Pentagon's 'Kill Switch': Urban Myth?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: ken <Ken () new-isp net>
> Date: May 3, 2008 6:52:18 PM EDT
> To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
> Subject: Pentagon's 'Kill Switch': Urban Myth?

> The Pentagon is worried that "backdoors" in computer processors might
> leave the American military vulnerable to an instant electronic
> shut-down.  Those fears only grew, after an Israeli strike on an  
> alleged
> nuclear facility in Syria.  Many speculated that Syrian air defenses  
> had
> been sabotaged by chips with a built-in 'kill switch"  -- commercial
> off-the-shelf microprocessors in the Syrian radar might have been
> purposely fabricated with a hidden “backdoor” inside. By sending a
> preprogrammed code to those chips, an unknown antagonist had disrupted
> the chips' function and temporarily blocked the radar."
>
> This all had a very familiar ring to it. Those with long memories may
> also recall exactly the same scenario before: air defenses knocked out
> by the secret activation of code smuggled though in commercial
> hardware.
>
> This was back in 1991 and the first Iraq War, when the knockout blow  
> was
> administered by a virus carried by a printer : One printer, one virus,
> one disabled Iraqi air defence.
> [snip]
>
> The entire story can be found here:
> http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/05/kill-switch-urb.html
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, 2008-05-03 at 11:17 -0700, David Farber wrote:
> > ________________________________________
> > From: ' =JeffH ' [Jeff.Hodges () KingsMountain com]
> > Sent: Friday, May 02, 2008 9:37 PM
> > To: David Farber
> > Subject: fyi: DARPA Sponsors a Hunt For Malware In Microchips
> >
> > DARPA Sponsors a Hunt For Malware In Microchips
> > slashdot.org/palm/18/08/05/01/1233244_1.shtml
> >
> > DARPA Sponsors a Hunt For Malware In Microchips
> >
> > from the double-barreled-microscope-loaded-for-vermin dept. posted  
> > by timothy
> > on 2008-05-01 13:23:00
> >
> > Phurge links to an IEEE Spectrum story on an interesting DARPA  
> > project with
> > some scary implications about just what it is we don't know about  
> > what chips
> > are doing under the surface. It's a difficult problem to find  
> > invasive or
> > otherwise malicious capabilities built into a CPU; this project's  
> > goal is to
> > see whether vendors can find such hardware-level spyware in chips
> >
> > http://spectrum.ieee.org/may08/6171
> >
> > like those used in military hardware. Phurge excerpts: "Recognizing  
> > this
> > enormous vulnerability, the DOD recently launched its most  
> > ambitious program
> > yet to verify the integrity of the electronics that will underpin  
> > future
> > additions to its arsenal. ... In January, the Trust program started  
> > its
> > prequalifying rounds by sending to three contractors four identical  
> > versions
> > of a chip that contained unspecified malicious circuitry. The teams  
> > have until
> > the end of this month to ferret out as many of the devious  
> > insertions as they
> > can."
> >
> > ---
> > end
> >
> >
> >
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