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Comment by galadran | Hacker News Reader

> The point is, to combine even less powerful elements of each into a package with the functionality Bloomberg describes, it would require amazingly small lithography techniques. I have yet to find someone able to say that adding processing power, signaling interfaces, networking (even a MAC), and memory/ storage onto a package this size is even possible and I have asked folks in the valley that do this at major companies.

Meanwhile at the NSA, in 2008: "Not only can we do that, we'll throw in a high frequency radio as well for beating air gaps, and it will only cost you 10k! Oh, and we'll fit it INSIDE an ethernet port."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_ANT_catalog#/media/File:NS...

I'm sure the 2018 series is even smaller and even cheaper...

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That sort of thing is what stops me from dismissing Bloomberg's reporting. Intelligence agencies have a long history of creating implants that seem fantastical for their era. Consider The Thing and the Selectric Bug.

An implant small enough to go unnoticed on a motherboard somehow compromising the BMC to exfiltrate data or control doesn't strike me as the least bit far-fetched.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)

http://www.cryptomuseum.com/covert/bugs/selectric/

OK, but Bloomberg said some Chinese spy chips were the size of tiny signal couplers. That "ethernet port" is actually a dual-stacked Ethernet/USB port measuring over 1 cubic inch in volume - it is hardly "small". 2008 NSA's "TRINITY" microcontroller, which forms the basis for most of their designs, is a bit smaller than a US penny, which isn't exactly "signal coupler" tiny.

I can't guess at what 2018 NSA might have, nor can I guess at what 2018 PLA might have, but I think it's hard to jump immediately to believing this.

With FEL lithography and enormous budgets most of the Bloomberg claims seem quite possible.

Why should someone attack a quit low priority target like Apple or Amazon with such sophisticated technology? It would make more sense to aim at say the White House or the Pentagon or something like that.

According to the Bloomberg article, Amazon learned of this when they did a security check on Elemental, a company they wanted to buy. Elemental's video processing devices with supermicro boards are present on US navy warships, for example.

And Amazon also runs the GovCloud. And are the leading vendor in the race for Pentagon's cloud contract.

Today everybody can buy a computer that is build into an ethernet port.

https://www.lantronix.com/products/xport-pro/

Yeah but this isn't news. Almost anyone who looked up the snowden leaks for ethernet bugs already knows this.

This isn't about replacing components. It's about dumping a chip somewhere and magically adding traces to the mainboard to connect it to critical components. Except this is impossible unless the motherboard was specifically designed for the purpose of being bugged.

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