Anti evil maid and Heads are same?

[kzlz]

Heads are coreboot version anti evil maid. is this correct?

[fsflover]

Anti evil maid? coreboot? heads?

When I read the forums here, I often see the words anti evil maid, coreboot, and heads, but even after searching on Google, I can’t really figure out what they mean. Could you please explain it in a way that even someone who is not familiar with computers can understand?

[gonzalo-bulnes]

@kzlz It depends a little bit on what you mean exactly by “a version of”.

Anti Evil Maid (AEM) usually refers to a specific way to ensure that any change to the files that are used to boot can be detected.

It takes its name from a class of attacks called “evil maid attacks”, where the goal of the attacker is to modify a system without being detected.

To do that AEM relies on a feature of Intel processors called the Intel Management Engine (Intel ME).

Heads also aims at making sure that evil maid attacks would be detected, but it does so through different means. In particular, it doesn’t rely on Intel ME.

So both projects could be said to be “anti evil maid” mechanisms (lowercase), but Heads is not a version of Anti Evil Maid (a.k.a AEM in capitals).

Does that make sense, answer your question?

Now, for more details about both AEM and Heads, and why you may prefer one to another in any given context, I’d suggest starting from the topic that @fsflover linked above and asking more questions there if needed.