5 ms·

Lots of PoCs have been built over the years, but so far they've almost all been fun academic stunts, and not actually useful for real world scenarios. We live

by px43 4y ago

Lots of PoCs have been built over the years, but so far they've almost all been fun academic stunts, and not actually useful for real world scenarios. We live in an unprecedented era of understanding when it comes to technologies used by criminals, law enforcement, and every major intelligence agency on the planet, and none of them use chip backdoors, because they just aren't needed. Nearly every attack scenario you can imagine is better served by exploiting existing bugs, or parts of the software supply chain. Software based attacks scale better, and are easier to deny later. The closest we have to chip backdoors in practice is likely the hardware supply chain tampering for North Korea's missile program, which supposedly serves up the slightly off spec chips that cause their missiles to fail spectacularly every time they try and show them off. It makes no sense to have active backdoors like that in consumer electronics when there are so many more useful and easier to exploit bugs in existing devices.

junofan 4y ago
> none of them use chip backdoors We’re talking about GDSII files passed around on USB sticks in Chinese factories. Of course there’s blackbox IP on some chips in the wild.
- trasz 4y ago
  Funny how you mention Chinese factories, and not the factories of the country that’s been proven to plant backdoors everywhere.
hilbert42 4y ago
...and none of them use chip backdoors, because they just aren't needed. Despite my earlier comments, I think your point is essentially correct - at least it's so when it comes to what we normally consider as criminal behavior. However, that's not necessarily the case when it comes to manufacturers and or state actors who have the power to force manufacturers to secretly install backdoors into chips. Take the case of Huawei and the ban certain countries have placed on telco carriers using its telecommunications equipment. I'm not privy to the reasons as to why certain governments have banned Huawei but one doesn't have to be Einstein to read between the lines in that it would be almost impossible to check every chip in imported Huawei switches (even if it were practicably feasible (which is doubtful) then any such checking would make the normally-competitive Huawei considerably more expensive for telcos to install than if they were to purchase from its competitors). Huawei is and has been on a solid push to develop its own technologies, to quote Wiki "Meanwhile, it was reverse-engineering imported switches and investing heavily in research and development to manufacture its own technologies". With the support, authority and might of the Chinese Government it's not hard to imagine that a chip with a backdoor could be implanted in such equipment. Moreover, this may not happen immediately but rather some years later after an innocuous maintenance fix long after all the original brouhaha had died down.
- schoen 4y ago
  A more optimistic (!) theory I have is that devices are getting software updates over the Internet from their manufacturers, and a government might try to induce a manufacturer to remotely brick or backdoor devices in a hostile country in the future, even if the devices weren't backdoored at the time they were sold. This could happen even if the manufacturer didn't even intend for it to be a possibility, once other people realized that the manufacturer was capable of going through with it. I remember that, at the time of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, some Americans immediately got angry with Apple for not pushing software updates to disable Russians' iPhones. If people -- albeit members of the public and not actual Apple executives -- are going to strongly insist that this would be reasonable or appropriate, it's not very surprising that people in various countries would become frightened of this possibility! (The reason this theory is "more optimistic" is just that it's conceivable in principle that vendors and customers could find ways to work together to protect against it.)
  - trasz 4y ago
    Russia is a completely different situation though - they invaded another country and are perpetrating genocide, which means that anything that hurts Russia should be a fair game. A full data leak would be even better - but sadly in this case we have Apple caring more about PR than morality. This of course ignores the strategic needs. First, it should be a priority to get as many Russians to migrate to the West, to starve the regime of manpower. Second, losing could be Putin’s eventual aim, to make sure Russia gets cut off the outside world, to make it possible for them to shape the society however they want - and in that case preserving the means of communication is even more crucial.
    - omniglottal 4y ago
      The "different situation" you point out simply does not justify back doors. Having a purportedly valid use does nothing to cicumvent their undesirable nature and our need to eshew them entirely. This "difference" has no relevance over whether or not back doors should be tolerated in society because the reasons to have precisely none are so profound. "They" invaded, you say? All the Russian iPhone users, was it? Is it true that zero Russian owners of iPhones were supportive of Ukraine and using their iPhones to organize and communicate anti-Putin protests? And Apple is the enforcer to whom the (US) public should appeal? Yeah, that's a hard "nope".

by px43 4y ago

junofan 4y ago

> none of them use chip backdoors We’re talking about GDSII files passed around on USB sticks in Chinese factories. Of course there’s blackbox IP on some chips in the wild.

trasz 4y ago
Funny how you mention Chinese factories, and not the factories of the country that’s been proven to plant backdoors everywhere.

hilbert42 4y ago

...and none of them use chip backdoors, because they just aren't needed. Despite my earlier comments, I think your point is essentially correct - at least it's so when it comes to what we normally consider as criminal behavior. However, that's not necessarily the case when it comes to manufacturers and or state actors who have the power to force manufacturers to secretly install backdoors into chips. Take the case of Huawei and the ban certain countries have placed on telco carriers using its telecommunications equipment. I'm not privy to the reasons as to why certain governments have banned Huawei but one doesn't have to be Einstein to read between the lines in that it would be almost impossible to check every chip in imported Huawei switches (even if it were practicably feasible (which is doubtful) then any such checking would make the normally-competitive Huawei considerably more expensive for telcos to install than if they were to purchase from its competitors). Huawei is and has been on a solid push to develop its own technologies, to quote Wiki "Meanwhile, it was reverse-engineering imported switches and investing heavily in research and development to manufacture its own technologies". With the support, authority and might of the Chinese Government it's not hard to imagine that a chip with a backdoor could be implanted in such equipment. Moreover, this may not happen immediately but rather some years later after an innocuous maintenance fix long after all the original brouhaha had died down.

schoen 4y ago
A more optimistic (!) theory I have is that devices are getting software updates over the Internet from their manufacturers, and a government might try to induce a manufacturer to remotely brick or backdoor devices in a hostile country in the future, even if the devices weren't backdoored at the time they were sold. This could happen even if the manufacturer didn't even intend for it to be a possibility, once other people realized that the manufacturer was capable of going through with it. I remember that, at the time of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, some Americans immediately got angry with Apple for not pushing software updates to disable Russians' iPhones. If people -- albeit members of the public and not actual Apple executives -- are going to strongly insist that this would be reasonable or appropriate, it's not very surprising that people in various countries would become frightened of this possibility! (The reason this theory is "more optimistic" is just that it's conceivable in principle that vendors and customers could find ways to work together to protect against it.)
- trasz 4y ago
  Russia is a completely different situation though - they invaded another country and are perpetrating genocide, which means that anything that hurts Russia should be a fair game. A full data leak would be even better - but sadly in this case we have Apple caring more about PR than morality. This of course ignores the strategic needs. First, it should be a priority to get as many Russians to migrate to the West, to starve the regime of manpower. Second, losing could be Putin’s eventual aim, to make sure Russia gets cut off the outside world, to make it possible for them to shape the society however they want - and in that case preserving the means of communication is even more crucial.
  - omniglottal 4y ago
    The "different situation" you point out simply does not justify back doors. Having a purportedly valid use does nothing to cicumvent their undesirable nature and our need to eshew them entirely. This "difference" has no relevance over whether or not back doors should be tolerated in society because the reasons to have precisely none are so profound. "They" invaded, you say? All the Russian iPhone users, was it? Is it true that zero Russian owners of iPhones were supportive of Ukraine and using their iPhones to organize and communicate anti-Putin protests? And Apple is the enforcer to whom the (US) public should appeal? Yeah, that's a hard "nope".