[s-t] needle in haystack digest #3 (fwd from Nick.Barnes at pobox.com)

[Major Variola (ret)]

At 06:00 PM 11/6/03 +0100, Eugen Leitl wrote:
>I guess I didn't make myself clear.  I wasn't hypothesizing an attack
>against a fab.  I was saying that

The focus on Thomspon-trojaned tools and Chipworks-style reverse
engineering is silly.

There are plenty of folks who need green cards,
or whose relatives do, who have modify access to the CVS of the RTL
for a chip.  That is the best way to add unauthorized "features"
--through a technically
competent insider.

Since the features are not in the spec, they won't be tested for.  Sure,
you might have to
do some work after the chips are fielded --getting the trojaned system
to process
a certain string, wiretapping its response-- but the payoff can be huge.