<story><title>Struck by a Thunderbolt</title><url>https://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2019/02/26/struck-by-a-thunderbolt/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>floatboth</author><text>Thunderbolt is a horrendous piece of garbage. Not just in the sense of &amp;quot;we&amp;#x27;re making an internal bus external before ensuring security&amp;quot;, but just in what it actually is:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;whitequark&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;1097777102563074048&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;whitequark&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;1097777102563074048&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Thunderbolt, uh, does not expose PCIe lanes directly. Thunderbolt is an MPLS-like packet switching network that can encapsulate PCIe TLPs over a PHY and MAC without a spec, chips without documentation, and software with barely any support. […] Ah, and let&amp;#x27;s not forget that the absurdly complicated MPLS-like system with topology written in EEPROMs in every node that, as far as I can tell, you have to bitbang via the half-configured packet path (what the actual fuck?), well, it&amp;#x27;s very general. You can describe a lot of different networks in it. But of course the Linux driver has two or three hardcoded ones, including indexes into the EEPROMs on the way, that it recognizes and loads a hardcoded configuration for. The entire thing is made -even worse than USB-, which is an achievement.&lt;p&gt;It pains me to hear people complaining about the lack of Thunderbolt in AMD Ryzen Mobile laptops, and wishing for it in the next generation now that the spec is no longer Intel-exclusive in some way. Lack of Thunderbolt is a &lt;i&gt;feature&lt;/i&gt;.</text></comment>
<story><title>Struck by a Thunderbolt</title><url>https://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2019/02/26/struck-by-a-thunderbolt/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jarjoura</author><text>Hmmm, on Windows whenever I plug in a new Thunderbolt device, it requests permission to activate it. I assumed this was for this very reason. If I hand someone my computer logged in and unlocked, it&amp;#x27;s as good as compromised.</text></comment>