AMD Debugger Hacked?

[quadomatic]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/15/amd_secret_debugger/

Anybody else hear about this?

 

[dmens]

“AMD processors (Athlon XP and better) have included firmware-based debugging features that expand greatly over standard, architecturally defined capabilities of x86,”

If this is the TAP unlock password, it's been around for far longer than Athlon XP. Also, it's most likely stepping specific so it's not going to do a whole lot of good except for the one hacked step.

That said, "9C5A203A" is an awfully short unlock key.

 

[quadomatic]

That said, "9C5A203A" is an awfully short unlock key.

That's what I thought...the password for my computer is more than twice that length, and has more variation in character type...

 

[veri745]

Is this just access to extra JTAG functions? I didn't quite follow what "debugger" they were talking about in the article

 

[veri745]

That's what I thought...the password for my computer is more than twice that length, and has more variation in character type...

Well that's obviously in hex, so you're not going to have that much "variation in character type"

And 32 bits seems about right

 

[Phynaz]

Secret debugging feature?

Worlds worst kept secret then is all I can say. I think Intel may even show where the debug hardware is in their architectural diagrams / photos.