[Info-vax] Intel x86-64 Processor Design Security Vulnerability?

[Simon Clubley]

On 2018-01-02, DaveFroble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
> Simon Clubley wrote:
>> 
>> What you should be worried about is the possibility of deliberate
>> backdoors inserted in CPU architectures by the intelligence agencies.
>> 
>
> Do you really think they could get away with that?  Remember the Sony root kit? 
>   Someone will discover any such, and the vendor just might go out of business. 
>   Even Intel.  Trust is a hard thing to earn, and oh so easy to lose.  Once 
> lost, almost impossible to recover.
>

The Sony rootkit didn't cause Sony to go out of business unfortunately.

> As far as that goes, any responsible chip mfg would just refuse to do such. 
> What's the NSA to do then?  It'd go public, and, can I mention Edward Snowden?
>

It may be possible for an intelligence agency to insert a backdoor
in a way that doesn't need the vendor's cooperation. For example,
what happens if the intelligence agency manages to get one of their
employees employed by the target company ?

> But, then, I'm not into conspiracies ...
>

A few days before the Snowden revelations came out, one of your
government's employees stood up in Congress and said that Americans
were not being spied on.

Before the Snowden revelations, the widescale spying on Americans
would have been classed as conspiracy material.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world