• nephs
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    1 year ago

    Exactly. An add instruction, or any instruction needs to be carried out in steps within the hardware. Sometimes there’s systematic bugs in these implementations that can be exploited.

    Plus, it’s an open architecture where those bugs can be exposed and fixed. Where in Intel/arm based architectures, they can be rolled out to the world and be used by those in the know.

    Eg: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/is-the-intel-management-engine-a-backdoor/

    • ShiningWing
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      1 year ago

      RISC-V being open doesn’t mean all implementations using it have to be, though

      There’s nothing stopping a manufacturer from putting their own Intel Management Engine equivalent in a RISC-V CPU

      • nephs
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        1 year ago

        You are correct. I though it was copyleft GPL something.

        Thanks for bringing it into my attention. :)

      • idahocom
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        1 year ago

        The simplest risc-v implementations don’t need microcode at all.