>Your answers confirm to me, that we do not know how they >manage their
secrets.
We do know the basic details. As others have outlined above, a combination of
legal obligations and careful access management keep the risk of disclosure
low. Specifics might not be public, though.
>We do not how many people has the intel me and amd psp >source software,
their respective encryption keys and what >else relevant software in terms of
a libre software computer.
Why would we want to though? Please do inform me if you have something else
in mind, but the only use I can see for such information is to launch a
targeted attack to squeeze the details out of relevant individuals. As
Ignacio.Agullo pointed out, this would be of little gain to the free software
community. Though it may be harder, it would be better to petition the
company or simply switch in the name of libre software.
>Likely it is a system of need to know and maybe their >registration system
on who made what, enables them to >narrow it much down regarding who did the
leaking, should >there be a leaker.
There is- with such a large piece of software as MS Windows, for example,
there are many different individual programs which combine to form the whole.
Programmers are allocated to only one (maybe a few?) of these at a time, and
consequently only a certain group of people have access to the code for a
given part at any set moment. On top of that, any leaker trying to prove
their authenticity would likely need to reveal more details- that limits even
further who it could be.
>Maybe they do not see any reason for a libre software >computer and
disclosing anything would be against their >financial interests.
To a degree, that's probably a fair assessment; however, saying they see no
reason at all is likely excessive, and there's more to it than finances. It's
like with the environmental movement- although support is widespread, only a
tiny portion of people are sufficiently motivated and reckless to perform
dangerous/illegal acts for the cause. Similarly, expecting a Snowden in every
company is excessive.
>I would also like to know if there have been any hacking >attempts to get
the intel and amd non free software?
Not that have been disclosed, to the best of my knowledge. There was the 2006
discovery of documents discussing the ME on a public FTP server by Igor
Skochinsky. but Intel had put them there (through carelessness). I'm not sure
they had source in them either. Furthermore, there is a rumor that ME source
is traded on the dark web, but it doesn't seem to be supported by evidence.
In any case, the PSP doesn't seem to come at all in such 'attacks'.
>Unless countries like russia and china have their own >brand of computers,
it must be unacceptable for them.
Without any confirmed exploits, the perceived threat from these chips likely
pales in comparison to that posed by the OS and other higher-level
components. Furthermore, I'm quite certain these countries do have their own
computers- if not, switching to ARM-based devices would hardly be difficult.
