

US Navy Bought Fake Chinese Chips, Questions Security of Sourcing - nickpinkston
http://m.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/06/chips-oy-spies-want-to-hack-proof-circuits/

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JonnieCache
Title is wrong. Somebody needs to learn to parse journalistic hype with a
little more skepticism.

 _"The chips turned out to be counterfeits from China, but it could have been
even worse. Instead of crappy Chinese fakes being put into Navy weapons
systems, the chips could have been hacked, able to shut off a missile in the
event of war or lie around just waiting to malfunction."_

~~~
nickpinkston
Edited - it was 7am when I posted that ;-)

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ldayley
This isn't the first time this has happened, I remember when it was discovered
in 2008 that a ton of POS card reader/pin payment machines were sending stolen
data back to servers and it was built into (or sabotaged into) the machines
themselves from the manufacturer (or intercepted by pirates along the way).
Seems like now is a great time to get into the hardware supply chain
security/QA verification business.

And how feasible is it to obfuscate the design purpose and logic of chips at
manufacture as they propose in the article?

