Architecture 4031: Introductory Coreboot

Thanks for the feedback about the accent. I understand that it can add an unnecessary layer of complexity to content consumption. I will pay special attention to improving it in upcoming classes, but there are some limits to what I can do. In the future, with community and commercial support, we can afford professional domain experts who speak with a good accent.

At this point, we are instead trying to fill the vacuum by providing something, maybe not the most enjoyable, but a basic introduction to the topic to buy some time for domain experts instead of answering basic questions.

This course video has text subtitles.

Text materials are here: https://gitlab.com/opensecuritytraining

> coreboot is one of the leading extended firmware frameworks, which recently gain popularity thanks to being default boot firmware for Google Chromebooks. It is promoted by Open Compute Project Open System Firmware Committee and recognized by Qubes OS Team as viable option for Hardware Certification.

Full list of security classes, https://p.ost2.fyi/

  Architecture 1001: x86-64 Assembly  
  Architecture 2001: x86-64 OS Internals
  Architecture 4001: x86-64 Intel Firmware Attack & Defense
  Architecture 4021: Introductory UEFI  
  Architecture 4031: Introductory coreboot

These courses on low-level systems architecture, security, firmware, reversing & vulnerabilities were supervised by Xeno Kovah, "OST2: A new way to grow security talent for open source projects", https://archive.fosdem.org/2022/schedule/event/ost2/

> .. working for Apple.. on securing all the lesser-known firmwares on Macs and peripherals - everything from 3rd party GPUs to SecureBoot for monitors! He worked on the x86-side of the T2 SecureBoot architecture, and his final project was leading the M1 SecureBoot architecture - being directly responsible for designing a system that could provide iOS-level security, while still allowing customer choice to trust arbitrary non-Apple code such as Linux bootloaders. He left Apple in Dec 2020 after the M1 Macs shipped, so he could work full time on Open Security Training.

IUUC Xeno's goal was to create a taxonomy for security topics. If you will take a look here: https://ost2.fyi/System%20Security.html You can find a bigger plan showing the relation between various numbers of courses. Of course, we can only create minimal courses (compared to those taught in universities) about coreboot or UEFI, but in the long run, we should put together one of the most comprehensive firmware training with open and free access for everyone. You can read more about that motivation on other pages of https://ost2.fyi. Security is a broad topic covering various aspects. Please let us know if you have ideas about improving the used taxonomy since it takes enormous effort to put all security topics on the chart and build a map for students that will provide a seamless learning experience.

In American universities courses are typically numbered with four digits where the first corresponds to the year of a student's career, so freshman (1st year) courses are 1xxx, sophomore courses are 2xxx, and so on. The higher that first digit, the more advanced the course. (Since most bachelors degree careers are four years, courses that start with a 5 are graduate courses.)

With that context `Architecture 4031: Introductory Coreboot` is either a bonafide college course title or it's an attempt to sound like one.