My point is not that it&#x27;s difficult to design a peripheral device that loads its firmware over SPI (or whatever bus). My point is that firmware for all supported devices must be maintained on the proposed external device.<p>What happens when you add a new peripheral device to your laptop that didn&#x27;t exist when your read-only SPI-connected firmware repository was created? How do you solve this with less risk than what we have now? Eliminate hardware upgrades and peripheral devices in favor of disposable computers and e-waste?<p>FPGA:
I&#x27;m afraid the FPGA argument still doesn&#x27;t make sense. Sure, the community could create a &quot;trusted&quot; processor or SoC, but why use an FPGA over a custom designed processor?<p>If the FPGA is reprogrammed at every reboot, we now have to ensure this process can&#x27;t be exploited. If it&#x27;s never reprogrammed, why use an FPGA in place of a CPU in the first place?<p>I appreciate the input and perspectives, but I still don&#x27;t see how the &quot;laptop&quot; described in the paper is advantageous. There are many promising paths that move us much closer to secure computing, but simply moving firmware around doesn&#x27;t seem to move us forward.