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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: October 22, 2008 9:28:35 AM PDT
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Subject: the Manchurian microchip
And now the Manchurian microchip
Robert Eringer
October 18, 2008 7:13 AM
http://cryptome.org/manchu-chip.htm
The geniuses at Homeland Security who brought you hare-brained
procedures at airports (which inconvenience travelers without snagging
terrorists) have decreed that October is National Cyber Security
Awareness Month. This means The Investigator -- at the risk of
compromising national insecurities -- would be remiss not to make you
aware of the hottest topic in U.S. counterintelligence circles: rogue
microchips. This threat emanates from China (PRC) -- and it is hugely
significant.
The myth: Chinese intelligence services have concealed a microchip in
every computer everywhere, programmed to "call home" if and when
activated.
The reality: It may actually be true.
All computers on the market today -- be they Dell, Toshiba, Sony,
Apple or especially IBM -- are assembled with components manufactured
inside the PRC. Each component produced by the Chinese, according to a
reliable source within the intelligence community, is secretly
equipped with a hidden microchip that can be activated any time by
China's military intelligence services, the PLA.
"It is there, deep inside your computer, if they decide to call it
up," the security chief of a multinational corporation told The
Investigator. "It is capable of providing Chinese intelligence with
everything stored on your system -- on everyone's system -- from e-
mail to documents. I call it Call Home Technology. It doesn't mean to
say they're sucking data from everyone's computer today, it means the
Chinese think ahead -- and they now have the potential to do it when
it suits their purposes."
Discussed theoretically in high-tech security circles as "Trojan Horse
on a Chip" or "The Manchurian Chip," Call Home Technology came to
light after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
launched a security program in December 2007 called Trust in
Integrated Circuits. DARPA awarded almost $25 million in contracts to
six companies and university research labs to test foreign-made
microchips for hardware Trojans, back doors and kill switches --
techie-speak for bugs and gremlins -- with a view toward microchip
verification.
Raytheon, a defense contractor, was granted almost half of these funds
for hardware and software testing.
Its findings, which are classified, have apparently sent shockwaves
through the counterintelligence community.
"It is the hottest topic concerning the FBI and the Pentagon," a
retired intelligence official told The Investigator. "They don't know
quite what to do about it. The Chinese have even been able to hack
into the computer system that handles our Intercontinental Ballistic
Missile system."
Another senior intelligence source told The Investigator, "Our
military is aware of this and has had to take some protective
measures. The problem includes defective chips that don't reach
military specs -- as well as probable Trojans."
A little context: In 2005 the Lenovo Group in China paid $1.75 billion
for IBM's PC unit, even though that unit had lost $965 million the
previous four years. Three congressmen, including the chairman of the
House Armed Services Committee, tried to block this sale because of
national security concerns, to no avail. (The PRC embassy in
Washington, D.C., maintains a large lobbying presence to influence
congressmen and their staffs through direct contact.)
In June 2007, a Pentagon computer network utilized by the U.S. defense
secretary's office was hacked into -- and traced directly back to the
Chinese PLA.
A report presented to Congress late last year characterized PRC
espionage as "the single greatest risk to the security of American
technologies." Almost simultaneously, Jonathan Evans, director-general
of MI5, Britain's domestic security and counterintelligence service,
sent a confidential letter to CEOs and security chiefs at 300 UK
companies to warn that they were under attack by "Chinese state
organizations" whose purpose, said Mr. Evans, was to defeat their
computer security systems and steal confidential commercial information.
The Chinese had specifically targeted Rolls-Royce and Shell Oil.
The key to unlocking computer secrets through rogue microchips is
uncovering (or stealing) source codes, without which such microchips
would be useless. This is why Chinese espionage is so heavily focused
upon the U.S. computer industry.
Four main computer operating systems exist. Two of them, Unix and
Linux, utilize open-source codes. Apple's operating system is Unix-
based.
Which leaves only Microsoft as the source code worth cracking. But in
early 2004, Microsoft announced that its security had been breached
and that its source code was "lost or stolen."
"As technology evolves, each new program has a new source code," a
computer forensics expert told The Investigator. "So the Chinese would
need ongoing access to new Microsoft source codes for maintaining
their ability to activate any microchips they may have installed,
along with the expertise to utilize new hardware technology."
No surprise then that the FBI expends much of its counterintelligence
resources these days on Chinese high-tech espionage within the United
States. Timothy Bereznay, while still serving as assistant director of
the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, told USA Today, "Foreign
collectors don't wait until something is classified -- they're
targeting it at the research and development stage." Mr. Bereznay now
heads Raytheon's Intelligence and Information Systems division.
The PRC's intelligence services use tourists, exchange students and
trade show attendees to gather strategic data, mostly from open
sources. They have also created over 3,500 front companies in the
United States -- including several based in Palo Alto to focus on
computer technology.
Back in 2005, when the Chinese espionage problem was thought to be
focused on military technology, then-FBI counterintelligence
operations chief Dave Szady said, "I think the problem is huge, and
it's something we're just getting our arms around." Little did he know
just how huge, as it currently applies to computer network security.
The FBI is reported to have arrested more than 25 Chinese nationals
and Chinese-Americans on suspicion of conspiracy to commit espionage
between 2004 and 2006. The Investigator endeavored to update this
figure, but was told by FBI spokesman William Carter, "We do not track
cases by ethnicity."
Excuse us for asking. We may be losing secrets, but at least the
dignity of our political correctness remains intact.
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