[Hexus]Russia building 'Baikal processor' to replace AMD and Intel chips

[ShintaiDK]

Some times I wonder how Humanity survived the pre-oil/gas age

Gas is used for not only heat, but also cooking in germany.

Just because it could be done in the old days, doesnt mean it can today. Either practically or not at all. And people in europe would quickly revolt if they had to sacrifice their quality of life. Just so the US could embargo russia.

Even your own country is quite dependent of russian gas.

 

[Techhog]

You'll see more of this as the governments come to realize that they can't trust american products in some critical scenarios like defense, big internet carriers and enterprise.

American products are defective by design in order to give access to the us government or a competitive advantage to american companies and will be deprioritized or replaced entirely with "domestic" (european, chinese, russian designed) alternatives whenever possible and if it makes strategic and economic sense.

This is an american forum and obviously you don't like to hear this, but that's the truth and this is a straight consequence of the nsa leaks.

The world has realized they you either have a domestic IT industry or you accept to be spied relentlessly by foreign powers.

The big issue is fragmentation. If this spreads, it's eventually going to result in regional processors, OSes, and applications, and that will slow down tech advancement worldwide. We'll be set back at least a decade. It's a scary prospect, especially if this causes the complete death of x86 and makes all current Windows and Mac programs useless.

 

[AtenRa]

Even your own country is quite dependent of russian gas.

Only a small minority uses Gas in Greece. We could use more but the ugly truth is we dont.

 

[Exophase]

Probably ARM ReactOS.

Probably not. Since it doesn't run x86 programs there wouldn't be much point. It's also not remotely mature, it barely even boots.

Most likely it'll run some flavor of Linux.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Only a small minority uses Gas in Greece. We could use more but the ugly truth is we dont.

Around 4 billion cubic meters. Thats quite a lot considering you dont need much, if any for heat.

Gas is used a lot for cooking.

 

[AtenRa]

Around 4 billion cubic meters. Thats quite a lot considering you dont need much, if any for heat.

Gas is used a lot for cooking.

Only 12-15% of the households use Gas, the numbers are growing each year but they are still low.
Gas is also used in Industry and the commercial sector taking the majority of that 4B Cubic Meters.
Solar and Wind energy is much better than Gas (for Urban use) in a country like Greece

 

[Revolution 11]

I can see why they are doing it but the whole situation is a bit silly as well.

Basically, they traded American chips because of fear of the NSA (valid concerns) for a British chip design. That is not much better in terms of security, unless all the CPU production will happen in Russia. And the personnel will have to be screened for connections to Western intelligence agencies. The motherboards will also have to be built in Russia to their own spec, if you outsource this to foreign companies, that creates a hole just as big as American CPUs.

And finally, your keyboards will have to be produced in Russia as the NSA has demonstrated techniques to gather data off keyboards and peripherals with simple transistors and wire antennas.

Going with ARM and dumping Intel/AMD is nice but there is a lot more work you have to do to avoid calling this move total security theater.

 

[Revolution 11]

The big issue is fragmentation. If this spreads, it's eventually going to result in regional processors, OSes, and applications, and that will slow down tech advancement worldwide. We'll be set back at least a decade. It's a scary prospect, especially if this causes the complete death of x86 and makes all current Windows and Mac programs useless.

Blame the NSA then. Whoever decides to split their own hardware/software/ecosystem has plenty of good reasons to do so. I do think that most of these parties vastly underestimate the difficulty in developing their own independent systems and the productivity loss that will result but their reasons to do so make sense.

NTMBK and and monkeydelmagico both have good points. I would even say it is a good thing that there is more diversity in hardware and software.

 

[Techhog]

Blame the NSA then. Whoever decides to split their own hardware/software/ecosystem has plenty of good reasons to do so. I do think that most of these parties vastly underestimate the difficulty in developing their own independent systems and the productivity loss that will result but their reasons to do so make sense.

NTMBK and and monkeydelmagico both have good points. I would even say it is a good thing that there is more diversity in hardware and software.

I do blame NSA. I don't think that this would bring diversity, however, since each region would require it's own standard tech.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Probably not. Since it doesn't run x86 programs there wouldn't be much point. It's also not remotely mature, it barely even boots.

Most likely it'll run some flavor of Linux.

You'd be surprised. The Russian government (and military, apparently) has begun showing a lot of interest in getting away from foreign operating systems. ReactOS is a Russian project, and the government there seems to see it as a Russian solution to the problem of foreign control over their codebase.

ReactOS for ARM may be in its infancy at this time, but you'd better believe that the Russians won't leave it that way if they replace most of their installed base of x86 hardware with homebrew ARM chips.

 

[Lepton87]

Aren't we talking about ReactorOS not ReactOS, it's Russia after all, isn't it? About CPUs embargo, the probability of such a thing is 0%, so if I'm crossing the border like some people do now to buy cheap gas, we can only bring as much as a car tank holds and 10 litres in external containers. How would it work with CPUs? If I'm going in with a laptop and a smartphone would they need to check upon my return if those cpus are still inside? I'm all for CPU smuggling and profiting of of it I'm going in with a laptop, taking out the CPU from it, replace it back across the border, rinse and repeat. People do that with petrol/diesel now, except it's legal.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The big issue is fragmentation. If this spreads, it's eventually going to result in regional processors, OSes, and applications, and that will slow down tech advancement worldwide. We'll be set back at least a decade. It's a scary prospect, especially if this causes the complete death of x86 and makes all current Windows and Mac programs useless.

That's only if you rely on fragile, monolithic, binary applications for a single platform.

Open-source applications don't have that problem, and neither do web-based (AJAX, etc).

 

[Techhog]

That's only if you rely on fragile, monolithic, binary applications for a single platform.

Open-source applications don't have that problem, and neither do web-based (AJAX, etc).

A lot of programs aren't open source, though, and most of their open source alternatives are inferior (such as MS Office vs. Open Office). Currently, there's no easy path to switch completely to open source without sacrifices, and legacy applications will be gone for good. As nice as it would be to say that it's as simple as going pure open source, it really isn't at this point. It's still a setback of at least a decade.

 

[scannall]

Does Russia even have any modern chip fabs? Otherwise they're still going to have to shop abroad to get their chip produced.

I'm sure AMSL or Canon would be glad to sell and setup all the equipment they'd ever need.

 

[BD231]

You'll see more of this as the governments come to realize that they can't trust american products in some critical scenarios like defense, big internet carriers and enterprise.

American products are defective by design in order to give access to the us government or a competitive advantage to american companies and will be deprioritized or replaced entirely with "domestic" (european, chinese, russian designed) alternatives whenever possible and if it makes strategic and economic sense.

This is an american forum and obviously you don't like to hear this, but that's the truth and this is a straight consequence of the nsa leaks.

The world has realized they you either have a domestic IT industry or you accept to be spied relentlessly by foreign powers.

Whats that? Americans still hand out blankets with small pox?

 

[Exophase]

You'd be surprised. The Russian government (and military, apparently) has begun showing a lot of interest in getting away from foreign operating systems. ReactOS is a Russian project, and the government there seems to see it as a Russian solution to the problem of foreign control over their codebase.

ReactOS for ARM may be in its infancy at this time, but you'd better believe that the Russians won't leave it that way if they replace most of their installed base of x86 hardware with homebrew ARM chips.

ReactOS isn't a Russian project just because its coordinator is Russian and there's a ReactOS foundation in Russia. There's a ReactOS foundation in Germany too, you know? If the Russian government wants something that's developed completely in Russia ReactOS isn't going to cut it (never mind that ReactOS utilizes code from other open source projects), and they'd probably want something developed completely by their government and not by open source advocates who happen to be in Russia. But since all of that's totally infeasible they're just as well using Linux where they can just as easily customize it and audit the source code as much as they please.

The driving point of ReactOS is to run Windows software, the ARM version is a novelty which is probably why so little has been done on it.. and mandating it for government computers would be really crazy..

 

[SammichPG]

And how would you uphold that embargo? Plenty of countries in both europe and asia would happily keep selling. North Korea even uses Dell just to make an example. Not to mention europe wouldnt want such an embargo. Because it would mean the gas would be stopped as well. And countries like germany would freeze to death in winter.

Embargoing Russia, ah this is a funny one. :biggrin:

I'm italian and Russia is one of our biggest business partners, they sell their gas (no american gas does not make sense from a cost and a strategic point of view) and we provide them with our products.
We may dance around it to not upset our greatest ally/WWW2 overlord across the ocean, but money talks and russians scream in that regard.

It's a very solid relationship that we are not going to compromise if possible and several countries in europe feel this way.

A lot of programs aren't open source, though, and most of their open source alternatives are inferior (such as MS Office vs. Open Office). Currently, there's no easy path to switch completely to open source without sacrifices, and legacy applications will be gone for good. As nice as it would be to say that it's as simple as going pure open source, it really isn't at this point. It's still a setback of at least a decade.

This would spur a series of government investments in the domestic software and hardware industry.
The EU should start heavily pushing IT standards for most sectors and situations like the microsoft monopoly on the office automation should quickly get fixed.
It's a setback for the american IT, but a golden opportunity for our industries, I'm all for it, why are forced to rely on google, ms or whatever?

The big issue is fragmentation. If this spreads, it's eventually going to result in regional processors, OSes, and applications, and that will slow down tech advancement worldwide. We'll be set back at least a decade. It's a scary prospect, especially if this causes the complete death of x86 and makes all current Windows and Mac programs useless.

Fragmentation is not a possibility, it's happening.
The internet as we know it is dying and there will be networks interfacing each other through NAT or other monitored means.

x86 is dying, the masses are switching to ARM and the stuff running on big iron can usually be recompiled, this monopoly of a single instruction set is an anomaly in the history of computing.

 

[Dribble]

I can see why they are doing it but the whole situation is a bit silly as well.

Basically, they traded American chips because of fear of the NSA (valid concerns) for a British chip design. That is not much better in terms of security, unless all the CPU production will happen in Russia.[/I]

That's not really the same - Intel sell you a completed black box full of NSA goodies. ARM sell you the design to a cpu which you can customise and then get fabbed where-ever you want.

 

[DrMrLordX]

The thing any Russian should worry about the most is the black box full of Kremlin goodies that will be packaged into a machine equipped with one or more state-sponsored Baikal processors. What works for the NSA can work for anyone else.

Sometimes, the only thing worse than a foreign government spying on you is your own government spying on you.

Of course, it has yet to be substantiated that any Intel hardware is loaded down with NSA spying tech. The worst offenders thus far have been routers and other bits of network equipment, and that's usually in the firmware (switching to 3rd party firmware can fix that). Whether or not the Russian government will actually use this as an opportunity to spy on its own citizens remains to be seen.

ReactOS isn't a Russian project just because its coordinator is Russian and there's a ReactOS foundation in Russia. There's a ReactOS foundation in Germany too, you know? If the Russian government wants something that's developed completely in Russia ReactOS isn't going to cut it (never mind that ReactOS utilizes code from other open source projects), and they'd probably want something developed completely by their government and not by open source advocates who happen to be in Russia. But since all of that's totally infeasible they're just as well using Linux where they can just as easily customize it and audit the source code as much as they please.

The driving point of ReactOS is to run Windows software, the ARM version is a novelty which is probably why so little has been done on it.. and mandating it for government computers would be really crazy..

Don't take my word for it. High-ranking members of the government have taken a personal interest in ReactOS. I have heard allegations that ReactOS has found widespread adoption on military x86 systems, though I have no sources to back it up. It could be a fiction, but it would fit the pattern we're seeing with Baikal.

 

[bononos]

.....
I am actually pretty curious about how this backdoor-on-a-CPU works - limiting things to the actual CPU and embedded components in a current Intel desktop part like Haswell. I guess it'd have to recognize sequences of code in drivers for devices like ethernet controllers (which ones? All of them?) and modify it in a pretty non-trivial way. Maybe I'm missing some more obvious ideas and someone could tell me, but this doesn't sound very easy to do.

What about the rdrand-Dual_EC_DRBG instruction trapdoor? NSA covertly worked on the design an and pushed it. Intel put in Ivy bridge and pressured Linux developers to favour it over others.

 

[AtenRa]

The thing any Russian should worry about the most is the black box full of Kremlin goodies that will be packaged into a machine equipped with one or more state-sponsored Baikal processors. What works for the NSA can work for anyone else.

Sometimes, the only thing worse than a foreign government spying on you is your own government spying on you.

Of course, it has yet to be substantiated that any Intel hardware is loaded down with NSA spying tech. The worst offenders thus far have been routers and other bits of network equipment, and that's usually in the firmware (switching to 3rd party firmware can fix that). Whether or not the Russian government will actually use this as an opportunity to spy on its own citizens remains to be seen.

The Baikal CPU is not for commercial use, they will replace PCs on the government/public sector. Russian people have nothing to worry about, they will still be able to buy AMD/Intel products.

 

[DrMrLordX]

The Baikal CPU is not for commercial use, they will replace PCs on the government/public sector. Russian people have nothing to worry about, they will still be able to buy AMD/Intel products.

I'm sure they'll be able to do so, but if Baikal machines prove to be cheaper, don't you think they'd go for those instead? It's not going to be long before some enterprising individual with government contacts is going to want to sell equipment featuring the Baikal if the price is right.

You can get extremely cheap Longsoon/Godson-based machines in China, and possibly even outside of China. I haven't seen market penetration data for those machines, but people do buy and use them. I see no reason why it should be any different for Baikal unless the Russian government specifically places an embargo on civilian use of the equipment.

 

[Exophase]

Don't take my word for it. High-ranking members of the government have taken a personal interest in ReactOS. I have heard allegations that ReactOS has found widespread adoption on military x86 systems, though I have no sources to back it up. It could be a fiction, but it would fit the pattern we're seeing with Baikal.

Yes, they've taken interest in it - as an alternative to using Windows to run Windows software. Take out the x86 part of the equation and it loses all of its appeal.

Plus, your links show that Russian officials were asked for money and had ReactOS presented to them, which is at least somewhat different from taking a personal interest in it.

You can get extremely cheap Longsoon/Godson-based machines in China, and possibly even outside of China. I haven't seen market penetration data for those machines, but people do buy and use them. I see no reason why it should be any different for Baikal unless the Russian government specifically places an embargo on civilian use of the equipment.

Well, I expect Baikal to do better because it should be less of a joke than Loongson. If it's really cheap it's because it sucks. I don't think very many are used outside of cases like rms.

What about the rdrand-Dual_EC_DRBG instruction trapdoor? NSA covertly worked on the design an and pushed it. Intel put in Ivy bridge and pressured Linux developers to favour it over others.

a) A sabotage of rdrand making it yield less entropy than it should is not the same thing as a backdoor, that's like calling all malware viruses.
b) Bruce Schnier linked to research showing how one could vary manufacturing to sabotage an integrated random number generator (https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/09/surreptitiously.html), that's a lot different from showing that Intel has sabotaged their random number generator.
c) There isn't actual evidence that there's any connection between Intel's RNG development and the NSA.

Here's Linus Torvald's take on this sort of paranoia.. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/10/torvalds_on_rrrand_nsa_gchq/

 

[scannall]

The CPU market for desktops, servers, laptops, workstations etc is pretty fragile if you're not a big US supporter. It's Intel or nothing, pretty much ignoring the token competition of AMD. (I *like* AMD, I'm just realistic).

ARM is great in that there is actually some competition there, and quite a few companies making CPU's using ARMv7 and ARMv8.

Having an entire industry dependent on one company is always a bad thing, even if you're a fan of said company.

 

[Exophase]

For most desktops, laptops, servers, and workstations AMD is a much better alternative than something ARM based. Both because of x86 software support and because they're offering much higher end CPUs than anyone will currently give you with an ARM license.

I get not relying on Intel's integrated RNG, it's reasonable to not use it for anything remotely critical - there are very few cases where using it really makes a difference. And if you want a good hardware RNG that you can trust you can make your own. But getting rid of the CPU entirely is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Moving all of their workstations and servers off of x86 is definitely going to take a toll somewhere in productivity.

But I don't think Russia is doing this because they legitimately fear that the CPU itself is compromised but to make a political statement. As a side effect it keeps global awareness high on the crap NSA does, which is probably a good thing. But smearing Intel and AMD over a technical liabilities without evidence isn't such a good thing.