How dare you insult such an obviously intellectually superior one-celled organism like that! 
--Patrick Henry, to the Virginia Convention, March 23, 1775
Posted on 05/28/2012 7:52:40 PM PDT by Pelham
Cambridge University researchers find that a microprocessor used by the US military but made in China contains secret remote access capability
A microchip used by the US military and manufactured in China contains a secret "backdoor" that means it can be shut off or reprogrammed without the user knowing, according to researchers at Cambridge University's Computing Laboratory.
The unnamed chip, which the researchers claim is widely used in military and industrial applications, is "wide open to intellectual property theft, fraud and reverse engineering of the design to allow the introduction of a backdoor or Trojan", they said.
The discovery was made during testing of a new technique to extract the encryption key from chips, developed by Cambridge spin-off Quo Vadis Labs.
The "bug" is in the actual chip itself, rather than the firmware installed on the devices that use it. This means there is no way to fix it than to replace the chip altogether.
"The discovery of a backdoor in a military grade chip raises some serious questions about hardware assurance in the semiconductor industry," wrote Cambridge University researcher Sergei Skorobogatov and Quo Vadis Labs research Christopher Woods in a draft paper.
"It also raises some searching questions about the integrity of manufacturers making claims about [the] security of their products without independent testing."
Huh, well that’s weird! Why would China ever want to steal our military technology? DOH
How long seriously have we been purchasing military technology from China? Where is a rocket scientist when you need one!
I will hold my outrage until this backdoor is verified by a 3rd party who isn’t trying to shakedown the Gov’t for reaearch funds, and peddling their security software.
That said, it is really stupid for this country to buy military mission critical parts from China.
You could ask Siri, but she's probably in on it, too.
How dare you insult such an obviously intellectually superior one-celled organism like that!
--Patrick Henry, to the Virginia Convention, March 23, 1775
Loral? Chinese general's daughter giving money directly to clinton campaign? Chinese spies giving money to clinton? Johnny Chung? Missing computer chip from failed rocket launch?
Been there, done that. No one cares. Just make sure I can get cheap stuff at Walmart.
Our Pentagon and military contractors: Dumb and Dumber
Eventually we’ll go back to making our own stuff...after the whole mess collapses/goes to war and the survivors are left with no choice.
In a thousand years or so, once they’ve reached the 2nd bronze age, perhaps our descendants will be smarter than we were.
Time to take another look at the F-22’s problem and God knows what else wrong with our military equipment.
“Our Pentagon and military contractors: Dumb and Dumber”
My father was an Army officer many years ago- he’ll be 92 very soon. In the late 1950s, early 1960s he was at the Pentagon.
At that time the Army and the DOD had people who kept track of vital industries and made sure that they that they were able to supply critical equipment when needed and that the firms weren’t sold to potential adversaries.
I marvel that we have fallen so far from this wise practice. Apparently this office must have been dissolved. I can only imagine it is another aspect of the ‘religion of globalism’ that seems to infect so many of our elites, both business and political. Fools.
No shit. Years ago Huawei was still distributing router manuals with Cisco logos on them. Its a shame they have some legitimacy in the telco world now. They deserve to fail. I hope all the carriers that use their cheap equipment learn a lesson.
The must be making this up! Oh this really can’t happen!
“Uh, we could use some serious transparency here.”
We should tattoo this on every CONgressman’s forehead.
We could, and as usual, won’t get it.
Ping!
There is no damned excuse for this level of dependence on foreign and very possibly hostile nations.
The DoD also used to keep tabs on raw material supplies like Mo, Ni and Cr. These days they should include the Rare Earths.
When it was discovered, some wag (don't recall who) gave the instruction that name. Some writers of assemblers included the HCF mnemonic.
They actually used that instruction during production line testing of each chip, because it exercised a goodly proportion of the logic.
But yeah, it would have been nice to have a trap for illegal instructions like that. At the time, they couldn't afford the random decode logic that it would have taken to implement the trap. No microcode on that chip, just pure random logic.
Well color me surprised.... /S
!
I would say as much about our Pro-China congress and presidents since 1989. Remember those {wink wink} family members having China business connections {cough cough}?
Everybody sing along.
Oh with a laptop here and a forced landing there
Here a leak there a leak
Los Alamos a huge leak
Politicans sold us out E I E I O.
This could be good for U.S.-based chip manufacturers.
Oh, they make most of their chips overseas due to cheap labor, looser environmental regulations and lower taxes.
And even in their U.S. chip operations they employ foreign H1B visa workers.
Darn that military industrial complex! /sarc
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