So The Freescale IM.X platform is well documented, that's very nice, and I know there's no other company offering something even remotely comparable with more documentation.
It leaves an important question though, there's been speak of NSA/China adding hardware level backdoors to stuff. Is the fact that the firmware is opensource enough to be reasonably sure there are no more backdoors?
For example, Intel has put backdoors in the chips that control their ethernet interfaces. Would something like that be defined in firmware, or at an even lower level? Would we be able to find out if it was lower level? Would we know if Freescale did the same?
What you say is true. Bunnie acknowledges that he can't guarantee a 100% secure platform,
"Our Novena Project is of course still vulnerable to techniques such as silicon poisoning, but at least it pushes openness and disclosure down a layer, which is tangible progress in the right direction. While these heady principles are great for motivating the journey, actual execution needs a set of focused requirements."
It leaves an important question though, there's been speak of NSA/China adding hardware level backdoors to stuff. Is the fact that the firmware is opensource enough to be reasonably sure there are no more backdoors?
For example, Intel has put backdoors in the chips that control their ethernet interfaces. Would something like that be defined in firmware, or at an even lower level? Would we be able to find out if it was lower level? Would we know if Freescale did the same?