Is Going Back to Typewriters the Answer?
“In Russia, President Putin’s office just stopped using PC’s and switched to typewriters. What do they know that we don’t? Perhaps it’s Intel NSA inside.”
The NSA has been incredibly thorough in nailing down every possible way to tap into communications. Yet the one company’s name that hasn’t come up as part of the surveillance network is Intel. Perhaps they are the only good guys in the entire Orwellian mess.
Or perhaps the NSA, working with Intel and/or Microsoft, have wittingly have put backdoors in the microcode updates. A backdoor is a way of gaining illegal remote access to a computer by getting around the normal security built-in to the computer. Typically someone trying to sneak malicious software on to a computer would try to install a rootkit (software that tries to conceal the malicious code.) A rootkit tries to hide itself and its code, but security conscious sites can discover rootkits by tools that check kernel code and data for changes.
But what if you could use the configuration and state of microprocessor hardware in order to hide? You’d be invisible to all rootkit detection techniques that checks the operating system. Or what if you can make the microprocessor random number generator (the basis of encryption) not so random for a particular machine? (The NSA’s biggest coup was inserting backdoors in crypto equipment the Swiss sold to other countries.)
Rather than risk getting caught messing with everyone’s updates, my bet is that the NSA has compromised the microcode update signing keys giving the NSA the ability to selectively target specific computers. (Your operating system ensures security of updates by checking downloaded update packages against the signing key.) The NSA then can send out backdoors disguised as a Windows update for “security.” (Ironic but possible.).
More (check out the many very instructive replies to this article):
Your Computer May Already be Hacked – NSA Inside?
