AND NOW THE MANCHURIAN MICROCHIP
Robert Eringer worked as a spy for the FBI for 10 years beginning in 1993. Robert was responsible for bringing American CIA Traitor Edward Lee Howard to capture which he wrote about in his book, Ruse. Robert now writes for the Santa Barbara News-Press where the article below was first featured on the Manchurian Microchip.
The Santa Barbara News-Press provides access to subscribers only. We feel this article is newsworthy and should be seen by the masses. With that in mind, Mr. Eringer has given Daily Artisan his blessing to run his article.
The geniuses at Homeland Security who brought you hare-brained procedures at airports (which inconvenience travelers without snagging terrorists) have decreed that October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month. This means The Investigator — at the risk of compromising national insecurities — would be remiss not to make you aware of the hottest topic in U.S. counterintelligence circles: rogue microchips. This threat emanates from China (PRC) — and it is hugely significant.
The myth: Chinese intelligence services have concealed a microchip in every computer everywhere, programmed to “call home” if and when activated.
The reality: It may actually be true.
All computers on the market today — be they Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Apple or especially IBM — are assembled with components manufactured inside the PRC. Each component produced by the Chinese, according to a reliable source within the intelligence community, is secretly equipped with a hidden microchip that can be activated any time by China’s military intelligence services, the PLA.
“It is there, deep inside your computer, if they decide to call it up,” the security chief of a multinational corporation told The Investigator. “It is capable of providing Chinese intelligence with everything stored on your system — on everyone’s system — from e- mail to documents. I call it Call Home Technology. It doesn’t mean to say they’re sucking data from everyone’s computer today, it means the Chinese think ahead — and they now have the potential to do it when it suits their purposes.”
Discussed theoretically in high-tech security circles as “Trojan Horse on a Chip” or “The Manchurian Chip,” Call Home Technology came to light after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) launched a security program in December 2007 called Trust in Integrated Circuits. DARPA awarded almost $25 million in contracts to six companies and university research labs to test foreign-made microchips for hardware Trojans, back doors and kill switches — techie-speak for bugs and gremlins — with a view toward microchip verification.
Raytheon, a defense contractor, was granted almost half of these funds for hardware and software testing.
Its findings, which are classified, have apparently sent shockwaves through the counterintelligence community.
“It is the hottest topic concerning the FBI and the Pentagon,” a retired intelligence official told The Investigator. “They don’t know quite what to do about it. The Chinese have even been able to hack into the computer system that handles our Intercontinental Ballistic Missile system.”
Another senior intelligence source told The Investigator, “Our military is aware of this and has had to take some protective measures. The problem includes defective chips that don’t reach military specs — as well as probable Trojans.”
A little context: In 2005 the Lenovo Group in China paid $1.75 billion for IBM’s PC unit, even though that unit had lost $965 million the previous four years. Three congressmen, including the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, tried to block this sale because of national security concerns, to no avail. (The PRC embassy in Washington, D.C., maintains a large lobbying presence to influence congressmen and their staffs through direct contact.)
In June 2007, a Pentagon computer network utilized by the U.S. defense secretary’s office was hacked into — and traced directly back to the Chinese PLA.
A report presented to Congress late last year characterized PRC espionage as “the single greatest risk to the security of American technologies.” Almost simultaneously, Jonathan Evans, director- general of MI5, Britain’s domestic security and counterintelligence service, sent a confidential letter to CEOs and security chiefs at 300 UK companies to warn that they were under attack by “Chinese state organizations” whose purpose, said Mr. Evans, was to defeat their computer security systems and steal confidential commercial information.
The Chinese had specifically targeted Rolls-Royce and Shell Oil.
The key to unlocking computer secrets through rogue microchips is uncovering (or stealing) source codes, without which such microchips would be useless. This is why Chinese espionage is so heavily focused upon the U.S. computer industry.
Four main computer operating systems exist. Two of them, Unix and Linux, utilize open-source codes. Apple’s operating system is Unix- based.
Which leaves only Microsoft as the source code worth cracking. But in early 2004, Microsoft announced that its security had been breached and that its source code was “lost or stolen.”
“As technology evolves, each new program has a new source code,” a computer forensics expert told The Investigator. “So the Chinese would need ongoing access to new Microsoft source codes for maintaining their ability to activate any microchips they may have installed, along with the expertise to utilize new hardware technology.”
No surprise then that the FBI expends much of its counterintelligence resources these days on Chinese high-tech espionage within the United States. Timothy Bereznay, while still serving as assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, told USA Today, “Foreign collectors don’t wait until something is classified — they’re targeting it at the research and development stage.” Mr. Bereznay now heads Raytheon’s Intelligence and Information Systems division.
The PRC’s intelligence services use tourists, exchange students and trade show attendees to gather strategic data, mostly from open sources. They have also created over 3,500 front companies in the United States — including several based in Palo Alto to focus on computer technology.
Back in 2005, when the Chinese espionage problem was thought to be focused on military technology, then-FBI counterintelligence operations chief Dave Szady said, “I think the problem is huge, and it’s something we’re just getting our arms around.” Little did he know just how huge, as it currently applies to computer network security.
The FBI is reported to have arrested more than 25 Chinese nationals and Chinese-Americans on suspicion of conspiracy to commit espionage between 2004 and 2006. The Investigator endeavored to update this figure, but was told by FBI spokesman William Carter, “We do not track cases by ethnicity.”
Excuse us for asking. We may be losing secrets, but at least the dignity of our political correctness remains intact.
Oh, and Homeland Security snagged comic icon Jerry Lewis, 82, trying to board a plane in Las Vegas with a gun — no joke.
Microchip de Manchuria, el espia oculto en nuestros ordenadores…
Robert Eringer, antiguo espia de la CIA, afirma que el gobierno chino puede haber introducido un microchip en todos los ordenadores fabricados en China (Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Apple e IBM/Lenovo), lo que les permitiría acceder a todos ellos de forma remo…
horror!!
This reads like one of those amazing Hollywood-type conspiracy thrillers where you actually wonder if the story might actually be true, but if only half of what is mentioned here indeed turns out to be fact and not fiction, the PRC is still going to have the western world by the balls…
[...] leave you with that, go here to read the full article and for the Diigoed version go [...]
this is fucking awesome. love finding shit like this
He fucked up the conspiracy when trying to go into details, mentioning the MS hack from 2004 for example. Not related at all.
I call bull-sheeeit. Not happening on that scale.
The joke is on China when all communication between the western world and their country is ‘clipped’. Phone home no more!
It gives a whole new meaning to the term big brother is watching you. I must admit I’m glad it is the Chinese and not the Americans that are one step ahead of the game!
The Barbados Blog</a
We’ve already had something similar to this … I wonder how long before its stops being ‘fake’ hmmm sceptical as always but I think this is something that should be watched with very open eyes.
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2005/09/27/rochdale_dealer_raided/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/09/fbi_counterfeit_kit_probe/
I call shenanigans on that.
The link to OS source code should be verifiable by inspection of the Linux kernels and other source codes. Would be highly surprised if something like that existed for long without being exposed by the open source community.
Also, to “hide a microchip”, they would have to actually hide a module inside an existing chip - also easily verifiable by the chips original designers, though I remain skeptical whether the likes of Intel and AMD would divulge evidence of a trojan being planted in their chips.
Well I hope they enjoy my empty bank accounts and wide variety of pornography.
It seems all too often that US corporations of late are willing to outsource, offshore, and out-and-out sell what are really vital assets to our security.
What is it going to take before we wake up and realize sales like the IBM sale and so much out sourcing has made us not just vulnerable but out-and-out defenseless?
Oh, and don’t even get me started on how much of US debt is held by China. Ever wonder why so little is being done to prevent such fiascos? You need look no further than how many dollars China holds in US bonds.
Without those bonds being bought by the Chinese, the US would be broke. Instead, we’re really broke, but we just keep borrowing more and more from China to make it look like we’re not, and in the process we’re losing more and more leverage daily.
Even if every word of this is false, there’s still something horrifically wrong with how much of our national security is now in the hands of other governments like China.
Hilarious.
Sadly, the nitty gritty and facts of the matter are completely different. Anybody who knows anything moderately technical about computers, network infrastructures, the Internet, operating systems, and software, would immediately realise that the idea of this kind of conspiracy is utterly and completely infeasible.
Funny though.
Wow.. nice tin foil hat!
Wasn’t Steve Jobs who once said “Good artists copy, Great artists steal”?
First of all, this Eringer character is obscure at most. He’s more renowned for the publishing fraud he’s accused of commiting (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/05/01/60minutes/main551924.shtml)
And as I’m reading this, all I see is more of a fear scenario than a factual article. There are no names, events reports are shady (i.e Microsoft source code theft, as far as I know, only covered some of the MMC code, which is pretty much useless and the guy was arrested http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/30/ms_source_code_fence_guilty_plea/)
Moreover, even **IF** there was somekind of trojan in microchips, it needs to be activated, which means it needs to be connected to the Internet, which is not the case of classified networks.
This is basically a conspiracy theorist wet dream, nothing more.
I might be wrong about the source code theft, but still it was code from Windows NT and 2000 anyway
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fifteen-greatest-hacking-exploits,1790-16.html
You would have thought that since Al Gore invented the Internet he would have advised Clinton not to expand trade avenues with the Chinese. Oops, I almost forgot. Money trumps security.
Correction: Edward Lee Howard was not brought to capture. He fell for a ruse I designed and could have been captured, but the FBI pulled out at the 11th hour due to a “conflict of interest” dreamed up by the White House. Howard died in July 2002 ,supposedly after falling down stairs and breaking his neck near Moscow. I believe the Russians murdered him. Full details available in my book Ruse: Undercover With FBI Counterintelligence, published by Potomac Books, available through Amazon.
Companies keep sending technology to China. Symantec just built a 1000 employee research and development center in China. We are just handing them the technology and giving them access into our country.
China requires countries to have a physical presence in China and employee Chinese people before you can sell products there.
That’s something to think about.
This is technically impossible, I won’t go into details as this has been debunked by experts far smarter than me.
But rest assured you data is safe from Chinese espionage.
[...] that I’ve mentioned to date is pretty minor compared to what China has in store for us, if this article is to be believed. Because we outsource a significant amount of microchip production - most of which is conducted by [...]
Well…better learn how to say “Please don’t harm me, great Chinese overlords!” in Mandarin.
Brilliant read! Thanks!
I think we’ve been under “economic” attack by China for a while, as they use this technology. What better way to defeat this country than to use this system to undermine our economy, leaving them to be the world economic superpower?
Are you kidding me? They would have to encapsulate the entire OSI model into the chip. How would they turn it on in the first place? Anyone with a decent IDS would notice any strange packets coming or going from china or a proxy for that matter. Also china doesn’t decide what goes into the linux kernel. How would the chip decide what data is relevant to send out? They couldn’t forward all your data, the latency would be ridiculous. This is fear mongering probably to help them push trusted computing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing) on us.
Actually, don’t listen to what I say, if it’s on the internet it must be true.
The problem with this idea, and the ultimate solution is, stringent security and firewalls. These chips might be in there, or they might now, however either way very stringent firewalling, and machine security can eliminate all but the most direct threat. The threat they cannot eliminate is direct, physical manipulation of the machine, and that is where physical and RF security comes in. If the chips are in there, using advanced firewalls, filtering, and Intrusion Detection will eliminate the possibility of remote access via the Internet.
There you have it…we (USA) barrow a mere $575B from teh Chinese think that gives them the right to peer into our computers at their disgretion.
Then again, given the strict oversight within China regarding computer use…everything for that matter it might jsut be a ploy for them to peer at America’s porn free of charge.
Almost fell for this article until it lost credibility where it mentions Microsoft lost it’s source codes. That was only an OEM SDK for Win2k not the kernel source. Even so, it still takes Microsoft to distribute binaries at the mass level. Conspiracy.
[...] November 19, 2008 by kristina b Uh, macbook phone home? Is this for reals? http://ping.fm/VpIT9 [...]
What is to say, which is quite possible, US chip manufactures creating similar back doors to their own products. Whereas we know US and foreign software companies have been known to created trojan code.
[...] By Robert Eringer DailyArtisan.com Click here for the original article [...]
[...] you believe this article this reality could be upon you [...]
This is such utter bullshit. Exactly how is my microchip going to be remotely “fired” if I’m sitting behind a firewall?
One of the most far fetched conspiracies I’ve ever heard. I don’t care if the Chinese can hack into my computer anyways, as long as they leave my tivo alone.
Certainly interesting- but it seems like a problem like this should be easily identified and prevented. If there are rogue chips on a board, or more likely rogue instructions built into eproms, they must communicate their stolen payloads in some fashion.
Assuming this has been actually found, it should be a simple matter to identify the strategy for getting the stolen data off of the machine and block that. For example, I would assume they will use the Internet in which case they’d have an dn/ip address. Simply block the route or DDOS the destination. If they couldn’t simply release a firmware update to re-flash the affected chips.
Oh, and I would suggest that if IBM knew their chips were compromised, they could be compelled to act even if just to protect themselves.
What this story tells us is that we shouldn’t simply accept ‘black-boxes’ from foreign manufacturers. We must insist on open-source, and verify. Better yet, manufacture the common physical components in overseas (if you must) but maintain control of the important bits to trusted countries in NA and Europe.
I must be oversimplifying but can’t we eliminate this?
Tim
As Mark correctly points out, this is more funny than true. This is too complex of a hack to just “hide” into the motherboard. Since all hardware requires drivers to communicate to any operating system, the Chinese would have to implant many driver versions for many operating systems. It is most likely, as well, that the drivers would “break” with OS updates (look at Vista and Leopard problems with older hardware for an example.) The driver requirement would fatten up a chip considerably due to the need of memory to store the drivers let alone the needed transistors for the chips functionality. This article is more for Hollywood than Washington.
From a technical standpoint, this would be something incredibly hard to pull off. PC/Electronic hardware is not built for a specific OS or specific purpose. Most components are mixed and matched and no single computer has a single sourced set of components. So the assumption of some lowly EPROM on a motherboard sitting there and communication with peripherals via the internet is fantasy. Now, it *is* possible to get a PC off a production line and modify it..that is easily possible, but not the same as a chip that was built into a design. You could piggyback some electronics into a motherboard, but as soon as someone looked at the motherboard, they could see something wasn’t up to snuff. I suppose if the PC came from a Chinese factory, and the Chinese knew where the PC’s were heading then it could happen. The problem is that the DoD buys PC’s off the shelf so Chinese spys would really have to be creative to make sure their Spy-PCs ended in the correct requisition/orders. Nah, I don’t buy the chip existing in our machines.
Heck with that… Trend Micro has the keys to millions of busines and personal systems NOW.
Trend is a leader in AntiVirus software that “Phones Home” back to Japan on a daily basis…
All someone at Trend would need to do is push out a new engine that deletes the entire hard drive or renders the system useless… Thus shutting down millions of computers world wide… The ultimate Trogen
Easy solution: re-flash the chips, and send something much worse their way.
I love seeing all these “this is all BS” posts:
http://digg.com/security/CIA_Agent_Warns_Against_Chinese_Trojan_Horse_Microchip?t=20880174#c20880174
It’s sitting on your machine now - mocking you.
when i was reading i was thinking of another james bond movie
Jesus, what is it with the Chinese the days.
Fact #1
Most computer equipment is manufactured in China.
Fact #2
70% of old computers are recycled in China
Fact #3
It is very cheap and easy to build a hardware keylogger into a keyboard or motherboard; and practically undetectable.
Given the three fact, the conclusion is obvious. This only leaves me with two questions.
Q1. Do you treat a keyboard or a motherboard as classified waste?
Q2. Are there enough people employed in Intelligence in China to sift through the potentially logged information?
[...] The Manchurian Microchip [...]
BULLSHIT
Unless (to some degree) this “hidden chips” are in the network cards.
How could one possible hide the traffic in and out when using external firewalls ?
The chineese would then need to “own” both the computer and the external firewall to do a double bypass.
The chips would anyway need a sort of “hanshaking” to activate, and how would that be possible in an protected network.
An bios patch would kill (and possible also an update) those chips anyway.
I would be way more concerned about software trojans using RAM in existing chips to hide themselfs. Those would/could survive a total reinstall or change of operating systems.
I think they have been researchin this over at rootkit.com for several years already.
I suspect that almost every vestern countries have their own versions of theese badguys.
Forget this one:
“An bios patch would kill (and possible also an update) those chips anyway.”
It’s wrong in some cases.
Thank you Bill Clinton! Without you, none of this would be possible.
Umm, this is complete BS. To be able to pull off something like what is being described.
You would have to control the assembly of a final product, not just the manufacture of a single component.
Also there is a thing called Firewalls / Intrusion Detection Systems. That would pick up the traffic the call home location.
I am not going to write a manifesto on the subject but this Hollywood fantasy.
Perhaps the only workable scenario is the implant of a Pseudo Trojan into a Network Adapter Chip. The chip could be programmed to send a copy of all network communication to a predetermined IP if a unique set of circumstances exist.
But even in this case all that could be transmitted is data between the host system and another.
It could not read your hard drive, record screen shoots or keystrokes.
The NIC chip would also need to be smart enough to know what traffic to redirect. If it sent everything it would be obvious even in the most insecure environment that something was amiss.
As I said before there are a lot of if’s.
A spy solution like that being described would have to be tailor made for a unique situation.
It would never show its self as mass produced design for the military or consumer market.
ME:
4:14
http://www.dailyartisan.com/news/and-now-the-manchurian-microchip/
4:15
did you hear about this?
FRIEND:
4:16
no
4:18
it’s bullshit
4:19
ME:
why?
4:19
how do you know
4:20
FRIEND:
because
a) some little chip would have to be activated by a network and would have to have access to the networking layers in an operating system to send/receive data
4:20
b) how can it access data if it’s not in the datapath?
4:21
c) how can it buffer all of this data that’s intercepted and store it all before it gets word to “call home”
4:21
d) how could it get word to call home, let me guess all the software has back doors in it too to active a chip
4:22
e) how come hardware engineers at HP/Sun/IBM/Dell/whoever didn’t notice extra circuit paths and integrated chips on their designs
4:22
f) what about encryption, i guess the chip can decryt anything too
4:22
but again it all goes back to how can this device access teh data and buffer it (store it) before it gets word to send all the data back
4:23
and if the OS like windows or linux doesn’t recognize the chip and have a driver for it
4:23
then the OS can’t see it therefore use it
4:23
but i guess all of those are backdoored too
4:23
it’s bullshit
4:25
now a killswtich or something i could see
4:25
but even that
4:25
how do you activate it
ME:
4:25
you should paste all that into the comments section
FRIEND:
4:26
nah
ME:
4:27
can I?
FRIEND:
4:27
sure
So… Is Unix now open-source? Did I miss something? Or is there a factual error in the article?
If the Chinese can do it, the Americans (and Japanese and Taiwanese) could have done it sooner. The Chinese should be more worried than the Americans.
Kinda like the “tracking dots” embedded in documents by color laser printers.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/118664/government_uses_color_laser_printer_technology_to_track_documents.html
Or the digital picture frame trojans.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/15/BU47V0VOH.DTL&type=tech
Or anti-virus software ignoring viruses authored by the FBI.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Lantern_(software)#Symantec.2C_Norton_AntiVirus_Products
Or cellphones used as tracking devices. Etc.
[...] This is different. [...]
This is so ridiculous.
1 - if this was possible, how would it be compatible with whatever operating system, and router the user had at this unspecified point in the future?
2 - how would it not be trivial to find such a chip?
3 - here’s a far more plausible scare tactic. Howard Hughes was a big support of the CIA, and among many other projects, he self-financed the Glomar Explorer to help the CIA dredge a sunken Soviet submarine. So who wouldn’t doubt that every Hughes telecommunications satellite, upon which the vast majority of all worldwide communications are relayed, have an additional board installed that provides a backdoor to any NSA communication monitoring satellite?
Computer components have the ability to read and write blocks of your computer memory, through a technique called DMA.
Your network card is one of these components. If it was modified to send random blocks of your computer’s memory over the internet, your firewall wouldn’t notice, because it would be happening at the hardware level.
If I were planning such a trick, I’d look at wireless lan cards, which almost always need a software driver downloaded onto them to work.
Either way, intrusion detection software on a router would probably catch that.
The point the author makes about ’software codes’ is pretty much near unintelligable.
[...] | Tags: bad times, ch, china, chipsm prc, us This article is a very scary one but VERY, VERY real. Please read it in its entirety. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Final RemindersObamanomics — In These [...]
My two bits:
1) The lesson, regardless of the article’s veracity, should be that your security is only as strong as the weakest of your links, including your supply chain.
2) We don’t need Chinese espionage to ruin our economy, we just need greed and speculation, which we have in abundance.
OMG! If you look at his photo, in the background below and to the right of his ear is a man with a top hat in a reflection. Zoom in around 400% to see it. Creepy.
For those who think this is bullshit, they should know that it was first detected when a series of fake Cisco Routers sourced from China, and illegally supplied by a US defence Contractor, were installed in a DoD location, and every one of them attempted to connect back to an IP address in China on first boot. This was only noticed because it was a DoD network that logged any unexpected connection, and the new routers were not directly connected to the internet.
The point is that if this happens on boot, your local firewall doesn’t help you, and if the routers in your ISP or company are already part of the Chinese network, firewalls there won’t help either.
I do agree that most of the major manufacturers are probably still safe to buy from, but if you’re buying pirated equipment like Sun or Mac clones, or a name brand manufacturer decides to source components from the gray market, it may be a problem.
All that needs to happen is for a random individual hacker to figure out what the trigger is.
Its an interesting idea, but after reading some of the comments it doesn’t sound like Chinese spying on American computers could be possible.
The Chinese would have to figure out every single way to run the spying devices undetected.
On the other hand, maybe Americans have detected information transmission, and that’s why this article was written as a warning.
thanks from Tony
This is probably the most misinformed gumbo I have ever read. Though PCs are assembled in PRC, the microchips are generally not fabed (made) there, the motherboards often come from Tiawan and most important - key chips like CPUs and GPUs are designed in the west - are you honestly stating that the chinese hack the chip designs or put “mystery” chips on motherboards? So clueless … but great for defense contractors with thier overpriced “milspec” “secure” gear!
[...] http://www.dailyartisan.com/news/and-now-the-manchurian-microchip/ [...]
I will gladly accept a boat load of chips if they come with a boat load of cute chinese women!
Hasn’t anyone ever heard of a rootkit? Sony had one on it’s music CDs for a few years. A well done rootkit has more power over the operating system than your administrator account does. I could only imagine what a hardware rootkit could do. It does seem a little crazy, but if there is proven to be fact in this guy’s story we are in trouble.
It’s a cute idea, but it is implausible.
1. The presumption is that there are serious bugs in all OSs that enable the phone home - In Winblowz this is a given, but less likely in the others.
2. The hardware would have to be located in one of very very few places on the CPU or mobo. If the hardware existed in one of these places, a university or independent researcher would have found it by now, and there would be photos/proof of it.
3. Any system worth it’s salt is protected by inward facing firewalls. Even if these could be compromised, as soon as large amounts of data started to be sent out, the sys admin would pull the cable. The data could be hidden in junk portions of headers etc (there was a conspiracy many years ago concerning this and network cards), but it certainly couldn’t shift the content of a modern HDD in any sort of reasonable time. Further, if they tripped all of these switches at once, the traffic would bring the net to a halt - they still wouldn’t get bugger all data.
4. Assuming that Bob and the other crackpots who invented this conspiracy aren’t avid sci-fi fans imagining that China will ‘beam’ the activation code from space, how exactly are they going to activate these chips? The only realistic choices would be to send out a worm, or perhaps to hack someone like google and embed code in their pages. In other words some certain code (a certain set of 0’s and 1’s) passing through the CPU/RAM/BUS/wherever will cause the hidden ‘chip’ to activate. This being the case, why has the chip never accidentally tripped before now? With all of the computers in the world running all of the programs that they do, analyzing all of the text they process, processing all of the binary media/executable files that they do - how come nothing has ever tripped the chip? I would estimate that about 50% of this processing happens on computers where network traffic is monitored. This being so, it is irrational to think that such a trip would not have been detected.
In short, if there were such a chip out there (on a wide scale), it would have been detected by now, and we wouldn’t be reading about it in the ramblings of some two-bit hack who is suffering from a senior moment.
Kill switches and concealed remote control are a classic, countries (including US) as well as corporations are using this “cookies” embedded in their own products (OS, s/w, telecomm h/w) for many decades. The Trojan Horse is not a legend or IT terminology is what people did back 3 000 years ago and will do it again and again in other form
maybe if our computers were sentient beings and had a hidden agenda..
BTW what would PLA do after shutting down USA?
I guess ship all factory workers to USA and grow rice all over USA.
I just seems another way to pass money to Raytheon.
[...] Read More This post has been read 1 times. [...]
Robert Eringer’s past activities, associations and career as an author are of a questionable nature at best.
In fact I’d say he’s at best an agent of disinformation.
Brilliant read! Thanks!
getting owned by our own computers.
blah
AKA … How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Microchip Bent On World Domination.
This is bullshit. A story like this would be publsihed in the New York Times if it were true and the author whold have been rewarded handsomly.
Trojans hidden in hardware is definitly happening right now but doesnt do much. the kind of chip this article is talking about would be very noticable for it do what the article claims it can do
If I read this correctly the Chinese will need ongoing access to Microshafts source code to implement this “Trojan on a chip” and Linux/Unix/Mac users are safe. This makes me very happy.
The truth is CHINA OWNS AMERICA!!
If this is so then the chip would have to call home, as well as be awakened, either by IP or some special protocol created by the Chinese. A VPN could hide the data but still generate traffic that could be measured. And for all of those millions of systems made in China that have shipped and are in production use throughout the western world has there been even instance of this being reported? I can imagine the traffic in either direction going undetected only if we were talking about a small number of computers.
It does sound plausible but hard to believe given that it should have been detected by now. However if they targeted systems that were going to be purchased by the U.S. Defense Department or critical multi nationals then that would substantially reduce their risk of it being exposed.
So I would rate this as a concern slightly above your average run of the mill conspiracy theory. But then again didn’t Freud say that even paranoids have real enemies?
[...] system that handles our Intercontinental Ballistic Missile system.
[...] system that handles our Intercontinental Ballistic Missile system.
I’m still not every buying a LENOVO-branded PC…ever. And a hardwired keylogger with built-in FTP capabilities would be childsplay to implement - seriously.
Rather the Chinese doing it then the USA.
They are far less sinister than the USA.
[...] Chinese Hacking U.S. Government Computers & Now Trojan Chips Published in November 23rd, 2008 Posted by rexacrouch in Uncategorized Chinese hacking the government’s computer systems—this seems to be a recurring story. Now we have something new called the “Manchurian Microchip” which is essentially a Trojan that allows the Chinese to steal everything on your hard drive. Say it isn’t so! Here at the local university in northern Michigan I can’t seem to take a computer science class because I don’t understand Chinese. Why can’t we have English speaking TAs? And why is the CS department inundated with Chinese? Our government makes it financially beneficial for companies to outsource production to China and gives all of these Chinese students Visas to come here, learn computer programming and design on our platforms and in our infrastructure and then complains that our systems are being hacked… and when we call to complain about it the our calls are forwarded to a calling center in India. I wonder what the problem is? We need to start developing all of our own chips and conduct computer assembly in America. I really don’t want the Chinese to have access to the photos of my family pets or access to our Space Shuttle. Call me simple but we can produce without them. Manchuco Chip [...]
This news offer no official or tangible information to assume this is actually true… it mentions it can be true but honestly I don’t find it 100% believable. It doesn’t matter if it’s a chip or not security experts should be able to determine that something is going on in their systems.
oh, it is funny.
I means ,accoss the alaska is the britain iland.
Check out”trojon key logger WIN.32.fung. financial theif,I don’t know enough to do this, hope you do .crashed mu computer in Oct.08
Why does a hacked chip HAVE to be in your laptop or desktop? Think of another avenue of attack… We all use and buy blackboxs in the form of routers, hubs, switches… wired or wireless. We use cable and dsl modems and never think for a moment what could actually be installed in those boxes. We buy VOIP boxes and discuss the most personal details of our lives and finances over the internet every day… Who else is being communicated to when we use these devices? Fact is, there’s no way to be sure. So… set behind your intricately detailed firewall script… but you really protected once your data hits the internet?
1 word: Vaporware.
And how would they call this chip? over TCP/IP? Wirelessly? though some port-knocking scheme? Security researchers would have found the “call home code” if it was on every pc in the world.
Also: Being able to review source code is what makes linux/unix variants so secure. Just having the source code to a program deosn’t mean you can find a back door where none exists.
Funny how western Intelliegience services are making such an effort to make china look like an enemy.The idea of chineese domestic policy going world wide is only a dream in their minds, not a worry.Maybe a “war” with china would bring about their Ultimate goal.A One World Government.
[...] http://www.dailyartisan.com/news/and-now-the-manchurian-microchip/ [...]
Reading you all
I agree to that it is possible to put a rootkit inside the flashbios two ways. One is to be the manufacturer and machine code it. The other is have access to the bios and flash a rootkit into it. If it is the first then it is impossible to do anything about except change the hardware, in the other scenario you just need to upgrade your flash to empty that rootkit, the problem with that is if you need some rudimentary OS pre-installed to do it, read your net, usb etc. Then the rootkit might write itself to it.
As for putting on ‘one chip more’? Depends on the quality securing, I don’t think that would work. Putting it inside some other chip or ram memory on the mothercard? Possible with ram memory and much harder to detect in that case, but inside a chip as some boolean electronic circuit? Naaah, then I would recommend the RAM memory instead, much simpler. And using it for routers seem a good way to compromise any firewall.
And if you really wan’t to add to the ‘conspiracy thoughts’ I’ve noticed that since I’ve installed MS servicepack 3 from microsoft my firewall seems to go on after the Internet connection been made. I’m not particularly happy about that.
Also you might be wise to use anti virus kits thats neither made in China, Russia or the US. All of them is rumored to have backdoors for various reasons
depending on Country. But that’s what open source is there for, to ensure that your privacy isn’t breached by malicious parties.
Are you kidding me? They would have to encapsulate the entire OSI model into the chip. How would they turn it on in the first place? Anyone with a decent IDS would notice any strange packets coming or going from china or a proxy for that matter. Also china doesn’t decide what goes into the linux kernel. How would the chip decide what data is relevant to send out? They couldn’t forward all your data, the latency would be ridiculous. This is fear mongering probably to help them push trusted computing (downloaded) on us.
Is this for real
its horror and good to read
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