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We can't be sure, but it should be much easier to audit a small system like Pi, rather than an Intel processor that, above all, can be remotely patched.


Huh? Much easier to audit a Broadcom SOC? Than what, auditing deliberately obfuscated hardware designs like the modern DirecTV smartcards?

The idea that it's in any sense easy to "audit" the Raspberry Pi's hardware is head-explodey. No you can't.

This is pure back-rationalization. You like the Raspberry Pi. You don't like Intel Corporation. So you come up with a reason why the R-Pi's hardware RNG might be more trustworthy than than the hardware RNG in a modern Intel computer. It's a crazy reason, not least because the R-Pi's core is produced by another giant semiconductor company.


Intel processor can be remotely patched?! Then why did Intel spend $475m to fix the FDIV bug?


I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the FDIV bug - or heck, even the much more recent (1997!) F00F bug - might not be so contemporary or represent the state of the art of Intel processors.


Presumably they learnt from their mistake, the Pentium Pro was the first generation where the microcode could be updated.

(An ancient /. article, byte article it links to is dead: http://slashdot.org/story/00/10/27/126258/upgrade-your-penti...)




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