Everyone raves about Qubes OS for isolating apps and VMs, which is awesome. But I’ve been stuck on one big question that doesn’t get discussed enough: What if the hardware itself is already compromised?
If an agency like the NSA has a backdoor baked directly into the CPU (like Intel ME), the GPU firmware, or the BIOS, does all that OS-level isolation even matter? We’re stuck with a market dominated by a few companies that don’t open-source their firmware.
It feels like we’re building a fortress on a foundation we can’t inspect.
- If the hardware can talk to the NSA behind the scenes, can the Xen hypervisor really stop it?
- When people say Qubes is the “most secure OS,” are they just assuming the hardware is clean?
- Is there any hardware out there (Purism, specific older chips, etc.) that actually gives us a fighting chance, or is the x86 game rigged?
I’m not trying to start a conspiracy thread, just trying to understand the real-world limits. If the silicon is compromised, is there any point in running Qubes, or are we just moving the problem up one layer?
Would love to hear your thoughts on this!