[mdlug] [Fwd: [opensuse-offtopic] And now the Manchurian microchip]

[Joseph C. Bender]

Aaron Kulkis wrote:
> Wow.
> 
> This is as startling as in the late 80's when George Goble
> (author of the first multi-CPU Unix kernel, and builder of
> the first dual-VAX to run it on) came back from a security
> conference visibly distressed. 

<rest of post snipped>

This article is full of fear and devoid of information.

If they had *proof* of such a thing, I would expect to be able to find 
technical details and where it was mounted in the systems and what chips 
it is a part of if embedded into existing silicon.  You would think that 
they'd say in the article "This is hidden in the southbridge of every 
chipset fabbed in China" or some such.

If such functionality is there, one would expect to be able to find 
information on detection of such hardware and how it might phone home, 
so that network defenses could potentially be constructed to combat the 
problem.

There are far easier attack vectors than phantom Chinese silicon.

Really, this article is no better than the tinfoil-hatters nattering on 
about those pesky black helicopters.

-JCB