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Hardware backdoors in some x86 CPUs

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Re: Hardware backdoors in some x86 CPUs

#81

Post by shrubble »

v5v3 wrote: post #50
codedokode wrote: post #8

This shows that large companies making closed-source CPUs cannot be trusted. No doubt they would add whatever the government asks them to add. What can be done to mitigate this? One option would be to buy a large FPGA and flash it with an open-source CPU. Another would be to emulate a CPU, working with encrypted data and commands, so that even if the backdoor in a host CPU tries to overwrite memory, it would only cra…

>What can be done to mitigate this? Buy hardware used by government computers that are rivals to your country. So if American, buy Chinese CPUs and install Chinese Linux or HarmoneyOS Assuming there is nothing you are doing of interest to them, as that will also have back doors After Snowden, one can only imagine the worst and think everything has a backdoor. But unless you are a high level terrorist or other person…

I was thinking about something similar recently: if you bought a US govt purchased laptop like the ruggedized Dell Latitude I saw, would it be less likely to have Intel's IME enabled?

Re: Hardware backdoors in some x86 CPUs

#82

Post by evilduck »

hnuser123456 wrote: post #75
K0balt wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBF the specific backdoor isn’t the point of the article. It’s a cautionary tale. The point is that practically all systems above the MCU level, and even some of those, have lower level systems that are often undocumented or not intended for use by the hardware designers, much less the end users. Those systems often have extremely low level access to system resources. For example, I am building a device that records…

I recently got an air purifier. The touch button controls for adjusting the fan speed didn't seem to be working, so I emailed support. They had me download their app, link the air purifier, and give them its MAC address. Then they asked me to try pressing each of the buttons a few times and email them back. I did so, and they responded that they re-calibrated the buttons using my touch samples. It worked.

That’s insane. I actively avoid buying things that are pointlessly internet connected nowadays. An air purifier’s buttons should be simple electromechanical switches.

Re: Hardware backdoors in some x86 CPUs

#83

Post by txrx0000 »

codedokode wrote: post #8

This shows that large companies making closed-source CPUs cannot be trusted. No doubt they would add whatever the government asks them to add. What can be done to mitigate this? One option would be to buy a large FPGA and flash it with an open-source CPU. Another would be to emulate a CPU, working with encrypted data and commands, so that even if the backdoor in a host CPU tries to overwrite memory, it would only cra…

It's not just the government. The government sneakily adds stuff they think only they can exploit, but skilled non-state actors can exploit hardware features regardless of whether it was put there by the government. And as we get widespread diffusion of increasingly capable AI, it will become easy and cheap to do for pretty much anyone, and so will defense.

Assuming bio-digital integration continues (i.e., humans keep pace with ASI via neural interfaces), the long term solution is total hardware sovereignty, aka the digital equivalent of bodily integrity and autonomy. We have to miniaturize and widely diffuse fab technology such that computer manufacturing can be done in local small businesses or even at home: automated chip fabbing, 3D printing, and assembly in one fridge-sized appliance you can buy at the nearest supermarket, and it can make parts to build another one of itself.

It's basically reproduction, but for the digital part of your body instead of the bio part. You should be able to design and fab your own custom chips, PCB, and chassis to build your neural interface from scratch, and write personal defense software that actively adapts to threats - a digital immune system. You'll also have the option to delegate some or all of that to a collective, but it would mean losing your individual sovereignty and becoming part of a larger organism in a symbiogenesis or multicellular evolution kind of way.

Re: Hardware backdoors in some x86 CPUs

#84

Post by ForOldHack »

epestr wrote: post #65
ironbound wrote: post #46

Click bait title, please change it to VIA C3 CPUs

My bad, HN doesn't allow editing after an hour of posting

The backdoor(sic) is to delete and repost as you wipe the egg off your face.

The CPU is not the most used vector, the firmware is.

Re: Hardware backdoors in some x86 CPUs

#85

Post by sandworm101 »

mike_hock wrote: post #70
saidnooneever wrote: post #2

this is pretty old by now but still very relevant. people dont look at this enough but with rising chip complexities for TPU units etc. and a shift towards poorly documented hardware like NVIDIA gives this problem new fuel. Domas (and maybe his team or colleagues?) has put out shit tons of very interesting materials over the past years on advanced malware, implants and things like Cantor Dust which are amazing things…

A poorly documented or undocumented (debugging) backdoor in a chip marketed for ATMs and medical hardware, enabled by default, at the very least qualifies as reckless endangerment.

Not really. A properly designed network should take account for such things as unknown/irreparable flaws. An irreparable backdoor in a device can be mitigated with a gatekeeper, something akin to a firewall that will not allow a threat actor to have access to a faulty device.

The real recklessness would be allowing an ATM unfettered access to the internet on the assumption that the manufacturer has already protected the device from every known and unknown threat.

Re: Hardware backdoors in some x86 CPUs

#87

Post by peter_d_sherman »

rkagerer wrote: post #52
saidnooneever wrote: post #2

this is pretty old by now but still very relevant. people dont look at this enough but with rising chip complexities for TPU units etc. and a shift towards poorly documented hardware like NVIDIA gives this problem new fuel. Domas (and maybe his team or colleagues?) has put out shit tons of very interesting materials over the past years on advanced malware, implants and things like Cantor Dust which are amazing things…

I didn't know what Cantor Dust was, and had to click through a few different search results to get past all the abstract descriptions and begin to form a basic idea. In a nutshell, I understand them as a sort of "blockie" for binary data formats. Things like WAV audio files, bitmaps, ASCII text, machine code, etc. each generate their own distinct visual signature (but different examples within any of these categories…

An absolutely great link!

Not so much for the hacking (White Hat, Black hat, other-color-hat) aspects (although they're certainly there too), but for the

visualization of higher-dimensional mathematics aspect...

In other words, have a look at the following URL's, then come back here:

https://gods.art/articles/equation_shadows.html

https://kettenreihen.wordpress.com/

See, there's Math (which typically generates graphs, graphics, other visuals), and then there's Higher-dimensional Math (you could almost call it 'Meta-math') -- which generates graphs about graphs, graphics about graphics, visuals about previous visuals...

That is, take a math equation that generates a graph. OK, so a simple example is that we could take the derivative... That generates a second graph which gives us information about the first graph... a "graph about a graph", so to speak, a "signal about a signal", information about the original information...

Point is, Cantor Dust looks like another great mathematical tool in any Mathematician's and/or Computer Scientist's and/or Engineer's visualization/understanding toolbox!

Oh sure, bad faith actors could use it for hacking (bad faith actors could use aspects of Isaac Newton's Calculus for hacking in various contexts, heck, any mathematical tool could be exploited in specific contexts!) -- but those people I'm sure, would not have an appreciation of the sheer mathematical beauty of such things! (Why use it to hack, when you can admire the mathematical beauty?)

Also, I should point out that humanity as a whole is far from discovering every single possible method, every single equation, every single way to visualize higher dimensional mathematics...

In other words, Cantor Dust is one such method... there will no doubt be many more in the future (I'd love to see fractal visualizations of higher dimensions!), and of course, we still have yet to understand all of the "old" previously discovered math in terms of all of the possible ways it can be used to visualize higher dimensions...

Anyway, great link!

Re: Hardware backdoors in some x86 CPUs

#89

Post by gavinsyancey »

hnuser123456 wrote: post #75
K0balt wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBF the specific backdoor isn’t the point of the article. It’s a cautionary tale. The point is that practically all systems above the MCU level, and even some of those, have lower level systems that are often undocumented or not intended for use by the hardware designers, much less the end users. Those systems often have extremely low level access to system resources. For example, I am building a device that records…

I recently got an air purifier. The touch button controls for adjusting the fan speed didn't seem to be working, so I emailed support. They had me download their app, link the air purifier, and give them its MAC address. Then they asked me to try pressing each of the buttons a few times and email them back. I did so, and they responded that they re-calibrated the buttons using my touch samples. It worked.

I am amazed that by emailing support you were able to actually get in contact with someone technical who understood the product well enough to fix the problem.

Re: Hardware backdoors in some x86 CPUs

#90

Post by GeekyBear »

loeg wrote: post #86

(2018) And "x86" sort of gives the wrong impression -- this isn't an AMD or Intel chip; it's a 2001-era VIA chip.

Intel chips also have a hardware backdoor in the form of a separate core that the neither the user nor the installed operating system control.

Intel Management Engine:

https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine

As do AMD chips:

AMD Platform Security Processor:

https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Platform_Security_Process...

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