Australian Politics Forum - Intel CPUs have backdoors

Bobby.

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Intel CPUs have backdoors
Oct 24^th, 2024 at 7:34pm

I read about this before -
something about a secret instruction set for the CPUs ?
The full instruction sets were always published before.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/16/tech/china-intel-security-review-intl-hnk/ind...

Thu October 17, 2024

Intel is a security risk for China, says influential industry group.

Beijing Reuters —

Intel products sold in China should be subject to a security review, the Cybersecurity Association of China (CSAC) said on Wednesday, alleging the US chipmaker has “constantly harmed” the country’s national security and interests.

CSAC in its post accuses Intel chips, including Xeon processors used for artificial intelligence tasks, of carrying several vulnerabilities, concluding that Intel “has major defects when it comes to product quality, security management, indicating that it is extremely irresponsible attitude towards customers.”

The industry group goes on to state that
operating systems embedded in all Intel processors are vulnerable to backdoors
created by the US National Security Agency (NSA).

“This poses a great security threat to the critical information infrastructures of countries all over the world, including China … the use of Intel products poses a serious risk to national security,” CSAC said.

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Aurora Complexus Senior Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 399 New South Whales Gender:	Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors Reply #1 - Oct 24^th, 2024 at 7:47pm Where there is money, there are always "experts" offering to fix the problem. In fact this expert may have simply taken a few million from AMD, in exchange for his reputation. Or a few thousand, depending on what his reputation is worth.
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Bobby.

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Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors
Reply #2 - Oct 24^th, 2024 at 7:52pm

https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/6yk10g/hundreds_of_undocumented_32bit...

Hundreds of undocumented 32-bit CPU instructions found,
with large overlapping regions even across many different manufacturers.

COMMENT

cyleleghorn
•
7y ago
•

The video explains how the undocumented commands were found, and even shows you how you can test your own CPU for hidden instructions or hardware bugs. These are commands that no compiler even recognizes as valid code, but execute nonetheless when run via an exploit.

It doesn't mean we know what they do, but they are there and you can run a script to find them. The video then goes on to show how these vulnerabilities can be exploited, in some cases causing a 100% CPU lockup. This is very interesting stuff, and points to at least some level of collaboration with the undocumented code amongst rivaling manufacturers.

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Bobby.

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Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors
Reply #3 - Oct 24^th, 2024 at 7:53pm

Aurora Complexus wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 7:47pm:

Where there is money, there are always "experts" offering to fix the problem.

In fact this expert may have simply taken a few million from AMD, in exchange for his reputation. Or a few thousand, depending on what his reputation is worth.

No - this is real - it's well known about.

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Aurora Complexus

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Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors
Reply #4 - Oct 24^th, 2024 at 7:58pm

Chinese native processors Zhaoxin and Loongon, are woefully weak products. They are about 6 years behind, and overpriced into the Chinese market (eg government who are required to buy them.) They're "fabless" too: China does not actually make them.

How is it in any way plausible that China could bribe Intel (one of the most successful manufacturers of anything) to put back-doors in their extremely profitable products?

Talk is cheap, and this is poo talk from a competitor.

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Aurora Complexus

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Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors
Reply #5 - Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:09pm

Bobby. wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 7:53pm:

Aurora Complexus wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 7:47pm:

Where there is money, there are always "experts" offering to fix the problem.

In fact this expert may have simply taken a few million from AMD, in exchange for his reputation. Or a few thousand, depending on what his reputation is worth.

No - this is real - it's well known about.

OK then, how do I access the "hidden instruction set" of my Intel processor. It's not particularly old (about 2 years) but I suppose there's a conspiracy of hackers and the government (diametrically opposed one would think) to conceal any "hidden instruction set demo" which might prove to me the existence of the hidden instruction set.

A hidden instruction set is a rather big deal. Putting extra instructions which can only be accessed by particular programs using a particular compiler, would be wasted space in the part of the processor where space is time.

You're hypothesizing lower performance, for ulterior motives, in a market where performance is a big deal. How many billions would it take, do you think, for Intel to risk its historical lead over AMD?

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Bobby.

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Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors
Reply #6 - Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:15pm

Aurora Complexus wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:09pm:

Bobby. wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 7:53pm:

Aurora Complexus wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 7:47pm:

Where there is money, there are always "experts" offering to fix the problem.

In fact this expert may have simply taken a few million from AMD, in exchange for his reputation. Or a few thousand, depending on what his reputation is worth.

No - this is real - it's well known about.

OK then, how do I access the "hidden instruction set" of my Intel processor. It's not particularly old (about 2 years) but I suppose there's a conspiracy of hackers and the government (diametrically opposed one would think) to conceal any "hidden instruction set demo" which might prove to me the existence of the hidden instruction set.

A hidden instruction set is a rather big deal. Putting extra instructions which can only be accessed by particular programs using a particular compiler, would be wasted space in the part of the processor where space is time.

You're hypothesizing lower performance, for ulterior motives, in a market where performance is a big deal. How many billions would it take, do you think, for Intel to risk its historical lead over AMD?

Languages like C++ allow you to access the instruction set directly but
it's not much use unless you know what that instruction does.
The NSA knows - they forced Intel to put those instructions in.

Another way is buy a system development kit for that CPU and tinker around with it.

I can only speculate as to what it might do -
perhaps when you use encryption it stores the 2 secret prime numbers somewhere
which can then be sent off to the NSA to decode all your banking and other encrypted work?

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Setanta

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Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors
Reply #7 - Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:20pm

Aurora Complexus wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 7:58pm:

Chinese native processors Zhaoxin and Loongon, are woefully weak products. They are about 6 years behind, and overpriced into the Chinese market (eg government who are required to buy them.) They're "fabless" too: China does not actually make them.

How is it in any way plausible that China could bribe Intel (one of the most successful manufacturers of anything) to put back-doors in their extremely profitable products?

Talk is cheap, and this is poo talk from a competitor.

It's not about China having undocumented instructions, China is worried Intel have US Govt backdoors, just as the US is suspect of Huawei security risks

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Bobby.

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Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors
Reply #8 - Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:23pm

Setanta wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:20pm:

Aurora Complexus wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 7:58pm:

Chinese native processors Zhaoxin and Loongon, are woefully weak products. They are about 6 years behind, and overpriced into the Chinese market (eg government who are required to buy them.) They're "fabless" too: China does not actually make them.

How is it in any way plausible that China could bribe Intel (one of the most successful manufacturers of anything) to put back-doors in their extremely profitable products?

Talk is cheap, and this is poo talk from a competitor.

It's not about China having undocumented instructions, China is worried Intel have US Govt backdoors, just as the US is suspect of Huawei security risks

Yes - China does it the Western countries and now we do it to them and everyone else. Embarrassed

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Aurora Complexus

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Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors
Reply #9 - Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:26pm

Bobby. wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:15pm:

Aurora Complexus wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:09pm:

Bobby. wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 7:53pm:

Aurora Complexus wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 7:47pm:

Where there is money, there are always "experts" offering to fix the problem.

In fact this expert may have simply taken a few million from AMD, in exchange for his reputation. Or a few thousand, depending on what his reputation is worth.

No - this is real - it's well known about.

OK then, how do I access the "hidden instruction set" of my Intel processor. It's not particularly old (about 2 years) but I suppose there's a conspiracy of hackers and the government (diametrically opposed one would think) to conceal any "hidden instruction set demo" which might prove to me the existence of the hidden instruction set.

A hidden instruction set is a rather big deal. Putting extra instructions which can only be accessed by particular programs using a particular compiler, would be wasted space in the part of the processor where space is time.

You're hypothesizing lower performance, for ulterior motives, in a market where performance is a big deal. How many billions would it take, do you think, for Intel to risk its historical lead over AMD?

Languages like C++ allow you to access the instruction set directly but
it's not much use unless you know what that instruction does.
The NSA knows - they forced Intel to put those instructions in.

Another way is buy a system development kit for that CPU and tinker around with it.

I can only speculate as to what it might do -
perhaps when you use encryption it stores the 2 secret prime numbers somewhere
which can then be sent off to the NSA to decode all your banking and other encrypted work?

"The US government bought a backdoor" is something I can believe. Nobody else could afford it.

But it's a basic of spycraft, that a backdoor exposed is a backdoor lost. Until it is common knowledge and there are work arounds (aka protections) the US government isn't giving the backdoor to Australian government.

Also, don't hackers find these things within days or weeks? Don't the half dozen anti-virus brands, provide protections (for fear of their competitors.)? And there's always linux, as you mentioned. Do you think Microsoft are going to expose their customers to a backdoor, which Apple or Linux protect against?

And I say again, why would Intel risk their market to AMD? Are we looking at the jewel of all conspiracy theories: "they're ALL in on it"?

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Setanta

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Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors
Reply #10 - Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:31pm

Aurora Complexus wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:26pm:

Bobby. wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:15pm:

Aurora Complexus wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:09pm:

Bobby. wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 7:53pm:

Aurora Complexus wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 7:47pm:

Where there is money, there are always "experts" offering to fix the problem.

In fact this expert may have simply taken a few million from AMD, in exchange for his reputation. Or a few thousand, depending on what his reputation is worth.

No - this is real - it's well known about.

OK then, how do I access the "hidden instruction set" of my Intel processor. It's not particularly old (about 2 years) but I suppose there's a conspiracy of hackers and the government (diametrically opposed one would think) to conceal any "hidden instruction set demo" which might prove to me the existence of the hidden instruction set.

A hidden instruction set is a rather big deal. Putting extra instructions which can only be accessed by particular programs using a particular compiler, would be wasted space in the part of the processor where space is time.

You're hypothesizing lower performance, for ulterior motives, in a market where performance is a big deal. How many billions would it take, do you think, for Intel to risk its historical lead over AMD?

Languages like C++ allow you to access the instruction set directly but
it's not much use unless you know what that instruction does.
The NSA knows - they forced Intel to put those instructions in.

Another way is buy a system development kit for that CPU and tinker around with it.

I can only speculate as to what it might do -
perhaps when you use encryption it stores the 2 secret prime numbers somewhere
which can then be sent off to the NSA to decode all your banking and other encrypted work?

"The US government bought a backdoor" is something I can believe. Nobody else could afford it.

But it's a basic of spycraft, that a backdoor exposed is a backdoor lost. Until it is common knowledge and there are work arounds (aka protections) the US government isn't giving the backdoor to Australian government.

Also, don't hackers find these things within days or weeks? Don't the half dozen anti-virus brands, provide protections (for fear of their competitors.)? And there's always linux, as you mentioned. Do you think Microsoft are going to expose their customers to a backdoor, which Apple or Linux protect against?

And I say again, why would Intel risk their market to AMD? Are we looking at the jewel of all conspiracy theories: "they're ALL in on it"?

Software that runs on your computer, that's possible. Instructions in the CPU not so easy. You can decompile software and inspect it, step through it with a debugger. You can't do that with a CPU.

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Bobby.

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Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors
Reply #11 - Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:33pm

Aurora Complexus wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:26pm:

"The US government bought a backdoor" is something I can believe. Nobody else could afford it.

But it's a basic of spycraft, that a backdoor exposed is a backdoor lost. Until it is common knowledge and there are work arounds (aka protections) the US government isn't giving the backdoor to Australian government.

Also, don't hackers find these things within days or weeks? Don't the half dozen anti-virus brands, provide protections (for fear of their competitors.)? And there's always linux, as you mentioned. Do you think Microsoft are going to expose their customers to a backdoor, which Apple or Linux protect against?

And I say again, why would Intel risk their market to AMD? Are we looking at the jewel of all conspiracy theories: "they're ALL in on it"?

My bet is that all those companies are forced to put in back doors on their products.
Intel,
Microsoft,
Apple,

but Linux is different.
The order is also made secret so that they can't talk about it.

There is a rumor on the internet that ever since Win95 back in 1995
Bill Gates was forced to hand over - against his will -
the source code of all Windows operating systems to the NSA -
and that goes right through till now with Win11.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Chinese forced Huawei to do the same.

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Aurora Complexus

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Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors
Reply #12 - Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:40pm

Setanta wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:20pm:

Aurora Complexus wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 7:58pm:

Chinese native processors Zhaoxin and Loongon, are woefully weak products. They are about 6 years behind, and overpriced into the Chinese market (eg government who are required to buy them.) They're "fabless" too: China does not actually make them.

How is it in any way plausible that China could bribe Intel (one of the most successful manufacturers of anything) to put back-doors in their extremely profitable products?

Talk is cheap, and this is poo talk from a competitor.

It's not about China having undocumented instructions, China is worried Intel have US Govt backdoors, just as the US is suspect of Huawei security risks

Chinese chips would get a huge advantage in the world market, if Intel and AMD were compromised. Only some people require 2024 performance (eg some gamers) and if a government authority in India or Nigeria is looking to roll out a new fleet, their first concern will be security, their second concern will be price, and bring up the rear will be performance.

So if it's the US government crippling Intel chips, I could believe that. They might well risk the foreign sphere, to get near-universal surveillance of the domestic sphere.

But still it's an incredibly risky idea. If they get caught, they've screwed Intel (and perhaps AMD) destroying an export market, breaking forever the patents on chip design, and cutting off surveillance to the rest of the world. China will make the "trusted" chips, until they get caught too.

I'm not saying the US and its agencies wouldn't do something so stupid. Who knows really. They've covered up huge blunders before.

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Setanta

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Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors
Reply #13 - Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:42pm

Bobby. wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:33pm:

Aurora Complexus wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:26pm:

"The US government bought a backdoor" is something I can believe. Nobody else could afford it.

But it's a basic of spycraft, that a backdoor exposed is a backdoor lost. Until it is common knowledge and there are work arounds (aka protections) the US government isn't giving the backdoor to Australian government.

Also, don't hackers find these things within days or weeks? Don't the half dozen anti-virus brands, provide protections (for fear of their competitors.)? And there's always linux, as you mentioned. Do you think Microsoft are going to expose their customers to a backdoor, which Apple or Linux protect against?

And I say again, why would Intel risk their market to AMD? Are we looking at the jewel of all conspiracy theories: "they're ALL in on it"?

My bet is that all those companies are forced to put in back doors on their products.
Intel,
Microsoft,
Apple,

but Linux is different.
The order is also made secret so that they can't talk about it.

There is a rumor on the internet that ever since Win95 back in 1995
Bill Gates was forced to hand over - against his will -
the source code of all Windows operating systems to the NSA -
and that goes right through till now with Win11.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Chinese forced Huawei to do the same.

Software in the sense of what operating system you run or what programs you run on it are not the issue. It's the hardware code and what Microcode provides.

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Aurora Complexus

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Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors
Reply #14 - Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:47pm

Bobby. wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:33pm:

Aurora Complexus wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:26pm:

"The US government bought a backdoor" is something I can believe. Nobody else could afford it.

But it's a basic of spycraft, that a backdoor exposed is a backdoor lost. Until it is common knowledge and there are work arounds (aka protections) the US government isn't giving the backdoor to Australian government.

Also, don't hackers find these things within days or weeks? Don't the half dozen anti-virus brands, provide protections (for fear of their competitors.)? And there's always linux, as you mentioned. Do you think Microsoft are going to expose their customers to a backdoor, which Apple or Linux protect against?

And I say again, why would Intel risk their market to AMD? Are we looking at the jewel of all conspiracy theories: "they're ALL in on it"?

My bet is that all those companies are forced to put in back doors on their products.
Intel,
Microsoft,
Apple,

but Linux is different.
The order is also made secret so that they can't talk about it.

Ha-ha, nice joke. Linux developers step around copyright like it's a crack in the footpath. They're not bound by secrecy, because secrecy is inimical to the whole FOSS ideology.

Quote:

There is a rumor on the internet that ever since Win95 back in 1995
Bill Gates was forced to hand over - against his will -
the source code of all Windows operating systems to the NSA -
and that goes right through till now with Win11.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Chinese forced Huawei to do the same.

Seeing the source code is one thing. Inserting calls to "hidden instructions" without anyone knowing, is conspiracy poo.

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