Australian Politics Forum - Intel CPUs have backdoors

Dnarever

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Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors
Reply #30 - Oct 24^th, 2024 at 9:54pm

Aurora Complexus wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 9:47pm:

It's a sensible upgrade for internet addresses. 64 bit isn't actually necessary yet, but the new domains are largely IP-v6, and if I was founding a website I would make sure it is registered in v4 AND v6.

Wasn't it a bummer for you, when hard disks got stuck at 4G? You could pay more for a faster disk, when all you wanted was a bigger disk.

Maybe it's a bloke thing. Bigger is always better than faster, when it comes to hard disks.

That 4G limit applied to Exchange 5.5 corporate mail servers. A mid sized company had it whole organisations email store limited to 4G. The work arounds were expensive and ugly.

These days companies can have individual mail users with 10G of email. Imagine when the whole company was sharing 4G. OH and best of all when the 4G run out the email server would stop. Nobody would recieve or send any email.

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Dnarever

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Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors
Reply #31 - Oct 24^th, 2024 at 10:07pm

Aurora Complexus wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 9:47pm:

Dnarever wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 9:33pm:

Aurora Complexus wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 9:08pm:

Bobby. wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:53pm:

Setanta wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:42pm:

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.

That's correct but we are talking about an unknown instruction set -

well - known only to the CPU designers and the NSA and their co-conspirators.

I suppose it's possible that the instruction set could be 128 bits wide. But if so, it would slow the processor down to have to read 128 bits for every instruction (and bear in mind that instructions are sometimes passed from one part of the processor to the other.) Even assuming the other hardware passed such an instruction, the obvious action would be to cull the top 64 bits.

But even assuming that 128 bit instructions somehow get to the processor (by a corrupted compiler) and are somehow processed to a cause a "hidden instruction" to be executed, this is still something that a hacker could detect.

They basically just have to do <crazy instruction> <input> and see if they get something other than "illegal instruction" back. Do it over and over (perhaps while they take a much needed nap.) They do that 2^32 times, or even 2^64 times, for every possible instruction.

Well maybe the "hidden instruction" requires a specific string or else it returns "illegal instruction." But remember that there is more than one hacker. A hacker may be curious enough to record the timing of every "illegal instruction" which comes back. Then they have one suspect instruction number, and can start peppering it with random strings to try to guess the "password" of that instruction. Imagine the fame they could gain, not just finding a hidden instruction but finding its password.

Quote:

I suppose it's possible that the instruction set could be 128 bits wide

32 bit processing was limited to 4 G of access space. This was a restrictive limit.

64 bit processing allows what to us is unlimited addressing space.

Effectively unlimited, for now. "Over 18 quintillion" which certainly covers the hard disk capacity of your home network and your work network. But actually it's a bit limiting when considering the internet. IP-v6 has an address space of 128 bits.

Quote:

Going to 128 bit is technically difficult - i.e. not all 64 bit processors work correctly. there have been a lot of failed processors developed. but the main reason is that to do this would be fixing a problem that does not currently exist. It would be a huge expense for something that is just not needed.

32-bit - 4,294,967,295 This is where the 4 G limit comes from.

64-bit - 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 This is the number we currently use

128-bit - 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,455 We don't need this

It's a sensible upgrade for internet addresses. 64 bit isn't actually necessary yet, but the new domains are largely IP-v6, and if I was founding a website I would make sure it is registered in v4 AND v6.

Wasn't it a bummer for you, when hard disks got stuck at 4G? You could pay more for a faster disk, when all you wanted was a bigger disk.

Maybe it's a bloke thing. Bigger is always better than faster, when it comes to hard disks.
[/quote]

Quote:

when all you wanted was a bigger disk.

Disks were originally a lot bigger. Had one system with a 30 or 40 inch copper platter that sat in its own cabinet and it held something like 200 meg of storage.

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Bobby.

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Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors
Reply #32 - Oct 24^th, 2024 at 10:08pm

Dnarever wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 9:23pm:

I wont say the product but there was a time when Australia were introducing a new major telecommunications system. The Australian company involved were delayed in approval to release the new product because the government were not yet able to break into the systems encryption.

Did you know that the first iteration of the mobile phone system worldwide
was not allowed by Govts. because it was encrypted?
It wasn't allowed to be implemented for a long time later so
the companies could make sure that Govts could tap your phone to hear what you were saying. Embarrassed

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Aurora Complexus

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Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors
Reply #33 - Oct 24^th, 2024 at 10:23pm

Dnarever wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 9:54pm:

Aurora Complexus wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 9:47pm:

Dnarever wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 9:33pm:

Aurora Complexus wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 9:08pm:

Bobby. wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:53pm:

Setanta wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 8:42pm:

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.

That's correct but we are talking about an unknown instruction set -

well - known only to the CPU designers and the NSA and their co-conspirators.

I suppose it's possible that the instruction set could be 128 bits wide. But if so, it would slow the processor down to have to read 128 bits for every instruction (and bear in mind that instructions are sometimes passed from one part of the processor to the other.) Even assuming the other hardware passed such an instruction, the obvious action would be to cull the top 64 bits.

But even assuming that 128 bit instructions somehow get to the processor (by a corrupted compiler) and are somehow processed to a cause a "hidden instruction" to be executed, this is still something that a hacker could detect.

They basically just have to do <crazy instruction> <input> and see if they get something other than "illegal instruction" back. Do it over and over (perhaps while they take a much needed nap.) They do that 2^32 times, or even 2^64 times, for every possible instruction.

Well maybe the "hidden instruction" requires a specific string or else it returns "illegal instruction." But remember that there is more than one hacker. A hacker may be curious enough to record the timing of every "illegal instruction" which comes back. Then they have one suspect instruction number, and can start peppering it with random strings to try to guess the "password" of that instruction. Imagine the fame they could gain, not just finding a hidden instruction but finding its password.

Quote:

I suppose it's possible that the instruction set could be 128 bits wide

32 bit processing was limited to 4 G of access space. This was a restrictive limit.

64 bit processing allows what to us is unlimited addressing space.

Effectively unlimited, for now. "Over 18 quintillion" which certainly covers the hard disk capacity of your home network and your work network. But actually it's a bit limiting when considering the internet. IP-v6 has an address space of 128 bits.

Quote:

Going to 128 bit is technically difficult - i.e. not all 64 bit processors work correctly. there have been a lot of failed processors developed. but the main reason is that to do this would be fixing a problem that does not currently exist. It would be a huge expense for something that is just not needed.

32-bit - 4,294,967,295 This is where the 4 G limit comes from.

64-bit - 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 This is the number we currently use

128-bit - 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,455 We don't need this

It's a sensible upgrade for internet addresses. 64 bit isn't actually necessary yet, but the new domains are largely IP-v6, and if I was founding a website I would make sure it is registered in v4 AND v6.

Wasn't it a bummer for you, when hard disks got stuck at 4G? You could pay more for a faster disk, when all you wanted was a bigger disk.

Maybe it's a bloke thing. Bigger is always better than faster, when it comes to hard disks.

That 4G limit applied to Exchange 5.5 corporate mail servers. A mid sized company had it whole organisations email store limited to 4G. The work arounds were expensive and ugly.

These days companies can have individual mail users with 10G of email. Imagine when the whole company was sharing 4G. OH and best of all when the 4G run out the email server would stop. Nobody would recieve or send any email.
[/quote]

4G (4 gigabytes) was a hard limit on media that an Intel/AMD could access from a hard disk. There were ways around it, but if your disk got corrupted it was bad news.

You could also split an 8G drive into two partitions, but it was only later that MS introduced "virtual drives" so so you see the two smaller drives as on larger one. Again though, it wasn't good if one of your drives got corrupted.

Linux of course was all over that. You could have "software RAID" spreading data across many drives: you could have fast but terribly insecure RAID-0, or slow and very secure RAID levels up to 6. If data security is a concern for you, everything but 0 is good, and you can still do them with multiple SSD's.

My previous computer had a hardware raid card, and four Seagate 500 GB drives in RAID-0. It was astoundingly better in the disk department, than any computer I had owned before. And I ran it for years. I have a single SSD and it's much faster than than before. I think the only reason you'd want a raid array now, is data security. You could have to equal sized SSD's, in RAID-1, it would be practically as fast as a single drive, but if either drive fails you're fully up to date. In fact your computer keeps working.

It's important to note that hardware raid (which your motherboard may provide) is a whole lot better than software raid (which burdens your processor.)

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Aurora Complexus

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Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors
Reply #34 - Oct 24^th, 2024 at 10:31pm

Bobby. wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 10:08pm:

Dnarever wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 9:23pm:

I wont say the product but there was a time when Australia were introducing a new major telecommunications system. The Australian company involved were delayed in approval to release the new product because the government were not yet able to break into the systems encryption.

Did you know that the first iteration of the mobile phone system worldwide
was not allowed by Govts. because it was encrypted?
It wasn't allowed to be implemented for a long time later so
the companies could make sure that Govts could tap your phone to hear what you were saying. Embarrassed

Didn't the Blackberry have encryption?

And even more insurgent, Blackberries could make calls to other nearby Blackberries without going through a tower?

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Bobby.

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Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors
Reply #35 - Oct 24^th, 2024 at 10:47pm

Aurora Complexus wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 10:31pm:

Bobby. wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 10:08pm:

Dnarever wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 9:23pm:

I wont say the product but there was a time when Australia were introducing a new major telecommunications system. The Australian company involved were delayed in approval to release the new product because the government were not yet able to break into the systems encryption.

Did you know that the first iteration of the mobile phone system worldwide
was not allowed by Govts. because it was encrypted?
It wasn't allowed to be implemented for a long time later so
the companies could make sure that Govts could tap your phone to hear what you were saying. Embarrassed

Didn't the Blackberry have encryption?

And even more insurgent, Blackberries could make calls to other nearby Blackberries without going through a tower?

I don't know but I'm sure it was eventually busted encryption. Embarrassed

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Aurora Complexus

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Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors
Reply #36 - Oct 24^th, 2024 at 11:13pm

Bobby. wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 10:47pm:

Aurora Complexus wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 10:31pm:

Bobby. wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 10:08pm:

Dnarever wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 9:23pm:

I wont say the product but there was a time when Australia were introducing a new major telecommunications system. The Australian company involved were delayed in approval to release the new product because the government were not yet able to break into the systems encryption.

Did you know that the first iteration of the mobile phone system worldwide
was not allowed by Govts. because it was encrypted?
It wasn't allowed to be implemented for a long time later so
the companies could make sure that Govts could tap your phone to hear what you were saying. Embarrassed

Didn't the Blackberry have encryption?

And even more insurgent, Blackberries could make calls to other nearby Blackberries without going through a tower?

I don't know but I'm sure it was eventually busted encryption. Embarrassed

I've never been busted for anything.

I think it's mostly luck.

I was sharing some bongs on the balcony of my squat (Glebe Point Road, up the Children's Hospital end) when the cops walked in. I put the smoldering bong on my knee, and explained to them that the eviction order had only been served 4 days ago. According to the law, I had three more days to leave, and therefore the (2) cops were illegally on my premises. In my favor, that was actually the law. Against me, I was flagrantly in breach of the law (the bong) and our squat policy was never to close the front door.

Yeah, that's just good luck isn't it? Most cops would have busted me for possession and use. But I got a nice cop that day.

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UnSubRocky Gold Member Offline Crocodile Hunter: Origins Posts: 24953 Rockhampton Gender:	Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors Reply #37 - Oct 30^th, 2024 at 8:09pm What is AC's fascination with "backdoors"? Is his computer backdoor always open?
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Bobby. Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 104609 Melbourne Gender:	Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors Reply #38 - Oct 30^th, 2024 at 8:20pm UnSubRocky wrote on Oct 30^th, 2024 at 8:09pm: What is AC's fascination with "backdoors"? Is his computer backdoor always open? Don't be so silly. forgiven namaste
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Dnarever

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Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors
Reply #39 - Oct 30^th, 2024 at 8:27pm

Aurora Complexus wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 10:31pm:

Bobby. wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 10:08pm:

Dnarever wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 9:23pm:

I wont say the product but there was a time when Australia were introducing a new major telecommunications system. The Australian company involved were delayed in approval to release the new product because the government were not yet able to break into the systems encryption.

Did you know that the first iteration of the mobile phone system worldwide
was not allowed by Govts. because it was encrypted?
It wasn't allowed to be implemented for a long time later so
the companies could make sure that Govts could tap your phone to hear what you were saying. Embarrassed

Didn't the Blackberry have encryption?

And even more insurgent, Blackberries could make calls to other nearby Blackberries without going through a tower?

Quote:

Didn't the Blackberry have encryption?

Everything has encryption but the companies do not get approval to release the product till the government gets a copy of the keys.

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Setanta

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Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors
Reply #40 - Oct 30^th, 2024 at 8:33pm

Dnarever wrote on Oct 30^th, 2024 at 8:27pm:

Aurora Complexus wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 10:31pm:

Bobby. wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 10:08pm:

Dnarever wrote on Oct 24^th, 2024 at 9:23pm:

I wont say the product but there was a time when Australia were introducing a new major telecommunications system. The Australian company involved were delayed in approval to release the new product because the government were not yet able to break into the systems encryption.

Did you know that the first iteration of the mobile phone system worldwide
was not allowed by Govts. because it was encrypted?
It wasn't allowed to be implemented for a long time later so
the companies could make sure that Govts could tap your phone to hear what you were saying. Embarrassed

Didn't the Blackberry have encryption?

And even more insurgent, Blackberries could make calls to other nearby Blackberries without going through a tower?

Quote:

Didn't the Blackberry have encryption?

Everything has encryption but the companies do not get approval to release the product till the government gets a copy of the keys.

Ahh. How does that work with opensource?

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Bobby.

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Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors
Reply #41 - Oct 30^th, 2024 at 8:36pm

Setanta wrote on Oct 30^th, 2024 at 8:33pm:

Dnarever wrote on Oct 30^th, 2024 at 8:27pm:

Everything has encryption but the companies do not get approval to release the product till the government gets a copy of the keys.

Ahh. How does that work with opensource?

I think some companies are in trouble for releasing systems that have encryption
such as Telegram where it's end to end encrypted.
They get blamed if criminals use their system.

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Setanta

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Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors
Reply #42 - Oct 30^th, 2024 at 8:38pm

Bobby. wrote on Oct 30^th, 2024 at 8:36pm:

Setanta wrote on Oct 30^th, 2024 at 8:33pm:

Dnarever wrote on Oct 30^th, 2024 at 8:27pm:

Everything has encryption but the companies do not get approval to release the product till the government gets a copy of the keys.

Ahh. How does that work with opensource?

I think some companies are in trouble for releasing systems that have encryption
such as Telegram where it's end to end encrypted.
They get blamed if criminals use their system.

Any decent messenging app is e2ee.

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Bobby.

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Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors
Reply #43 - Oct 30^th, 2024 at 8:39pm

Setanta wrote on Oct 30^th, 2024 at 8:38pm:

Bobby. wrote on Oct 30^th, 2024 at 8:36pm:

Setanta wrote on Oct 30^th, 2024 at 8:33pm:

Dnarever wrote on Oct 30^th, 2024 at 8:27pm:

Everything has encryption but the companies do not get approval to release the product till the government gets a copy of the keys.

Ahh. How does that work with opensource?

I think some companies are in trouble for releasing systems that have encryption
such as Telegram where it's end to end encrypted.
They get blamed if criminals use their system.

Any decent messenging app is e2ee.

The Govts wanted some way to listen in.
I think they did in the end - I'm not sure.

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tickleandrose

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Re: Intel CPUs have backdoors
Reply #44 - Oct 31^st, 2024 at 5:00pm

Setanta wrote on 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.

I think the word 'backdoor' is a misnomer. In reality, its probably how the CPU is organized. And when, certain strings of command are activated, it create a temporary error in the RAM, which create a corruption that can be otherwise exploited. And if you already know the underlying architecture, then you will know which section of the corruption to exploit.

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