On 2016-05-20 04:54 PM, BitingBird wrote:
> https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/librem-11-a-2-in-1-to-protect-your-digital-life#/
>
> It would be interesting to ask them if it works with Tails :)
Todd, the guy behind Purism and the Librem is a con-artist. He's not
free'd any of the products in which he's made an 'effort' to free and
the practical matter of it is he can't. Porting LibreBoot (which is a
free BIOS) won't work because Intel holds the keys to the castle on the
Intel management engine firmware. This is in relation to prior claims
about prior crowdfunded laptops he's worked on. I believe some Google
coreboot developer did get coreboot working, but it's not by any means
free'd, and it wasn't (apparently, or so I'm told) because of the work
of his company. The older system(s) are still dependent on the same
proprietary piece it was originally that they claim'd they'd free and
were 'working with Intel' on. His companies products are no more free
than others whom are working on and selling laptops that aim to be free.
Of which mine actually has worked on free'ing different pieces of
hardware and has products that are certified under the FSF's Respect
Your Freedom program (certifies claims the hardware is actually free).
The only good answer right now from an honest marketer at the level he's
claiming to be 'working on' (to the degree that everything including the
BIOS/intel management engine firmware, etc are free) of said product is
https://minifree.org/. They build off older refurbished Lenovo laptops
that are several years old. It pre-dates the Intel Management Engine
firmware issues. That isn't a long term solution to the problem because
all newer X86 systems (AMD and Intel) are dependent on similar
proprietary components (everything post 2009 for Intel and 2013 for
AMD).
In fact Todd's original design not only misled people in making them
think he could do stuff he couldn't. He also had included other hardware
components needlessly that would never be freed as well (or if there was
any chance of it partly being free'd it would be many years to come, not
even prior versions of the chip worked at all with free software). To be
more specific his original 'free' design that he put up for crowdfunding
included a recent NVIDIA chip. He changed it as a result of criticism by
people who actually understand what it'll take to achieve a modern free
system.
There is a crowdfunding campaign coming out shortly to fund an ARM-based
design. My company did this in cooperation with another. We mainly
funded its development. There is an actual working prototype laptop
design that isn't dependent on any non-free pieces for core
functionality. It'll probably pass even the Free Software Foundation's
strict standards under the Respect Your Freedom program, and will be
certified shortly most likely. Even if its decided it's not sufficient
(even though there aren't any non-free software components needed for
core functionality) for RYF certification it would be a major step in
the right direction and something the FSF would almost certainly promote
[even if not under RYF].
These are the *only* two good options if your concerned about privacy,
security, and so on. It's not the complete answer right now as for that
we really need the right software to run on top of the new to-be
crowdfunded ARM laptop. So for the moment that leaves us with one good
option that already exists:
www.minifree.org
There are various other BS claims he's making and has made in regards to
SSD firmware and now 802.11ac. There is a slight chance that we can free
an 802.11ac mediatek chip. Todd has nothing to do with this and it the
$100,000 USD or so number he's talking about is non-sense. I actually
examined the firmware for one of the chips that has the smallest
firmware and would require the least amount of time to reverse engineer.
It would probably take 4 years to complete. $25,000 a year isn't enough
to cover the living costs of the handful of people capable of reverse
engineering this chip and I know that because my company is funding one
of those people now. A good RE is going to normally make six figures.
Where on earth is he getting $100,000 number from? Todd knows he can't
come up with the funds to do any of the work he's claiming. He's just
putting on a good show to convince people to buy his product.
There are/were I believe efforts to free a line of SSD. I don't know
that there is any stable firmware for any SSD. There is a slight chance
he could 'come through', but if he ships one right now I suspect it
would not function in any reliable fashion. He also isn't responsible
for that work. It pre-dates him.
He also makes claims about having been a free software advocate going on
10 years. If you investigate his history you'll quickly discover he
bragged about a proprietary product less than a handful of years back of
another company he had. This is not a guy who has a history with free
software. He's not someone whose known in the free software world. He's
been to conferences, but certainly not free software ones. If he had I'd
have encountered him. I got to both free and other not-so-free
conferences. He's attending events that are bigger, but not ones that
actually are focused on freedom.
There are tons of other bogus claims... these are just a small handful I
can think of.
