CPU, and AMD lose. ( They desperately need those EPYC Sales )

If they do, lots of people, whether they will buy it or not, will complain and make a big fuss about it. If they are going with Vendor lock they might as well go back to Intel.

Looks like AMD just cant Win.

</comment><comment><USER77> The title as submitted to HN is super clickbaity. Overall this doesn't seem 'bad', aside from some questionable defaults that other commenters said about it being enabled by default.

<comment><USER59> It really should copy the article:

> AMD PSB Vendor Locks EPYC CPUs for Enhanced Security at a Cost

<comment><USER43> Should be corrected to "Vendor-Locks", as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> Honestly I see this as a net positive. It increases the security of the server, which is good for everyone. The secondary market will adjust accordingly, probably by selling the processor/motherboard/barebones server together. The only issue I can see is that there is no way to distinguish a locked processor from an unlocked one.

<comment><USER79> > _It increases the security of the server, which is good for everyone_

That is exactly the point: it isn't good for everyone. In particular, it is suspicious that a move in the name of security _just so happens_ to negatively affect the secondary market. A market that by definition doesn't net AMD any money.

If AMD had released this exact same feature and said "we are doing this because the second-hand market is bad for our sales", regulators would immediately jump at them for anti-competitive behavior. And the fact that there is no option to disable this check at all makes it even more suspicious.

It is possible that the benefits outweigh the downsides. But I wouldn't give them a pass that easily.</comment></comment>


Org mode 9.0 released - <AUTHOR> http://orgmode.org/Changes.html <comment><USER2> I love Org mostly for its ability to link to stuff. In my mind it's the big feature that sets it apart from using, say, a separate application to do my task management. For instance:

\- When I'm reading email (in emacs), I can quickly create a TODO that links back to the current email I'm reading (most of my TODOs, in fact, link to an email, so this is very useful),

\- For my org file where I keep notes about the servers I'm running, I might link to a specific line on a remote apache config,

\- For a bug report I might link to a specific git commit in a project to look at later

Any TODO that is important gets scheduled, so that it is linked to from the agenda view. In this way it's very hard for me to lose track of anything, despite most of my work communication happening through email. In fact I now prefer email over using something like Basecamp, because org makes it easier for me to manage!

<comment><USER3> Because Emacs is an OS the way it should be — an extensible system with a unified UI instead of a pile of separate and hardly interoperable applications.

<comment><USER4> "b-but the UNIX philosophy!"

The more time I spend with UNIX and hear the "UNIX philosophy" used in place of argument when someone doesn't like the feature set of some software, the more I realize that we need to move on from UNIX. We should take more ideas from things like Emacs and the Lisp machines when designing our software, and less from UNIX.

<comment><USER5> You might enjoy The UNIX-HATERS Handbook [1], published in 1994. It offers a still-relevant critical perspective on the UNIX paradigm, birthed in a context that had been exposed to alternatives.

[1] [http://web.mit.edu/~simsong/www/ugh.pdf](http://web.mit.edu/~simsong/www/ugh.pdf)

<comment><USER4> I'm a big fan of the UNIX-HATERS Handbook. :)

(For some additional perspective, I don't really _hate_ UNIX, I still recall how much of a breath of fresh air it was coming from Windows, but I think it, much like the X server, is really showing its age.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Reading through the list of changes, I am very happy that I moved away from org mode.

\- New syntax for export blocks

\- org-file-apps no longer accepts S-expressions as commands

\- Preparation and completion functions in publishing projects change signature

\- Old Babel header properties are no longer supported

So in other words, for the classes I teach every two years, I can forget about being able to open up my previous files and have them just work. This was a _constant battle_ and is pretty much unique to org mode.

<comment><USER7> I have experienced the same thing at least twice in the last 5 years ... automated scripts for compiling and uploading >50 .org files for a course website, suddenly fails. Spend 3 days chasing down why. Small naming change in an org function.

Now again?

It's very frustrating.

<comment><USER8> In that case, do not update. Emacs and Org-mode are showing gear signs that the development is active, the software is constantly improving, and bugs are constantly getting squashed.

It is in your hands if you want to keep using the same version of org-mode and Emacs, or update to the latest and greatest and fix few necessary backward incompatible changes.

The ORG-NEWS also provide elisp snippets that help quickly make those fixes for you. So if you choose to update, give some time to read through ORG-NEWS.

<comment><USER7> yes I hadn't seen that but they do provide some elisp code snippets to automate some of those code changes. thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I really recommend everyone to try it. The power of org mode lies in its simplicity. No fancy gui, not too many features but allows creating and extending. When you need to be productive you need a simple tool so you do not spend your time being busy instead of working

<comment><USER10> "Simplicity"?! <Cough> It took me quite a few hours to learn. :-)

At first, I was a bit frustrated and thought "Because of recommendations, I just spent X hours learning a tool where the GUI applications can be learned in minutes?! Was this a good use of my life?"

Then I realized the usability I had -- and that it was the closest thing I ever got to paper and pencil with a keyboard; I didn't need to think so it was not in the way when I wrote down notes.

Still use it.

<comment><USER11> Yes, another classic case of "ease of use" vs "ease of learning". It's easy to conflate the terms (and most people usually mean "ease of learning" when they say "ease of use").

I'm with you, though. I wouldn't call it simple, but man is it easy to use.

<comment><USER12> This reminds me of something a guitar playing friend of mine once said, when asked to play something difficult:

"Nothing is difficult if you practice it enough"

<comment><USER10> What the GP was referencing was the old argument of us Emacs users:

" _There is a difference with efficiency of easy learning and efficiency when using_ ". It implies that the cost of learning Emacs is small, per year of bliss using it. (Why would you downgrade to something else if you know Emacs?)

I guess, something like this for a musician: "This was a hard piece of music to learn, but it is sure to get me laid many times." :-)

(Sorry about the preconceived opinion about why people learn to play an instrument, it is obviously jealousy since I can't even clap hands to most of my favorite music. :-) )

<comment><USER13> Learning to play an instrument "to get laid" is a guaranteed way to be mediocre at said instrument :) Practicing for the wrong reasons is pretty much bad practice.

<comment><USER10> Only joking, I know enough music people to get that a lot of musicians are nerdier than I am.

But the music people I know would still have appreciated that joke, so either drink more coffee or sleep more? :-)

(You could counter with "If those people knows _you_ , then they obviously don't have much of a sense of humour anyway -- which is another proof of the heterogeneity of musicians backgrounds." :-) )

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've tried to use org mode several times. Its functionality is truly great, but having to use emacs to use it is too much of a hurdle for me. I struggle to remember all the emacs key combinations, so in the end I just give up and revert to text files.

It would be great if someone ported org mode out of emacs. I've tried the Sublime Text org mode package[0] but it's still too bare to be useful. Does anyone know of an alternative way to use it?

[0]: [https://github.com/danielmagnussons/orgmode](https://github.com/danielmagnussons/orgmode)

<comment><USER15> Are you more of a vim person? If so, spacemacs might be something to use. Sure, it is slow and buggy in some rarely-used layers, but other than that it is a really neat experience. The org mode layer sees quite some love, and works well.

<comment><USER16> I tried spacemacs for a month, but the problem is reading vim guides doesn't quite work, reading emacs guides doesn't quite work, and there isn't good enough spacemacs documentation.

<comment><USER17> You can try evil-mode which is just the vi interface, Spacemacs is more of a packaged solution that happens to include the vi interface. Having used vi interfaces in other editors (VS, IntelliJ, Eclipse, NetBeans, Atom, Sublime, VSCode, etc.), based on my experiences, evil gives the most accurate vim experience.

<comment><USER18> The other editors don't have modes in the same way the emacs does though. What I find frustrating is if your in the package manager mode for example, then your keybindings break.

Spacemacs improves this for some modes, but it still won't allow custom bindings in any/most of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm a fan of using org mode files on Github. Hopefully, Github continues to expand org support:

[https://github.com/melling/ios_topics/blob/master/README.org](https://github.com/melling/ios_topics/blob/master/README.org)

[https://github.com/melling/ComputerLanguages](https://github.com/melling/ComputerLanguages)

[https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes/blob/master/README...](https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes/blob/master/README.org)

</comment><comment><USER20> What are Org users doing for mobile access? Using the phone to ssh to an emacs? Using mobile org? I also saw an Org plugin for an iOS editor. How do you keep it synched?

I need tasklists to be accessible on the phone.

<comment><USER21> I was never happy with the workflow of automatically syncing mobile org, so I gave up. A scheduled task on the desktop exports org to HTML in a Dropbox folder. Read-only HTML on mobile is good enough for my use in most cases. I capture with Google Keep if needed.

<comment><USER22> How do you schedule that task?

<comment><USER21> Windows Task Scheduler and a script wrapping an emacs batch command. [https://bitbucket.org/snippets/shoover/ggM5z](https://bitbucket.org/snippets/shoover/ggM5z)

Alternately, you can invoke the org project/publish system.:[https://bitbucket.org/shoover/emacs.d/src/4f5461d826c92c749b...](https://bitbucket.org/shoover/emacs.d/src/4f5461d826c92c749bfc1205f8216b7a5f4af5bb/lisp/publish- org-dirs.el?at=default&fileviewer=file-view-default)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> anyone have any good introduction tutorials for

1\. org agenda integration into their todo lists 2\. babel mode? i'd love to integrate code into some of study guides for interviews

love emacs, but i never feel like im using more than 1% of org mode's potential.

<comment><USER24> I like this one. You don't have to do the whole thing just start taking pieces of his init file and adding them as you want to try things.

[http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html](http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Anyone have any org-mode config settings that they've found invaluable? I finally have my normal emacs config mostly working how I want it, so why not go in and add more stuff to it with org-mode!

<comment><USER26> I use org-mode's agenda as kanban board, so adding a global shortcut for agenda is invaluable.

Also more states. And I typically use a blank line between tree branches. Without altering org-cycle-separator-lines, it will be eaten up by last leaf of previous branch which I found annoying.

Apart from that their defaults are pretty good.

      (use-package org
        :bind ("C-c a" . org-agenda)
        :config
        (progn
          (setq org-agenda-files '("~/org"))
          (setq org-cycle-separator-lines 1)
          (setq org-todo-keywords '((type "TODO" "PROG" "WAIT" "|" "DONE")))
          (setq org-todo-keyword-faces '(("TODO" . "brightblack") ("WAIT" . "yellow")))))

<comment><USER27> Excerpts from my org-mode configuration:

[https://gist.github.com/TeMPOraL/a25fbf499e295537fa80e525fcc...](https://gist.github.com/TeMPOraL/a25fbf499e295537fa80e525fcceebf3)

As you can tell, I'm a huge user of agenda and org-capture, and also keep my org files synced via Dropbox.

I don't document my configs much, so friendly reminder for readers of mine (and others) - you can find documentation for any variable from within Emacs, by pressing C-h v (or M-x describe-variable), and for any function by pressing C-h f (or M-x describe-function).

try-load-and-configure-library is a small macro I wrote _long_ before I found out about use-package.

      (defmacro try-load-and-configure-library (lib &rest configuration)
        (declare (indent defun))
        `(when (locate-library (symbol-name ,lib))
           (require ,lib)
           ,@configuration))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> More and more I keep wanting to try emacs or vim, because nothing else seems to work as far as productivity. I've tried Evernote and a bunch of other applications, nothing seems to be useful (to me). I always stick to my notepads of paper and pens, that may never change.

I do mostly front end work, so the tools I'm constantly in is in iTerm 2, Adobe products, Mail, Sublime, and Transmit for SFTP.

Would there be any benefit of spending time learning these? Where does one even begin?

<comment><USER29> Start Emacs, hit Ctrl-h and then t ( _C-h t_ in emacs lingo). Brings up the tutorial, it's a quick intro to editing. Now open an org mode file, and open the Org mode info manual: Ctrl-h and then i, then m, which'll bring up a prompt, type "org" and hit enter ( _C-h i m_ org _RET_ ). By time you'll find your way to use it. Both emacs and org-mode lend themselves to excessive customisation, and learning a bit of Elisp unlocks incredible power.

There are a myriad of packages and tens of starter kits like Spacemacs out there, it's quite possible that looking at these, one does not know where to start. I suggest you start with vanilla emacs and build up your personal and most-fitting experience. Takes some time but definitely worth it. It's like a city, you may have read ten tourist guides, but until you go out there and explore, you know nothing.

That said, this is my set of most basic "sanitisation settings" for emacs:

      (setf
       ;; Always open a new buffer if default is occupied.
       async-shell-command-buffer 'new-buffer

       ;; UI.
       visible-bell t
       uniquify-buffer-name-style 'forward
       save-interprogram-paste-before-kill t
       font-lock-maximum-decoration nil
       ;; Search help more extensively.
       apropos-do-all t

       ;; Ignore case when completing file names in minibuffer.
       read-file-name-completion-ignore-case t
       read-buffer-completion-ignore-case t
       completion-ignore-case t
       completion-styles '(initials substring partial-completion)
       find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings t
       enable-recursive-minibuffers t
       ;; Save bookmarks after each bookmark command.
       bookmark-save-flag t

       ;; Do not  ring the bell  when killing  in r/o buffers,  put the
       ;; kill in the kill ring but do not modify the buffer.
       kill-read-only-ok t

       ;; Search modes default to regexps.
       search-default-mode t)

      (setq-default save-place t)

<comment><USER28> This looks great, thanks for the detailed response with providing what to actually press. Looking at downloading it now but man there are a lot of versions here. [http://gnu.mirrors.hoobly.com/gnu/emacs/](http://gnu.mirrors.hoobly.com/gnu/emacs/)

<comment><USER29> 25.1 is the latest: [http://gnu.mirrors.hoobly.com/gnu/emacs/emacs-25.1.tar.xz](http://gnu.mirrors.hoobly.com/gnu/emacs/emacs-25.1.tar.xz)

And BTW you're very welcome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The most crucial thing for me is the inheritance of org-block face by src- blocks. Now finally I'm once again able to use fixed-width font for all codes and variable-width font for all normal notes, which greatly optimizes the reading experience. This has been an issue since org 8.2.1

</comment><comment><USER31> The page doesn't show the changes for 9.0 for me yet.

Here is a link to the git repository of the org-file containing those changes:

[http://orgmode.org/cgit.cgi/org-mode.git/plain/etc/ORG- NEWS](http://orgmode.org/cgit.cgi/org-mode.git/plain/etc/ORG-NEWS)

</comment><comment><USER32> Curiously to try it!

> New option org-attach-commit

> When non-nil, commit attachments with git, assuming the document is in a git > repository.

Anyone knows if it would work with org-store-link in magit? That would be handy.

</comment><comment><USER33> I don't know how I've never heard of it, but now I know what are those .org files. Can anyone explain what's big win with org vs say markdown?

<comment><USER34> For me, the biggie is better embedded code support. For example, with RMarkdown, I can embed chunks of... R code in Markdown and have them executed with results put in line. Org mode, by contrast, has had support for dozens of languages for quite some time.

Beyond that, flexibility in rendered output formats. Markdown doesn't really provide any mechanisms for when you want some things to be different between the HTML and LaTeX -> PDF output. Org-mode supports multi output format issues quite neatly.

Little things such as supporting in-document cross references work in Org- mode, but not Markdown. If you've ever needed to do something like "As seen in Figure [X]", know that with Markdown you'll be doing some hacks. Org-mode? Just works.

<comment><USER33> Thank you! btw I was sure that MD has in-doc references, just never really used them myself.</comment></comment></comment>


Time protection: The missing OS abstraction - <AUTHOR> https://ts.data61.csiro.au/publications/csiroabstracts/Ge_YCH_19.abstract.pml <comment><USER2> Very accessible paper. They took the seL4 kernel, implemented a series of mitigations against timing leaks, and showed that their performance impact is tolerable and less than one might think.

While some of these mitigations have seen common use, their chief innovation is the on-demand cloning of (the majority of) global kernel data and state, which reduces resource sharing and allows the other partition and padded-flush mitigations to work better.

While they acknowledge that doing the same in a larger and differently- designed kernel would be a big undertaking, they also note that the hardware's uneven support and seeming lack of a formal mental model about this topic is unfortunate. Both software and hardware work would benefit from a focused approach in this area.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great they're getting on it. I'll note that the early security kernels attempted to mitigate timing channels. GEMSOS used event counts and sequences IIRC. It was also mandatory for high-assurance security under TCSEC regulations to look for them and try to mitigate them. There was no reason to think it would actually work over time at the rate bypasses were discovered. They were trying, though.

More recently, under the MILS model for partitioning kernels, they've applied stuff like ARINC time and space partitioning to separation kernels for both safety- and security-critical applications. Big in aerospace for DO-178C regulations. One example [1] describing some timing protections. That can mitigate some timing channels. The one good thing about Meltdown/Spectre's publicity is CompSci folks are coming up with all kinds of stuff on this problem.

[1] [https://www.ghs.com/products/safety_critical/integrity- do-17...](https://www.ghs.com/products/safety_critical/integrity-do-178b.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> Security, Performance, Power Savings.

Pick one, per cache domain.

I actually support additional, cache-isolated, //USER OWNED// TPM / enclave like solutions for running the hardened parts of software (handling of actual keys/etc). 99% of the other work is better off picking the speed or power efficiency options.

(Edit to clarify User Owned: The end user should trust the computer, not anyone else, therefore they should be the one with full control, not any vendor or imaginary property creator.)

<comment><USER5> > //USER OWNED// TPM / enclave

HAHAHAHAHA

That would be kind of neat if it ever happened though.

<comment><USER6> A TPM is user owned by design. It is opt-in, you can delete the contents and create your own keys, password protect access etc.

<comment><USER5> They aren't on any of the computers that I own.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I highly recommend looking into the KeyKOS operating system, which allows time and space resource usage to be controlled via a common abstraction of authority (keys/capabilities) - and that recursively.

The lectures of their Advanced Operating Systems course are great! [https://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~cs9242/18/lectures/](https://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~cs9242/18/lectures/)</comment>


Ask HN: How did you learn to design big systems? - <AUTHOR> For those who have architected big and/or distributed systems, how did you learn various design techniques? What learning resources helped you the most? <comment><USER2> Learning platform architecture and devops at scale is sort of a chicken and egg scenario. You can certainly learn and practice on your own but the best way to get good is get hired by companies that actually practice it.

</comment><comment><USER3> One piece at a time, every large system is comprised of smaller parts and components. One thing always leads to another. Start small, and build your way up.</comment>


Intel CEO: New chips will have built-in protections against Meltdown, Spectre - <AUTHOR> https://www.techrepublic.com/article/intel-ceo-new-chips-will-have-built-in-protections-against-meltdown-spectre/?ftag=COS-05-10aaa0g&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=5a6b89f419694a00077cae3c&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter <comment><USER2> Soooo they will remove the features over the past decade.</comment>


Big banks stage mega-cyberattack drill - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/18/technology/security/bank-cyberattack/index.html?iid=HP_LN

<comment><USER2> This isn't a fake "cyberattack". It's just a role-playing exercise to figure out what sorts of information the banks are willing to share with each other. From that information they (the company coordinating the exercise) can provide recommendations on where they shared useless info, didn't provide enough info, or (maybe) provided too much.

</comment><comment><USER3> I posted an article recently about how the NSA tests young recruits in a military academy by hacking into their system. It's a great read.

"NSA Attacks West Point! Relax, It's a Cyberwar Game (2008)"

[http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2008/05/nsa_cybe...](http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2008/05/nsa_cyberwargames)

Attempting to defend a network against the NSA would be a fascinating experience. Probably much more challenging than this security companies PR stunt.

<comment><AUTHOR> Richard Marcinko ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Marcinko](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Marcinko)) got into some trouble pulling this off in a physical security situation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It might be prudent to take some cash out of the bank before the weekend.

<comment><USER5> It would be ironic if this attack coincided with a real attack.

<comment><USER4> These drills do have a nasty habit of going live sometimes.</comment></comment></comment>


Founder Indicted! $590k from Angels Went to $2k Loft and $26k in Groceries - <AUTHOR> http://www.betabeat.com/2011/08/15/entrepreneur-indicted-after-investors-590-k-allegedly-produces-no-website-just-tribeca-loft-and-26-k-in-groceries/

<comment><USER2> Take a look at the source of that page: <http://pastie.org/private/tlskiu3wxnwgisqq14sr8a> Any tech person could have seen through the bullcrap.

</comment><comment><USER3> Headline is inaccurate - he moved to a place that cost $2k more a month. I wonder what the actual rent was - $2k/month in manhattan is pretty cheap.

</comment><comment><USER4> I know of a person in the valley who seems to have done something similar. One whom I avoid like the plague! I am happy this doesn't appear to happen all that often.</comment>


The First iPhone Threat - Built by an Eleven-Year-Old Kid - <AUTHOR> http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-First-iPhone-Threat-Built-By-An-Eleven-Year-Old-Kid-75828.shtml

<comment><USER2> "The link from which this Trojan can be downloaded is now down. But be assured -- there will most certainly be more"

How reassuring! I'm looking forward to it...

</comment><comment><USER3> "This obviously causes serious problems for the gadget, because uninstalling the [malicious] firmware automatically removes [...] Doom."

</comment><comment><USER4> ...Damn kids and their rap music</comment>


China to have 626M surveillance cameras within 3 years - <AUTHOR> http://technode.com/2017/11/22/china-to-have-626-million-surveillance-cameras-within-3-years/ <comment><USER2> Somewhat related, be very careful buying IP cameras. A lot have been shown to have backdoors to different countries. Trying to find a good PTZ outdoor IP camera has been a mine field since I'll find one and then a reviewer will look at the traffic it's sending and see very very sketchy stuff. My friend bought a hidden camera for his house only to see it was sending video traffic to china.

<comment><USER3> This is why I keep a bunch of equipment by default on an isolated subnet where the router drops all packets to the outside world. Doesn't matter what the device is trying to do.

Connecting to these devices requires one level of indirect - where I connect first to an internal machine that can send packets to/from the hidden subnet.

<comment><USER2> Yeah that's a good plan. I've read reviews where some cameras just stop working after a while when this is done too. It's a shit show.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The interesting thing part is this:

"Hikvision has been expanding in the Americas where it now has 8.5% of the market, putting it in the No.2 position. The Chinese government owns a 42% stake of Hikvision, according to a piece by the Wall Street Journal earlier this month on the security concerns of Chinese-made cameras being used in the US."

Article here: [https://www.wsj.com/articles/surveillance-cameras-made-by- ch...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/surveillance-cameras-made-by-china-are- hanging-all-over-the-u-s-1510513949)

<comment><USER5> They might get Huaweied. War through the internet is so fascinating and complex.

<comment><USER6> What does Huaweied mean?

<comment><USER7> Chinese firm learns how the foreign firm operates it and clones its technology and practices, including any patented tech. Then the Chinese government changes its laws/policy to restrict foreign companies' access to the country's market to privilege the Chinese firm.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei#Early_years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei#Early_years)

<comment><USER8> I believe OP coined the term "Huaweied" to refer to a phenomenon described in another section of the same Wikipedia entry...

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei#Espionage_and_security_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei#Espionage_and_security_concerns_in_the_West)

There are abundant parallels between the Huawei situation a few years ago and the Hikvision situation now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Well, you may call it surveillance cams but it may not be a bad thing. But as a Chinese, I never feel stressful under these cams in China, but feel unsafe all the time walking down the street in SF in the night after moving to US.

Purpose matters.

<comment><USER10> Is it really camera that made the difference? I had a motorbike stolen in Beijing. Police's answer? "Sorry, the camera didn't work". A friend forget his phone in a taxi (who run away, then turned it off when he tried to call it). He left the taxi at a precise crossing with cameras. He went to the police station a very soon after. Police answer? "We couldn't identify the taxi". I have a few more stories like this (like wallet and phones stolen at the ATM). Yes all in China. And I'm not talking about the multiple scams that are very specific to china.

Maybe public surveillance camera help preventing armed attacks (but it's never really been a thing in China anyway, and in serious decline in the world in general) and I doubt they can do much more. As you say, purpose matters.

I don't believe crime stops with surveillance, it changes.

Edit: one thing I forgot to mention, I feel the Chinese state media are doing a very good job at not talking too much about the different crime/problems happening. Western media are doing pretty much the opposite. I think on that precise point, if other method than censorship were used, it's actually a pretty good thing and do make people feel safer.

<comment><USER11> In the UK, a shop that I ran was robbed. The police said the camera outside the ship was mobile, and happened to be pointing the other way at the time.

In China, I had a traffic altercation (between me, a pedestrian, and some people who were in a car at the time the altercation started). The police found the video footage and watched it within an hour after I reported it.

My point: the plural of anecdote is not data.

<comment><USER12> Are you non-east-Asian? Chinese police answers to foreigners so quickly that jokes about foreigner-aided-reporting-to-police-as-a-service are circulated.

<comment><USER11> Yes, I'm non-east-Asian. And I reported the incident at a police station in an area where many foreigners live and work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Corrected title: "China to have 626M surveillance camera botnet within 3 years".

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm interested in how they plan to monitor all these cameras. Obviously, it can't be any number of people looking at all 625M cameras.

Will some AI monitor all the feeds and flag suspicious activities to the local authorities?

<comment><USER15> Chinese government utilize some pretty good machine learning to analyze and monitor those cameras. Techniques include: \- Vehicle plates recognition. They are automatically captured and mapped. Chinese police can get the complete historical routes of any car around major cities in real time just buy entering the number.

\- Activity detection. If something interesting is happening in front of a camera (e.g. two people running in front of a camera middle of the night), AI detects that and pops the view up in front of humans for further action. Because less than 1% of cameras contain any useful info at any moment, they don't need that many humans to watch those cameras live.

\- Face recognition. For many cameras, Face capture and recognition is running live and report any criminals or targeted personnel to police.

\- Footage markup. If police need to go through the camera footage manually, the recording playback can skip the uninteresting parts to save time.

Combining these with unrestricted real-time integration of other data sources, such as real time GPS from mobile apps, cell tower call history from telecoms, network traffic inspection and remote spying capabilities, Chinese police forces can pretty much find anybody very quickly. They are also known to have state of the art big data platforms developed in house.

One anecdote I read: Somebody killed a person in a small city middle of the night, removed battery of his phone, ran to his car parked on street, drove a couple of hundred miles to another middle sized city, only to be caught in a motel next morning. How? Complete camera footage covering his walking path, vehicle plate tracking all the way to his destination, and motel check-in system that is also integrated with police.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Following suit, UK unveiled plans to have 625M surveillance cameras.

<comment><USER17> I just tried to search for how many surveillance cameras there already are in the UK, and by the time I got to "number of surveillance cameras", Safari popped up a Siri suggestion for the London Wikipedia article... [http://mayoyo.tokyo/jK7.jpg](http://mayoyo.tokyo/jK7.jpg)

If anyone is curious "The British Security Industry Association (BSIA) estimates there are between 4-5.9 million cameras"

<comment><USER16> A quick google search suggests that China currently has about 20 million cameras, so the UK is actually not far behind.

Given the population, there are actually more cameras per UK citizen than there are per Chinese citizen.

<comment><USER18> And yet, when I was the victim of a hit and run incident in central London we were unable to locate a single working camera that could provide any usable evidence.

The vast majority either do not work, or are privately owned and when enquired about (difficult in itself as there are so many parties to contact once the owner is identified, and they likely do not have direct access and need to speak to someone else) have extremely useless retention periods that meant no footage survived enough time to request it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Cell phones are surveillance cameras so that number is extremely understated.</comment>


Compiling λ - <AUTHOR> http://playingwithpointers.com/compiling-lambda.html

<comment><USER2> Funny how HN does not give a fuck about compilation!</comment>


Vita: simple and fast VPN gateway - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/inters/vita <comment><USER2> I have used tinc [0] for this scenario successfully for 15 years. It not only supports full mesh but automatic full mesh. It will use UDP for the data stream when possible, supports RSA and Ed25519, and supports transporting either IP or Ethernet frames.

I used the mode where it supports Ethernet frames to merge the VLANs of two datacenters across the WAN (with some additional ebtables to prevent some kinds of frames) to add the ability to migrate systems from one datacenter to another during a partial outage.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h Is tinc okay security-wise? IIRC last time I looked the older crypto was really iffy looking, and the newer crypto (ED25519 rocks) was only in the dev/unstable version.

<comment><USER2> There were some issues in 1.0 that are fixed in 1.1, for which the protocol is not yet finalized although the beta releases are stable. The lack of a final release is annoying, since it does not guarantee upgrades will work with older clients but this is because the protocol isn't finalized.

They are documented towards the bottom of [http://tinc- vpn.org/security/](http://tinc-vpn.org/security/)

<comment><USER3> Why 15 years to finish a protocol?

<comment><USER4> [https://youtu.be/qcILD9OJ2wg](https://youtu.be/qcILD9OJ2wg)

Good things take time.

<comment><USER3> All good, I've been using 15 years too. Unsung hero.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Since it's ESP-based, what are the improvements here over a conventional IPsec VPN?

It would also help to know how different it is from OpenVPN, for example, and other VPN options including WireGuard.

I mean it's nice to see another VPN, but it'd be useful to know right off the bat how it compares to existing options.

<comment><USER6> This is polling-based, so it's probably faster. But if you really need the performance I would lean towards VPP since it seems to be more tested.

<comment><USER7> From the readme:

"~2.5 Mpps (or ~5 Gbps of IMIX traffic) per core on a modern CPU"

Note CPU unspecified in above.

A Xeon-D 1541 (2.1GHz) will do 2.44 Mpps, (Simple IMIX) and a i7-6950X will do 3.27 Mpps running AES-GCM-128 and VPP.

A kernel-based Linux implementation will do a bit under 500 Kpps running the same algorithm.

The keying algorithm seems interesting, and is vaguely Wireguard-like (would be more if it used a public-private keypair).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> ZeroTier has been filling this gap for us for a few years now.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, ZeroTier is awesome! Works great on every platform, simple authentication scheme, and it's always connected. I use it for access to remote servers (have the zt subnet set to bypass firewall for accessing various debug servers) for a nonprofit project and for all kinds of personal uses as well. The free hosted version has up to 100 devices on a network and you can self host as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is it possible to use cjdns for that kind of thing? I'm genuinely asking as I don't understand it.

Once I tried to set up a VPN using some odd Windows software (OpenVPN, maybe?) and the results were disastrous. I didn't understand any of the jargon the program used, and I think I didn't get what was its main use case (most certainly it wasn't what I was trying to do, that was creating a local subnet between two computers or two LANs).

Then some months later I tried ZeroTier and was able to understand everything, it seemed a perfect fit.

But still, people call ZeroTier a VPN. So why is it so different? And why does it use a jargon so different?

<comment><USER11> I ran cjdns for 5 years but recently switched off it. For one, it seemed to have too much traffic over my limited outbound link when things should have been more idle. Also, the commit logs were a little unnerving to me for code I'm trusting with my network security:

All kinds of "oops" edits: [https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns/commit/3abe50b8e744f72696...](https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns/commit/3abe50b8e744f72696aa7ccd5ca5220b4570d020) [https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns/commit/feabb1970fbaecf65c...](https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns/commit/feabb1970fbaecf65c651f5b1ea0bf9b8d3b5077) [https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns/commit/c51d89431f1fa42955...](https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns/commit/c51d89431f1fa42955dc81652c079eb8ca7e814a) [https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns/commit/1b0c999bd2e5988c3f...](https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns/commit/1b0c999bd2e5988c3f7e52232417edcab6f4cbb6) [https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns/commit/355d7d77cc82c52bf1...](https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns/commit/355d7d77cc82c52bf1c9a46408f5c5128f264b93) (function args passed in the wrong order)

Some are about extra traffic: [https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns/commit/8bcfbf227a87020931...](https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns/commit/8bcfbf227a8702093114eda041cbd52d169b5fa2) [https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns/commit/0ee9cb7f45b466232b...](https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns/commit/0ee9cb7f45b466232b02d5b826e3d5800d6573e5)

Also it's ipv6 only, which took some fussing. Performance was fine, even on rpi. Reestablishing links was slow and sometimes required restarting of the daemon. Daemons would occasionally get wedged. Log output is unconventional and uses a special reader tool (a la adb for android). Occasionally routes wouldn't be chosen right (two home computers would route via an external cloud box), which I'd fix by restarting the right daemons.

I laboriously switched to openvpn (two networks) and haven't worked out all the routing and hotswitching for my roaming phone+laptop yet. Now I'm considering vita, tinc, zerotier, or wireguard. Probably I'll try out zerotier to see if it works out of the box, then try wireguard if I'm going to have to configure it a lot, since it seems like WG is the most unix-toolbox-do-one- thing out of all of them.

<comment><USER12> Check out Yggdrasil - [https://yggdrasil- network.github.io/](https://yggdrasil-network.github.io/) \- we've tried very hard to solve the problems that cjdns has, seem to be much more reliable in real world conditions and we send/receive much less idle traffic to do it. We also have Wireguard-like crypto-key routing for both IPv4 and IPv6. (I am one of the developers.)

<comment><USER10> Wow, that's nice. I'm going to start using that now.

cjdns always seems so intimidating when I look at it, Yggdrasil looks super friendly and easy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why not just wireguard?

<comment><USER14> IPsec is pretty much universal in networking hardware and cloud provider networks nowadays. There's a better chance it'll work for you if you can't or don't want to control both ends of the connection.

Hardware:

* Cisco: [https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/net_mgmt/vpn_solutions...](https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/net_mgmt/vpn_solutions_center/2-0/ip_security/provisioning/guide/IPsecPG1.html)

* Juniper: [https://www.juniper.net/documentation/en_US/junos/topics/top...](https://www.juniper.net/documentation/en_US/junos/topics/topic-map/ipsec-tunnel-traffic-configuration.html)

Cloud:

* AWS: [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/vpc/latest/userguide/vpn-connect...](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/vpc/latest/userguide/vpn-connections.html)

* Azure: [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/vpn-gateway/vpn-gatew...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/vpn-gateway/vpn-gateway-howto-site-to-site-resource-manager-portal)

* gcloud: [https://cloud.google.com/vpn/docs/concepts/overview](https://cloud.google.com/vpn/docs/concepts/overview)

Also, some software environments have better support for IPsec than Wireguard; a glance at the Algo docs ([https://github.com/trailofbits/algo](https://github.com/trailofbits/algo)) suggests that Windows and OpenWRT are both in this category today.

FWIW, I work for Google, I haven't configured IPsec in forever, and I'll probably reach for Algo first the next time I think I need IPsec; I don't think I have enough endpoints in my home network to need hardware offloading :)

<comment><USER13> Last time I configured IPSec it was so horrible, really-really-really horrible, I will never touch it again with a ten-foot-pole. Starting from the fact that the software was hard to configure, so was it hard to find working (new) configuration examples as well as secure configurations. It never felt right after setting it up and I did not want to spend any more time on it, wireguard has been a blessing in that aspect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Reminds me of tinc, which is under appreciated.

</comment><comment><USER15> Wireguard just makes more sense to me.

<comment><USER16> For now tinc makes more sense to me. I plan on fully switching everything to WireGuard once it actually enters the mainline kernel.

<comment><USER17> Tinc could still make sense as a control plane for the WireGuard VPN though. There have been talks about WireGuard as a backend for tinc [0], hope that sees some progress.

[0] [http://www.tinc- vpn.org/pipermail/tinc/2017-February/004755....](http://www.tinc- vpn.org/pipermail/tinc/2017-February/004755.html)

<comment><USER2> Sadly, using wireguard would come with some notable drawbacks since the protocol isn't as flexible as tinc's.

First while the control plane would be TCP (since it's low traffic), the data plane would then be UDP-only leading to issues where the data plane would not work even though the control plane did. tinc currently starts the data plane out over TCP and migrates it to UDP if it finds it works, and later migrates it back if it discovers it stops working.

Second, wireguard only supports Ethernet frames, while tinc supports Ethernet frames or IP packets depending on the mode. This is useful for, for example, sending a bunch of IEEE 802.1Q VLAN tagged things over the VPN interface. This use case could be migrated to be VXLANs, but it would require breaking the existing tinc contract with its users.

Third, RSA keys are not supported and that is the primary mechanism used in tinc 1.0, it would be a breaking upgrade for all users or require a long migration time where RSA keys were replaced with wireguard compatible ones but both were still supported while wireguard was not used.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is this similar to what Hamachi used to do?

<comment><USER19> I remember when Hamachi came out. It felt magical. It just worked™.

<comment><USER20> Have you tried ZeroTier? [https://www.zerotier.com/](https://www.zerotier.com/)

<comment><USER19> I have but had a lot of trouble getting it working. (Although I only spent about 30 mins trying)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So, can I easily host the server?

ZeroTier is great, but hosting the server is very complicated (I'm not going to stop using it now, since it's so easy and is already set, but it's good to know of alternatives).

<comment><USER21> It's based on Snabb, a user-space networking platform, so it'll need direct hardware access and supports only a few specific NICs. But in exchange for that, it should be really fast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> > Each route uses a pre-shared super key that is installed on both ends of the > route.

Woof, not asymmetric? Is that normal for IPSec? I realize it's never sent over wire, but still makes me nervous.

<comment><USER16> Static symmetric keys is _one_ of the ways to authenticate an IPSec tunnel. It does also support certificates for authentication or fully unauthenticated connections (but still encrypted).

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Their key exchange implementation looks scary and like a last minute scramble to not be shit. No confidence here

</comment><comment><USER24> been using wiregurd. How's Vita different from it?</comment>


Ask HN: What methods or tools you use to monitor employees performance? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> The best method to verify employees performance is actually finding out what they have done on a 1-to-1 meeting every 1/3/6 months.

Do not attempt to use tools to track/spy/whatever, because:

1\. it is illegal 2\. can mine employee's self-esteem 3\. makes you even more paranoid</comment>


What are good philosophical books? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Jean-Paul Sarte (Martin Heidegger : Being and Time) -> Being and Nothingness</comment>