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Indeed, the article title, per HN rules, should probably be "A2: Analog Malicious Hardware [pdf]". Maybe with " - undetectable CPU backdoor".
by ghusbands 10y ago
Indeed, the article title, per HN rules, should probably be "A2: Analog Malicious Hardware [pdf]". Maybe with " - undetectable CPU backdoor".
- acqq 10y ago> the article title, per HN rules, should probably be "A2: Analog Malicious Hardware [pdf]". Absolutely it should, mods, dang, please fix the title. Moreover, matthewmacleod (1) shows that Thompson didn't predict exactly this level of subversion and anything specific to this method, so the title is even thus inappropriate. 1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11769190 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11769190
- Bootvis 10y agoLighten up: "And thirdly, the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules." HN actually doesn't even call it rules but Guidelines in the footer.
- acqq 10y agoI don't call them as such too, I just don't like when link poster constructs his own inaccurate or factually wrong interpretation of the material behind the link, and I tend to point to the wrongness of the title only in these situations. I like the "A2: Analog Malicious Hardware" work, but I'm quite sure even Thompson wouldn't claim that what's in the work is exactly what he presented in his talk. His talk is more nuanced and has one much more interesting consequence: that unless you decompile the compiler binary with some very clever tools, just the simple modification in one generation of the compiler can make the following compilers carrying Trojan payload without the payload being visible in the source of the given compiler. "A2: Analog Malicious Hardware" doesn't have this "payload propagation through the generations" property. Very different from what the person who gave the false title here believes. What I claim is that "ltcode" misunderstood the intention of the Thompson's work and therefore the ersatztitle he gave here is very inadequate. Well, at least he didn't create the title that involves Einstein.
- tremon 10y agoThis isn't (just) a CPU backdoor though, it's a possible backdoor on any integrated circuit.
- avs733 10y agoI am trying to understand the parsing of CPU/integrated circuit you are doing but I am not following. How are you conceptualizing the CPU as different than an integrated circuit?
- tremon 10y agoIt's a pars pro toto: a CPU is an example of an integrated circuit, but there are integrated circuits that are not CPUs. To make this distinction more relevant: this kind of attack would be very useful in the context of EEPROMs or cryptographic chips (like TPMs): you could, for example, induce a cryptographic chip to dump its internal state (private keys), or you could overwrite a flash region that would under normal operation be non-writable.
- avs733 10y agothank you for the clarification.
- impdmnt2Prgrss 10y agoTo be precise, what was implemented was a CPU backdoor, but the attack applies to all integrated circuits.
- tremon 10y agoAh, I get the confusion. I've added "just" to my earlier comment.
- dang 10y agoYes. We've changed it from "Ken Thompson was right, proven definitively 32 years later". Submitters: it's against HN's rules to rewrite titles like that. It's only ok to do so if they're misleading or linkbait to begin with (and definitely not to make them more so). https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html