I had not heard of VIA since the 1990's.
Hardware backdoors in some x86 CPUs
91–100 of 103 posts
Re: Hardware backdoors in some x86 CPUs
#92This backdoor only appears on decades-old VIA C3 embedded x86 processors
> This backdoor only appears on decades-old VIA C3 embedded x86 processors
Modern Intel and AMD chips also have separate CPU cores that neither the user nor the installed OS control.
Intel Management Engine:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine
AMD Platform Security Processor:
https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Platform_Security_Process...
Intel added them in 2008. AMD followed suit about five years later.
Re: Hardware backdoors in some x86 CPUs
#93Misleading, clickbait title. Technically accurate, but it would be accurate if it were 3 total cpu's rather than thousands or millions so that is a low bar.
Via C3 CPUs are the only ones affected. A security problem sure, but a relatively obscure one that doesn't effect anyone's laptop, server in the cloud, etc.
A reasonable title is "Backdoor found in Via C3 cpus".
Re: Hardware backdoors in some x86 CPUs
#94This 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…
While I do think this is a good idea, it may no longer be as good as it once was: https://journalrecord.com/2026/08/05/fbi-law-enforcement-tie...
If you’re just an average dissident, it’s probably still good advice though.
Re: Hardware backdoors in some x86 CPUs
#95As noted by userbinator: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49220030 Not a backdoor, but a documented CPU feature. The whitepaper about rosenbridge cannot be published because it would constitute scientific fraud.
Calling it a "backdoor" is subjective, because it looks enough like an unintentional exploitable bug that one could make that argument. Is an accidental backdoor still a backdoor? That's pure semantics.
Re: Hardware backdoors in some x86 CPUs
#96Apparently a chain of bugs leads to this. This is an internal debugging feature for VIA, but some motherboards accidentally left it enabled.
Re: Hardware backdoors in some x86 CPUs
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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Re: Hardware backdoors in some x86 CPUs
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Both can be negligent at once.
Re: Hardware backdoors in some x86 CPUs
#99[dead]
Re: Hardware backdoors in some x86 CPUs
#100I had not heard of VIA since the 1990's.
I owned an HP 2133 mini-note netbook for a little while around 2008-2010. It was sporting a VIA C7-M with a VIA Chrome 9 gpu. Honestly the cpu was slow, probably slower than the equivalent Atom of that era but the Linux version of that laptop (sold with Linux Enterprise) made up for it with 2GB as standard which was glorious for a netbook at the time.
The keyboard and trackpad was also way ahead of the competition (ie other netbooks). The GPU was the biggest issue as VIA only built a proprietary driver for the kernel that was used at the time by Suse Enterprise. Thanksfully someone quickly wrote an openchrome driver that allowed me to install my distro of choice at the time with a newer kernel.
I think it would still be a decent portable machine to write stuff and or use as a portable terminal emulator to connect to remote machines but completely unusable to do anything else. I remember resizing photos to create thumbnails for a web gallery was taking ages and that was with much fewer megapixel than today.