PowerPC Macs are old machines, so I would think many of the vulnerabilities would be known by now. I know that the version of bash on my PowerPC Mac is at risk from Shellshock, so maybe don't run a VPN on your old Mac, or actually update bash to the latest version like I did or use a different shell like dash or zsh. I would think that newer software might pose more of a chance of introducing problems, although software testing has improved. Things are now way more complicated than they need to be and I think that those complexities are what introduce more risk.
Yes, this sounds a bit like the spread of Fear Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD.) Even though I am posting about the potential risk of Intel ME, I am still going to use an Intel PC. I am not afraid to use my older PowerPC Macs. And, if we do fall victim to problems with Intel ME, I could fallback to the older hardware that doesn't have these new problems.
An Open Letter to Intel from Andrew S. Tanenbaum (www.cs.vu.nl)
It seems we are only learning a bit more now about Intel ME.
- A secret processor embedded in all Intel CPUs sold in the last decade. -- [ ten years is a long time. ]
- MINIX OS was launched in 1987 as an educational project by Dutch professor Andrew S. Tanenbaum, who wanted to show students that they don't need to write millions of lines of code to create a basic, functional operating system. -- [ Minix is NOT a modern open source OS, and I am not aware of it being audited or subject to software audits. ]
- A full OS always running in ring -3. -- [ that seems like a pretty big attack vector and risk. ]
There is similar malicious hardware we don't know about, but this seems like a fairly recent phenomena: web cameras that call home, TVs that listen in on your conversation, smart meters with extra radios that can connect to appliances in your home, etc. I feel fairly confident that my PowerPC Macs are not subject to a secret OS always running on the die of the older PowerPC chip.
