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Backdoor found in a China-made US military chip

cl.cam.ac.uk

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Re: Backdoor found in a China-made US military chip

#51

Post by h84ru3a »

rhizome wrote: post #37
gouranga wrote: post #23

The bit that surprises the fuck out of me is that they're buying stuff in from China. I've never seen that - ever! They would buy expensive stuff fabbed specially in the US rather than import usually. I did a lot of work for the UK Ministry of Defence and the US Department of Defence over the years on custom silicon and FPGA work and the paranoia factor is scary. We had the layouts of everything bought in - even 74-s…

Hopefully this isn't too political for HN, but I suggest combining your surprise with the news that China was given a direct line around Wall Street to buy Treasuries directly from the USG: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/21/us-usa-treasuries-... There's a relationship here.

Maybe they do not trust the FPGA's being supplied to Wall St.?

Does Wall St. check for backdoors in hardware?

Re: Backdoor found in a China-made US military chip

#52

Post by rhizome »

cantankerous wrote: post #46
rhizome wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully this isn't too political for HN, but I suggest combining your surprise with the news that China was given a direct line around Wall Street to buy Treasuries directly from the USG: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/21/us-usa-treasuries-... There's a relationship here.

I'm not sure I see the problem. They let the biggest debt buyer cut out the middle man. I'm sure there was some backroom dealing going on there, but it seems like the biggest losers there are the middlemen who wound up getting cut out.

I'm not sure I can articulate it very well, but my general point regards the access given to core functionality in both military hardware and finance. This doesn't really comport with the US's relationship to China that is portrayed in the mainstream.

Re: Backdoor found in a China-made US military chip

#54

Post by simonbrown »

Create wrote: post #44
wolf550e wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They need custody chain management. I assumed they had one. And everyone who signed for it has securety clearance meaning they signed a paper that basically says "I understand that I'll go to jail for twenty years if I'm caught lying about anything".

...now you tell me. Political candidates should be required to sign the same stuff. And managers. And physicists. And PR stuntmen.

Why physicists?

Re: Backdoor found in a China-made US military chip

#55

Post by [deleted] »

gouranga wrote: post #23

The bit that surprises the fuck out of me is that they're buying stuff in from China. I've never seen that - ever! They would buy expensive stuff fabbed specially in the US rather than import usually. I did a lot of work for the UK Ministry of Defence and the US Department of Defence over the years on custom silicon and FPGA work and the paranoia factor is scary. We had the layouts of everything bought in - even 74-s…

[deleted]

Re: Backdoor found in a China-made US military chip

#57

Post by ktizo »

gouranga wrote: post #23

The bit that surprises the fuck out of me is that they're buying stuff in from China. I've never seen that - ever! They would buy expensive stuff fabbed specially in the US rather than import usually. I did a lot of work for the UK Ministry of Defence and the US Department of Defence over the years on custom silicon and FPGA work and the paranoia factor is scary. We had the layouts of everything bought in - even 74-s…

The bit that surprises the fuck out of me is that they're buying stuff in from China. I've never seen that - ever!

Where else are they going to get the chips in the quantities required since the US outsourced most of its commercial silicon foundries? Of the few remaining in the US, the largest is wholly owned by the Taiwanese company TSMC. Post-industrial economics is idiotic, and this is one of the major examples of why.

Re: Backdoor found in a China-made US military chip

#58

Post by photon137 »

rhizome wrote: post #37
gouranga wrote: post #23

The bit that surprises the fuck out of me is that they're buying stuff in from China. I've never seen that - ever! They would buy expensive stuff fabbed specially in the US rather than import usually. I did a lot of work for the UK Ministry of Defence and the US Department of Defence over the years on custom silicon and FPGA work and the paranoia factor is scary. We had the layouts of everything bought in - even 74-s…

Hopefully this isn't too political for HN, but I suggest combining your surprise with the news that China was given a direct line around Wall Street to buy Treasuries directly from the USG: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/21/us-usa-treasuries-... There's a relationship here.

That line is available to any other central bank in the world without going through primary dealers at all - it's just that China is using it to avoid giving info of its UST holdings or buying/selling trends to the open market.

This is especially important now as China has widened the Yuan trading band. You wouldn't want excessive FX volatility to manifest itself as a result of your foreign-reserve management decisions being (mis)-interpreted by investment banks.

Re: Backdoor found in a China-made US military chip

#59

Post by Lednakashim »

toemetoch wrote: post #10
Lednakashim wrote: post #2

Can somebody explain exactly what they got access to? What is encrypted?

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. From the description I'm guessing an interface device that does something in the order of I2C/CAN/M on one end and external comms to the outside world on the other (why else would requir…

Isn't it an FPGA chip?

Re: Backdoor found in a China-made US military chip

#60

Post by johnny22 »

antimora wrote: post #50
cantankerous wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I see the problem. They let the biggest debt buyer cut out the middle man. I'm sure there was some backroom dealing going on there, but it seems like the biggest losers there are the middlemen who wound up getting cut out.

The middle man was getting a cut anyway. It was mainly to make China's purchases secrete. Primary dealers are not allowed to charge customers money to bid on their behalf at Treasury auctions, so China isn't saving money by cutting out commission fees.

they still aren't secret. stuff like this still shows up on treasury's stats.
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