NSA Contributing Low-Level Code to Coreboot UEFI BIOS Alternative

What did you think about it, zigote?

My first question is "Does thew NSA use Coreboot themselves?"

If not, then I can't think of a reason for them to "contribute" other than to try to slip in a backdoor. Unless there's another explanation I'm not seeing, it seems that it would be wise to reject or very very closely scrutinize any contributions by NSA employees.

If the NSA does use Coreboot, then there is another explanation for why they might want to contribute. While they are certainly anti-privacy, they are pro-security when it is *their* security on the line. They might want to improve Coreboot out of their own self interest. That still doesn't mean their contributions should be accepted without scrutiny though. Maybe they could introduce a backdoor that only they know how to protect themselves against, and there is the question of why they would share their improvements with the rest of the Coreboot community when they could instead maintain their own private branch.

I certainly don't think this is something to ignore, but I also don't see a black-and-white distinction between NSA- and non-NSA code in terms of security. An NSA employee or another privacy-hostile developer could probably submit Coreboot patches anonymously. IIRC there are also Google employees who contribute to Coreboot, and although Google does release a lot of their code under free licenses, they are also a privacy-hostile organization. NSA code might warrant some extra scrutiny, but I don't agree with the OP in that link who says

"Better to avoid coreboot and feel secure that the hardware could never subvert my expectations of security and privacy."

as if software is guaranteed to be secure as long as the NSA isn't known to be directly involved.

> I think we should note the "/s" after his comment. I suppose it may mean sarcasm.

Oh, I missed that. I think you're right.

> BTW big tech companies (which we don't like) contribute to Linux too.

Also true.

> And, such kind of your, not just you though, explanations could be (poor, I dare to say) excuses to avoid something inconvenient questions.

If you clarify what the inconvenient question is I'll do my best to answer it.

>I don't care much about it

You cared enough to make a comment about it ;)

>but I wonder if it was you, why you suddenly downvoted those many posts.

As I said; it's a bad habit and I'll try to comment more instead of voting.

>You seem to read posts of this forum quite frequently. I mean, why this timing??

I quote something I heard in an Alan Watts talk one time (which I believe again is a quote from someone else): "You don't know when you will fart, you don't say or example "at nine o'clock I will drop fart""

>But again I don't care much about it.

Then why do you ask? :)

>So you don't have to reply to this post.

I'll try to actively engage more in comments instead of voting since you found my votings "creepy".

>I don't know if you remember, I have got mad at downvoters and have complained about it quite strongly. (btw no one counter-argued at that time except Abudullar.)
Compared to the case, I don't care quite much about it now, right? I am afraid I really don't care much about it.

No, I do not remember this. I don't read everything here.

>Yes it seems to be better, because basically discussion exists to solve problems, especially when we try to solve the freedom issues. So voting does not seem to proceed discussion efficiently. You should join discussion to solve those problems with words.

Yes, I agree. If I see something I find illogical and/or toxic from now I'll comment instead of downvote.

>My understanding cannot understand why the quote explains the reason "why suddenly? this timing?". Why did you quote? Was there something inconvenience?

Haha, no perhaps it was not the best quote in that context. But what I meant was that I have no good answer as to why this timing.

>I wrote "I wonder", I was not asking, wasn't I?

Indeed:) my bad.

>You seem to want to change your bad habit now, despite so, don't you think it creepy?

Well, no. But I understand that others may find it creepy, and I realized now (with your help) that I find it more constructive and fun to comment instead of simply voting. Basically the voting thing was a bad and lazy habit. The downvote button is just so so convenient. It's like sugar. Bad for you but tasty.

>Anyway if you can engage more in discussion, I think there are more important topics, for example, the freedom issues.

Agreed!