črypto is finished... and it's about time × (also: 'Balrog' malnet, firsthand view)

Steve Kinney admin at pilobilus.net
Sat Jun 13 12:55:11 PDT 2015


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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)



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