Post #4038132
2026-07-23 13:44 UTC
@seuros@mastodon.bsd.cafe My impression of FireWire was always that it was inherently insecure and gave the device a backdoor to the host. Was this inaccurate or later fixed or is it just something you have to accept using that ecosystem?
Replies (1)
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@seuros@mastodon.bsd.cafe 2026-07-23 13:59
@dalias@hachyderm.io FireWire has direct DMA access to the host’s memory (up to the 4 GB address space on most implementations), which is why it earned that reputation. In many ways, it became the scapegoat. You know what else has DMA? PCI Express. Every GPU, NVMe SSD, NIC, and Thunderbolt device. The real issue was that, at the time, IOMMUs either didnt exist or werent widely deployed or enabled. The driver will use the IOMMU after few round of refactoring. My priority was to get the driver correct and working on real hardware first. And get it out the deprecation list.