5 ms·

I used to think things like these were fun conspiracy theories for a slow afternoon. I remember seeing a guy who got Linux running on a spare ARM CPU on his SAT

I used to think things like these were fun conspiracy theories for a slow afternoon. I remember seeing a guy who got Linux running on a spare ARM CPU on his SATA hard drive, thinking "that'd be a great place for a rootkit". But didn't think much further of it as that can be a dark rabbithole to go down. Then Snowden leaks came out, and it turned out technology was an active, hostile and full scale warzone. These are not unreasonable thoughts to have now. Even if you prove one of these fans is safe, it does not prove that an individual has not been targeted with a fan with a payload. Also, don't discount the entire circuit being the bug. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_%28listening_device%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_%28listening_device%...

lainga 8y ago
Exactly. That's a fantastic tactic. Give out a thousand fans and have only 9 or 10 of them be compromised. A safe fan gets torn down by security researchers and declared vanilla, and those 9 or 10 targets believe their fans are safe to use.
- stordoff 8y ago
  Or even just fake the analysis outright. North Korea having someone at Cambridge, or at least being able to feed them a benign variant via an unnamed journalist, is not out of the question.
  - brian-armstrong 8y ago
    We can probably rule this out since the paper doesn’t conclude that North Korea is #1 and Bless Dear Leader
    - lainga 8y ago
      The workers' effort of dismantling the fan promoted the mass line consciousness and building of a vigorous cadre feeling in the whole army.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- olfactory 8y ago
  Yes. This is obvious but also counterintuitive. People forget that it's a long game and that malware (such as Stuxnet) is patient and penetrates gradually.
joshumax 8y ago
If you're a government operation trying to bug an electronic device, chances are you're certainly not going to have your bug revealed by a simple teardown like this. I've heard rumors of certain cases where current fluctuations in the VBUS rail caused by certain peripherals can be used to compromise the USB controller. Additionally, embedded components can be placed between PCB layers, making it essentially appear "invisible" without using an x-ray system.
- gandhium 8y ago
  There _was_ a government operation like this recently: "Russia spied on foreign powers at last month’s G20 summit by giving delegations USB pen drives capable of downloading sensitive information from laptops" - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/10411473/Russia-spied-on-G20-leaders-with-USB-sticks.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/104...
  - BrandoElFollito 8y ago
    And these are simple to do, see BadUSB and Rubber Ducky
swebs 8y ago
I ordered some 2 pin RGB LEDs a few years back. They change color over time via some built in IC, but the crazy thing is that the IC is so small that you can't even see it. And it all fits nicely within a standard LED. I would imagine someone could even fit a similar IC within the traces of a circuit board and nobody would be able to tell.
- SAI_Peregrinus 8y ago
  All of the puzzles Henryk Gasperowicz makes are this sort of thing. They're fun to try to figure out even if you know the basic idea, as they're pretty much all analog circuits. EG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvXKSSmItls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvXKSSmItls
  - eps 8y ago
    Ha-ha... damn, this is so cool! Thanks for the pointer. Does he ever explain how the tricks work?
    - angus-prune 8y ago
      He posts full schematics on his google+ page - https://plus.google.com/+HenrykGasperowicz https://plus.google.com/+HenrykGasperowicz Here is the schematic for the 3LEDs & 0 switches video liked by GP - https://plus.google.com/photos/116398424278304767741/album/5834719840631518593/5870309360136963490?authkey=CPmEr5iZ-vrefw https://plus.google.com/photos/116398424278304767741/album/5... I don't understand the electronics, but the logic is hidden inside the 9 volt battery connector.
      - SAI_Peregrinus 8y ago
        The bit inside the 9 volt connector isn't really logic. The flip-flops and Schmitt trigger gates are just to generate square waves at 3 different frequencies. There's also a small power supply to drop the 9V down to 6.2V for the input of that, some comparators, and a bit of filtering. The LEDs contain LC filters, tuned such that they'll light (visibly) when the appropriate frequency is applied. Touching the wire in different places creates a different parasitic load, which is detected by one of the comparators. That comparator then toggles the clock generator for the appropriate frequency, turning that LED off or on. As with all of his circuits it's a brilliantly simple idea implemented in a ridiculously constrained space.
joshu 8y ago
http://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack http://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack
mgkimsal 8y ago
> These are not unreasonable thoughts to have now They weren't really unreasonable thoughts to have back then, they may have just seemed unreasonable.

lainga 8y ago

Exactly. That's a fantastic tactic. Give out a thousand fans and have only 9 or 10 of them be compromised. A safe fan gets torn down by security researchers and declared vanilla, and those 9 or 10 targets believe their fans are safe to use.

stordoff 8y ago
Or even just fake the analysis outright. North Korea having someone at Cambridge, or at least being able to feed them a benign variant via an unnamed journalist, is not out of the question.
- brian-armstrong 8y ago
  We can probably rule this out since the paper doesn’t conclude that North Korea is #1 and Bless Dear Leader
  - lainga 8y ago
    The workers' effort of dismantling the fan promoted the mass line consciousness and building of a vigorous cadre feeling in the whole army.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
olfactory 8y ago
Yes. This is obvious but also counterintuitive. People forget that it's a long game and that malware (such as Stuxnet) is patient and penetrates gradually.

joshumax 8y ago

If you're a government operation trying to bug an electronic device, chances are you're certainly not going to have your bug revealed by a simple teardown like this. I've heard rumors of certain cases where current fluctuations in the VBUS rail caused by certain peripherals can be used to compromise the USB controller. Additionally, embedded components can be placed between PCB layers, making it essentially appear "invisible" without using an x-ray system.

gandhium 8y ago
There _was_ a government operation like this recently: "Russia spied on foreign powers at last month’s G20 summit by giving delegations USB pen drives capable of downloading sensitive information from laptops" - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/10411473/Russia-spied-on-G20-leaders-with-USB-sticks.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/104...
- BrandoElFollito 8y ago
  And these are simple to do, see BadUSB and Rubber Ducky

swebs 8y ago

I ordered some 2 pin RGB LEDs a few years back. They change color over time via some built in IC, but the crazy thing is that the IC is so small that you can't even see it. And it all fits nicely within a standard LED. I would imagine someone could even fit a similar IC within the traces of a circuit board and nobody would be able to tell.

SAI_Peregrinus 8y ago
All of the puzzles Henryk Gasperowicz makes are this sort of thing. They're fun to try to figure out even if you know the basic idea, as they're pretty much all analog circuits. EG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvXKSSmItls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvXKSSmItls
- eps 8y ago
  Ha-ha... damn, this is so cool! Thanks for the pointer. Does he ever explain how the tricks work?
  - angus-prune 8y ago
    He posts full schematics on his google+ page - https://plus.google.com/+HenrykGasperowicz https://plus.google.com/+HenrykGasperowicz Here is the schematic for the 3LEDs & 0 switches video liked by GP - https://plus.google.com/photos/116398424278304767741/album/5834719840631518593/5870309360136963490?authkey=CPmEr5iZ-vrefw https://plus.google.com/photos/116398424278304767741/album/5... I don't understand the electronics, but the logic is hidden inside the 9 volt battery connector.
    - SAI_Peregrinus 8y ago
      The bit inside the 9 volt connector isn't really logic. The flip-flops and Schmitt trigger gates are just to generate square waves at 3 different frequencies. There's also a small power supply to drop the 9V down to 6.2V for the input of that, some comparators, and a bit of filtering. The LEDs contain LC filters, tuned such that they'll light (visibly) when the appropriate frequency is applied. Touching the wire in different places creates a different parasitic load, which is detected by one of the comparators. That comparator then toggles the clock generator for the appropriate frequency, turning that LED off or on. As with all of his circuits it's a brilliantly simple idea implemented in a ridiculously constrained space.

joshu 8y ago

http://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack http://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack

mgkimsal 8y ago

> These are not unreasonable thoughts to have now They weren't really unreasonable thoughts to have back then, they may have just seemed unreasonable.