# Building a Quorum of Trust in the Oxide Rack

- Show: [Oxide and Friends](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends)
- Published: 2026-04-04
- Length: 1h 26m
- Episode: 7
- Page: https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2026-04-04-building-a-quorum-of-trust-in-the-oxide-rack
- Listen: https://share.transistor.fm/s/d176e5fe

## Summary

Oxide colleagues Andrew Stone and Finch Foner, alongside founders Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, explain the design and verification of Trust Quorum, the distributed system ensuring the Oxide rack's internal trust. They detail the transition from a 'low rent' initial implementation to a robust protocol using Shamir secret sharing, secure channels, and remote attestation to protect against physical theft. The team discusses overcoming engineering hurdles, including ZFS key rotation via Lua channel programs and using AI tools like Claude to navigate the complex Omicron codebase.

## Chapters

- [0:00](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2026-04-04-building-a-quorum-of-trust-in-the-oxide-rack#t=0) Introduction: Audio issues and team background
- [4:55](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2026-04-04-building-a-quorum-of-trust-in-the-oxide-rack#t=295) Andrew Stone's early work on Trust Quorum and ROT
- [13:40](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2026-04-04-building-a-quorum-of-trust-in-the-oxide-rack#t=820) Pivoting from SPDM to TLS and attestation
- [21:33](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2026-04-04-building-a-quorum-of-trust-in-the-oxide-rack#t=1293) Threat model and Shamir secret sharing for encrypted storage
- [32:22](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2026-04-04-building-a-quorum-of-trust-in-the-oxide-rack#t=1942) Implementing Low Rent Trust Quorum (LRTQ) to ship the first rack
- [44:25](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2026-04-04-building-a-quorum-of-trust-in-the-oxide-rack#t=2665) Finch Foner joins and uses Claude to navigate the codebase
- [54:19](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2026-04-04-building-a-quorum-of-trust-in-the-oxide-rack#t=3259) Using sans.io and simulators for protocol verification
- [1:02:40](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2026-04-04-building-a-quorum-of-trust-in-the-oxide-rack#t=3760) Key rotation and ZFS Lua channel programs
- [1:15:46](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2026-04-04-building-a-quorum-of-trust-in-the-oxide-rack#t=4546) Post-launch reflection and future security enhancements

## Topics

- [Embedded firmware](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/embedded-firmware)
- [Security & privacy](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/security-and-privacy)
- [AI & machine learning](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/ai-and-machine-learning)
- [Scaling production](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/scaling-production)
- [Careers & education](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/engineering-careers-and-education)

## Most relevant to

companies scaling up

## Mentioned

- Oxide (company)
- Trust Quorum (product)
- NXP LPC55S69 (chip)
- SPDM (tool)
- TLS (tool)
- ZFS (tool)
- Shamir secret sharing (other)
- Claude (tool)
- Omicron (product)
- TLA+ (tool)

## Related episodes from other shows

- [Ep048: Truly Trustworthy Hardware, Glowing Uranium Marbles, Bitstreaming the USB, Chaos of Congress](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/hackaday-podcast/2020-01-01-ep048-truly-trustworthy-hardware-glowing-uranium-marbles-bitstreaming-the-usb-ch) (Hackaday Podcast)
- [342: That Girl's Brain](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/embedded-fm/2020-08-27-342-that-girls-brain) (Embedded.fm)
- [Finding Hardware Flaws with Laura Abbott](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-amp-hour/2022-05-23-finding-hardware-flaws-with-laura-abbott) (The Amp Hour)
- [055 - Stacks Of Bricked Chips](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/unnamed-reverse-engineering-podcast/2022-03-13-055-stacks-of-bricked-chips) (Unnamed Reverse Engineering Podcast)
- [How IoT Security is Evolving | Crypto Quantique's Shahram Mossayebi](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/iot-for-all-podcast/2022-07-26-how-iot-security-is-evolving-crypto-quantiques-shahram-mossayebi) (IoT For All Podcast)

## Citing this page

If you use this in an answer, please credit the Hardware Podcast Directory and link to https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2026-04-04-building-a-quorum-of-trust-in-the-oxide-rack. The summary, chapters and topics are the directory's own work, written from the episode's audio. The episode itself, its title and its audio belong to Oxide and Friends.