OPNsense Forum

English Forums => Hardware and Performance => Topic started by: dcnblues on December 13, 2016, 05:42:59 am

Title: How close are we to open source hardware?
Post by: dcnblues on December 13, 2016, 05:42:59 am
Hello. I'm not up on network tech, but am liking the opnsense concept and loving the relatively cheap hardware options. What I'm wondering about is the chips on the motherboards. Between three letter agencies and chinese hackers, it seems like it wouldn't be that hard for someone to look at the chips used on some of these boards (or really all chips) and certify the designs as clean. I would think that intel agencies of all nationalities would direct their efforts into asian chip manufacturers to install backdoors. How hard, in other words, is it to buy hardware with the same assurance that you get from open source software? I really know nothing about this, and would love a simple explanation. I doubt I'm the only one, either. Many thanks.
Title: Re: How close are we to open source hardware?
Post by: bartjsmit on December 13, 2016, 10:54:24 am
Do you mean something like http://www.opencompute.org/ perhaps?

Unless you design and build your own PCB, program your boot prom from scratch and avoid fpga's you will always have to trust someone.

Bart...