Messages in this thread | | | From | Kalin KOZHUHAROV <> | Subject | Re: [Transmeta hardware] Update of the CMS under Linux ? | Date | Mon, 06 Sep 2004 23:29:43 +0900 |
| |
Emmanuel Fleury wrote: > Hi, > > Actually, I have an answer to my question by now. > > The way the CMS is built-in on the hardware allow one way to upgrade the > firmware (and only one, as far as I understood in > http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cfm?ArticleID=RWT010204000000 and > http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cfm?ArticleID=RWT012704012616). Wow, these tow articles are eye-openers :-)
I couldn't even remotley think of debugging my CPU :-D
> Each upgrade has to be signed with a certain private key (this private > key is known by the seller of the laptop (Toshiba in your case) and by > Transmeta itself... well I assume that in fact each entity has a partial > knowledge of the private key which makes impossible to one of these to > do something without the agreement of the other one). > > So, the process for upgrading the CMS firmware is the following: > > 1) Load the upgrade in memory, > 2) Check the signature of the upgrade with the public key stored in the > ROM. > 3) If the signature match with the upgrade, then apply the upgrade. > > As you see, an upgrade (for Linux or Windows, whatever) requires the > agreement of both Transmeta AND the laptop seller. And you cannot easily > hack your way through. > > I see only two solutions to do our own upgrade of the CMS: > > 1) Take the EPROM out and write our own public key on it... > (risky and need a lot of hardware. I wouldn't recommand this way) > > 2) Crack the public/private keys of the hardware. > (this is a known plaintext attack for the HP tablet-PC, and for the > other hardwares we can only have access to the public-key which is > making it more difficult but nothing that can resist to a brute > force attack in the case we have enough Seti-like softwares > running). Hmm, uniting a few hundred Crusoe users can easily be done, but...
> I have no idea if it is legal or not... it is not my concern now. ... how legal is it?
> I'm just seeking for solutions ! :) > I guess it depends if you are in the States or in Europe. or Japan.
> So, I am about here in my investigations and I still have this annoying > bug with the Xserver... Moreover, it seems that Transmeta is fully on > the Efficeon now and does not want to invest time and money on looking > for a bug in the Crusoe CMS (except if one of its customer is > specifically asking for it, which is very unlikely from Sony and/or > Fujitsu). > > I am gathering some informations on a bug in the CMS here: > http://www.cs.auc.dk/~fleury/bug_cms/index.html > > But, it looks like we are f**ked. :) > > That's pretty annoying as these Transmeta laptops are an extremely cool > piece of hardware !!! :-/ > > Anyway, I won't give up so easily (for once that we have a nice bug to > fight with) !!! :)
I don't have X on this laptop, but I'll put tonight.
Actually, I was given this laptop after a few major falls (and a hard kick!), so it is barely mobile, strapped/fixed to a metal board and used mainly via ssh.
I had some nasty bug appearing every couple of days without any trace left with linux-2.6.3 (machine stays on, but no reaction to KBD, network, USB, etc; nothing in the logs, on hte screen, no beeps). But now with 2.6.8.1 I have 15d uptime :-)
If you get closer to a smaller (than X running) testcase, post it here, so other people (and me) can try easily.
I'd be happy to swich a few (fast) CPUs from SETI@Home to Transmeta@Home if not illegal :-)
Kalin.
-- || ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ || ( ) http://ThinRope.net/ ( ) || ______________________ ||
- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
| |