On Oct 5, 2018, at 1:24 AM, Keith Lofstrom <kei...@kl-ic.com> wrote: > > On Thu, Oct 04, 2018 at 12:21:22PM -0700, Dick Steffens wrote: >> The story about Elemental's computers having a spy chip on their >> motherboards raise the question, how can we know if our computers >> are compromised? >> >> https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/index.ssf/2018/10/chinese_planted_spy_chips_insi.html > > Assume your machines ARE compromised. The only question is > how many different organizations have their own compromises > in your machine. > > Without a completely open production process, end to end, > which includes open source chip design, and a back end chip > teardown process to compare design intent to samples of the > actual silicon, there are just WAY too many places that > very complex behavior may be inserted. An extra chip on > the circuit board, like this unconfirmed hack, is far too > obvious for a deep-pockets adversary to bother with. > > My nightmare: > > The easiest place to insert malware is into the firmware > boot tracks on your hard drive. > > Hard drive behavior is controlled by "digital signal > processing" software for motor control, head movement, > and the high level, pack-the-bits-onto-a-track behavior. > That behavior is complex (vastly more complex than hard > drives or even whole computers a decade ago), and is way > more than they want to freeze into logic chips or store > in an EPROM. So the drive manufacturer stores those > megabytes on the disk itself, in the "low performance" > areas of the disk platter. > > A few percent of the platter area is low performance, too > slow to move user data quickly, but usable at lower speeds > or bit densities, or with simpler encodings usable by > simple "boot-the-boot" hardware. There is room to store > gigabytes of potential boot information in that area, > a vast opportunity for mischief and malware. > > I can imagine conditions that trigger the loading of > alternate disk control software, which inserts exploits > into an operating system as it is read off the disk. > There is enough room on the disk to do this for hundreds > of common operating systems. That would NOT include all > the zillions of variant kernels used by the Linux > community, but there are many fewer variants of other > linux security software, like the SELinux suite. > > My former neighbor worked for a Vancouver Washington > company ("C") that builds network monitoring systems. > "C" assembles their machines in China, and installs > firmware there so they can do acceptance testing on > arrival here. After acceptance, they wipe the hard > drives down to the boot tracks and rebuild them, Just > In Case, because their systems control the Internet. > > The silicon might still be compromised, though. I am > a chip designer. If I control the fabrication process, > especially the ion implanter or the photomask aberration > correction system, I can hide behavior in a chip that you > won't be able to find unless you take the chip apart atom > by atom and compare that to a detailed mask level > specification, then compare the mask specification to > a mind-bogglingly expensive series of simulations. > > Optimization-by-complexity is the antithesis of security. > > In simple words, complex chips are vulnerable. Use > simpler chips, or avoid making enemies. > If you assume the hardware is compromised, how can it be used in a way that would allow you to believe the results it provides? The software by definition couldn't correct the compromise.
-- Louis Kowolowski lou...@cryptomonkeys.org Cryptomonkeys: http://www.cryptomonkeys.com/ Making life more interesting for people since 1977 _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list PLUG@pdxlinux.org http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
