Answering my own question...
http://www.eteknix.com/expert-says-nsa-have-backdoors-built-into-intel-and-amd-processors/
All the articles seem to reference the same Australian Financial Review story
from July of this year.
http://www.afr.com/p/technology/intel_chips_could_be_nsa_key_to_ymrhS1HS1633gCWKt5tFtI
And a denial from AMD here.
http://fudzilla.com/home/item/32120-amd-denies-existence-of-nsa-backdoor
One is tempted to think "well, they would say that, wouldn't they"? No one's
going to admit to this and see Government and/or military supply contracts
lost.
I've spent the last 10+ years loving IT, spending every spare moment in front
of my pc. Most of them using Linux. I was happy, believing that if "we" could
just get enough people interested in Open Source that the world could be made
a better and safer place, free from the tyranny of Corporate nonsense and
spying.
Over the last few days, as a result of the various links on this and other
threads here, everything has changed. Now it all seems nasty and suspicious.
I used to think "I cannot help someone to be happy with Windows or Apple,
without at least warning them of the loss of privacy and control they bring
with them" but now I'm wondering if the message should be "if you have a
computer, regardless of what you run on it, you're unable to rely on being
secure or safe".
What if NSA employees are masquerading as OpenSource contributors? What if
they are "maintainers" for various bits of code? If code comes from "a
trusted person" is it really reviewed by others for compromise or is it
accepted as "trusted" and included without being checked?
We had a story break here in the UK a few months ago, whereby it transpired
that undercover Police had infiltrated various political movements, to the
extent of having sexual relationships and even children with women in the
movements. If that is the level of abuse of trust that is being carried out
in order to monitor dissidents, then it's highly likely that some trusted
contributors are indeed working for the security agencies, with hidden
agendas.
Once stories like that become known it naturally and presumably
intentionally, introduces mistrust into every such movement, as people begin
to look at people they thought were trusted and wonder "are you a Policeman
too"? Such mistrust tears movements apart, again, presumably quite
deliberately.
Divide and rule.
So it comes down to this, for me - I'm not involved in anything that could be
described as genuine terrorism. I don't call for the deaths of politicians or
bankers. I speak out as and when it seems necessary, always and only in
defence of the weak and the poor. If the day should come when they're
arresting people for doing that then that's no world I wish to live in and
I'll take the consequences without shame.
Or put another way "f*ck 'em, I'm doing no wrong" and I'm not going to let a
bit of fear (perhaps unfounded and introduced by those who wish to destroy
the OSS movement) stop me from thus speaking out.
