Submission + - China Has Backdoor On US Military Chip (cam.ac.uk) 11
jjp9999 writes: Based on claims that silicon chips could be infected, security researcher Sergei Skorobogatov claims he and his team developed chip scanning software to put this to the test. They got their hands on a US military chip "that is highly secure with sophisticated encryption standards," that also happens to be manufactured in China. What they found was the chip has a backdoor on it that can disable the chip or reopen it at will. "This particular chip is prevalent in many systems from weapons, nuclear power plants to public transport. In other words, this backdoor access could be turned into an advanced Stuxnet weapon to attack potentially millions of systems. The scale and range of possible attacks has huge implications for National Security and public infrastructure," Skorobogatov writes on his blog.
Troll submission alert ! (Score:2)
A "US military chip that is highly secure with sophisticated encryption standards" can never be made in China
That chip could be made in Taiwan or Korea or Japan, but definitely NOT China !
This submission is troll to begin with
Re: (Score:2)
The submission isn't a troll, but the paper could be. There's a lot of buzzwords within the paper and critically little data. Not saying it's not true, but I'd love to see someone else verify what they found. And if so, hoooo, boy.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't know near enough to make any judgement on its merits, but
Quo Vadis Labs has a website. I spent twenty minutes plowing through the first pdf linked to. If it's fake somebody put a fair bit of work into it. http://www.quovadislabs.com/ [quovadislabs.com]
Sergei apparently has an office at University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory,
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/people/ [cam.ac.uk]
scroll down the list.
So, I'd suggest someone far more knowledgeable than I maybe check it out. My WAG is saying it's legit.
Re: (Score:3)
You said:
"So, I'd suggest someone far more knowledgeable than I maybe check it out. My WAG is saying it's legit."
If you read that troll article more carefully, you will see the following:
Further funding is needed for us to progress to testing further silicon chips and to develop better search algorithms which would allow us to detect possible spy systems or vulnerabilities in a greater range of systems
***emphasis mine***
Lemme summarize that troll article for you ---
We are very smart people, we have offices in CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY and we have BREAKTHROUGH SILICON CHIP SCANNER TECHNOLOGY.
We hereby announced that we have found BACKDOORS in chips that we know were made in China, and somehow those chip have mysteriously turned into "US MILITARY CHIP".
We are telling you that the UK and USA govern
Re: (Score:2)
Okay, I get it. Thanks for the bold caps to help it sink in. These guys put some work into it, eh?
To be clear, didn't say I believed it ('cuz I don't know enuf), said it looked worth checking out.
As I was reading the pdf and other stuff, part of my reaction was "Gee, golly, wow." and part seeing the possibility of stock and cobbled photos, some nifty diagrams, some nice mumbo jumbo; and anybody can make a website claiming anything they like. Thanks for checking it out.
Do you trust China or US GOVT more? (Score:2)
Seriously dude,
Out of the billions of chips made, especially CPUs or TV chipsets or 3G dongles, or $40 routers/wifi units. Do you really really think not one single line or specific build run at night time doesnt have an extra 2% transisitors in it with a side stepped ROM code or 'secret triggered' bypass mode?
Seriously.... none at all?
Or, perhaps even 100% of items made for USA have NSA backdoors in there secretly in the 1mm thin line.
As it is there is proof that a mobile phone 'turned off' can still reco
Re: (Score:2)
Just to ease your concern -
Claims made by of the pair of con artists:
We chose an American military chip that is highly secure with sophisticated encryption standard, manufactured in China
and
99% of chips are manufactured in China
Those guys are not talking about simple resistors or power pumps or heat sink
They are talking about " an American military chip that is highly secure with sophisticated encryption standard, manufactured in China " that they claim " 99% of chips are manufactured in China "
Translation:
They don't even know what they are talking about !!
Their scam might scare some congressmen shitless, but c'mon !!
Those of u
Re: (Score:2)
Found this, don't know if relevant or useful: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:G4QegZJnaqUJ:www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/security/posters/rnw24-group-overview.pdf+quo+vadis+lab+scam&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us [googleusercontent.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Someone on boingboing found this link, which may have figured out the part.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4030746 [ycombinator.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Many thanks for the headsup !
Indeed, the claim by those so-called 'security experts" are crappy at best
How can anyone take claim such as "99% of the chips are made in China" seriously??