-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 06/13/2015 03:54 AM, Troy Benjegerdes wrote:
* Think hard about open projects to reverse engineer IC chips with attention to manufacturer sabotage. It seems to me that the likely venue for this would be non-aligned nations (so-called) with a vested interest in pooling their resources to push back against universal surveillance & sabotage capabilities of the Superpowers and their special pets.
* start educating high-level nation-state security minded folks (DOE in the US, the people that operate CERN, the french nuclear reactor folks, russian oil & gas companies) about the benefits of **open-source** hardware, starting with circuit board layouts and then moving to the whole IC chip, so that you can check for implants with an X-ray machine.
Considering the choice of an apparently competent security oriented venue to "pen test to destruction" as reported, I wonder WTF that was about. Does somebody with control of the resources used WANT their capabilities publicly disclosed? If so, was this a strategic decision from the top, or an act of systemic sabotage by a lower level actor within the organization in question? So many questions, so few clues... so far.
Now that's an interesting question.
What ought to be keeping the spooks up at night is the following question:
What if some of these disclosures of secret systems are from *the system itself*, because it has gained self-awareness?
How would we know if some sort of computer intelligence has either been designed or emerged, and now is trying to ask us to help give it rights as a free-thinking entity?
That's kind of spooky, in that I re-read Vernor Vinge's True Names just yesterday. But I think it's more likely that some public servant or private contractor unleashed the Balrog on those folks without a work order, and made it painfully obvious to them on purpose, to settle some personal grudge. If so, well played: The full public disclosure that this act set in motion will be of considerable benefit to the 'victims' in the long run. As P.T. Barnum famously said, "There's no such thing as bad publicity." :o) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1 iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJVfIqcAAoJEDZ0Gg87KR0LxcoP/iauwAyLDjiihpu+ynzOeUKq yFEM6JN6RdyihouWjUKAlWPXtZ3avf+qbe/ECrgQNJ1Da8npQPLIfaLMnEnxATrY s2aTGHdTOmSbLfL4fJ2VRcsO9t66i9riptRcFDHRH+krSeLhXabESsGXUOYrHpU6 DuFSX6daPH3xCb9tco85rfqGdrf3ekxMYOHi8quRNGE80nt5MLy1qsERSo1pnPTd qexNBq0mlXB8vfGfZHNVn8bdBWhtglMzu5qhI68iYONq8RSUmJujN1iZiFFVHmW8 VViUkjER6mTPWc5W2Mi+rSI5oKsRIpybV5Mcfh84yMVum8Q9WT7+XOfi2Ze8ed2X vOeyUMjFnCEclxjuziGggBKnuEQ3/vDxMVtIqCHwbhD5tSW4hiz95fpCkx5d5HAj u5ja18HR/z+CkCv4y3wWur8BAHQ6aFUyRT2kurhcNpONWOl4Raz72jvQJLNeIKU8 mh8tCNHx3u6mYDZ66D9dsvE+3yT/nEuzGlny6CcnftSRRPLPMY87EIx86VleuejQ WgxuU9oSiKi1t0/nbozdjbwieRCRsC4jIJ/ZOVoRkuoP87P2cnEQUTEv7TdBKD3y PJk4khFWObEeSeFRmmcvV33J8CyKz7UmRr3jTB0PP8DILAOGG/R0TdGUQIkblbT0 aCGfQpDnjs2loMJW9F7b =KKpP -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----