Author Topic: Chinese manufacturer puts hardware backdoor onto Supermicro server boards.  (Read 78141 times)

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Offline cdev

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Re: Chinese manufacturer puts hardware backdoor onto Supermicro server boards.
« Reply #200 on: October 08, 2018, 01:34:14 am »
MMIC is the term they use. And its a broad term that encompasses a great many kinds of devices.

They use ceramics because of the favorable dielectric properties.

It really is a black art.   

Note I am not even going to try to weigh in on how feasible it is.


Also, it may have little to do with China per se.

In other words, it may just be an argument to slow down the pace of the race to the bottom.

Countries are competing with one another for investment, to prop up currencies - Claiming they have to do it because of the global nature of capital. Democracy they say is just too unpredictable for companies and investors.

One explanation I thought was good was "How Far Will International Economic
Integration Go?" by Dani Rodrik

I think we're cutting off our own noses to spite our face.

By committing so aggressively to trade liberalization (which hasnt ended, its not just in the past), the US may have put itself in a very unpleasant situation because the rate of progress in labor saving technologies has been so very much faster than any of the politicians or economists ever even remotely imagined. And its getting even faster very rapidly.

A race to the bottom is a game that nobody wins.

« Last Edit: October 08, 2018, 02:06:16 am by cdev »
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Offline daqq

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Re: Chinese manufacturer puts hardware backdoor onto Supermicro server boards.
« Reply #201 on: October 08, 2018, 05:28:12 am »
Quote
Also this was targeting servers. Servers have no RF capable parts on.
Please note that the part I linked was just an example of a part that looks similarly. There are also SMD EMC filters that look the same. See:

https://product.tdk.com/info/en/products/emc/emc/3tf/catalog.html

Specific series:

https://product.tdk.com/info/en/catalog/datasheets/3tf_commercial_signal_mem2012sc_en.pdf

And MURATA IIRC has something very similar.

Now, if I'd seen this on a server board sitting among other parts I do not think that I would be terribly surprised.
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Offline Bud

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Re: Chinese manufacturer puts hardware backdoor onto Supermicro server boards.
« Reply #202 on: October 08, 2018, 05:43:15 am »
Also this was targeting servers. Servers have no RF capable parts on.

RF balun does not mean the part radiates. RF Baluns are high frequency devices are routinely used to convert signal between balanced and unbalanced circuits, such as single ended to differential line. Digital circuits can utilize RF baluns for clock conditioning for example.
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Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: Chinese manufacturer puts hardware backdoor onto Supermicro server boards.
« Reply #203 on: October 08, 2018, 06:43:47 am »
Why are you all assuming an implant chip is what it looks like? You'd obviously disguise an implant device as something innocuous, or at least attempt to make it less obvious. Otherwise you could just stick a GSM board on there and call it quits.
 

Offline VK3DRB

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Re: Chinese manufacturer puts hardware backdoor onto Supermicro server boards.
« Reply #204 on: October 08, 2018, 10:17:28 am »
Entrepreneurial, or just plain greedy?... http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-26/daigou-chinese-personal-shopping-$1-billion-industry/9671012

If you think that's worst, then you are wrong. If it's within the boarder of China, those Daigou people will buy all stocks, even without orders, to bump up the price and sell them back to the people needing them the most...


Sounds like greedy housing developers, most of whom use money from the PRC.

In this city of Melbourne it is illegal to buy tickets to the famous Grand Final football game and scalp the tickets on eBay at inflated prices. Same with concerts. They buy blocks of Justin Bieber tickets selling them to 14 year old teeny boppers at crossly inflated prices, which our govt has made illegal (not Bieber unfortunately, but ticket scalping). Our culture condemns ticket scalpers but praises the "entrepreneurs" scalping houses... Scalping tickets?>:D, but scalping houses? :-+.  In the US the rich are looked on with admiration, but those who dare question inequality are called socialist scum. How dare anyone suggest the super rich are taxed more to give to the poor.... they must be commies.

As one famous US presidential adviser said: The trickle down effect is rubbish. A billionaire might only buy 2 pairs of jeans a year. But if he shared some of his wealth to 10,000 poor people to get them out of poverty, the demand is now 20,000 pairs. Inequality also leads to economic stagnation.
« Last Edit: October 08, 2018, 10:22:18 am by VK3DRB »
 
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Offline madires

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Re: Chinese manufacturer puts hardware backdoor onto Supermicro server boards.
« Reply #205 on: October 08, 2018, 11:56:32 am »
Please don't take Bloomberg's image too seriously. Media often uses images in the sense of "something looking similar" and I doubt that Bloomberg has the spy chip. Here's another interesting comment from a well known journalist: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/10/supply-chain-security-is-the-whole-enchilada-but-whos-willing-to-pay-for-it/. He mentions a Chinese chip built into Internet-enabled printers for sending a copy of everything printed home. That was more than a decade ago.
 
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Offline NiHaoMike

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Re: Chinese manufacturer puts hardware backdoor onto Supermicro server boards.
« Reply #206 on: October 08, 2018, 12:33:23 pm »
He mentions a Chinese chip built into Internet-enabled printers for sending a copy of everything printed home. That was more than a decade ago.
It would be interesting to troll them by hacking the printer to not actually print (save on paper), then keep sending it thousands of pages of what look like a one time pad.
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Offline ajb

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Re: Chinese manufacturer puts hardware backdoor onto Supermicro server boards.
« Reply #207 on: October 08, 2018, 05:24:21 pm »
The Register has a good overview of thestory and the issues of competing credibility here:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/04/supermicro_bloomberg/?page=1
 

Offline Cerebus

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Re: Chinese manufacturer puts hardware backdoor onto Supermicro server boards.
« Reply #208 on: October 08, 2018, 05:32:04 pm »
That article is a few days old now, and may have missed more recent developments.

(And if the author, Mr. McCarthy's, previous output is anything to judge by, the point too. Let's say that he's not at the top of my list of reliable authors, he completely mangled an article on IP networking the other week.)
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Offline bd139

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Re: Chinese manufacturer puts hardware backdoor onto Supermicro server boards.
« Reply #209 on: October 08, 2018, 06:36:05 pm »
The Register is basically the same as The Sun and The Daily Mail here. But with less tits. Other than the editor.
 

Offline Cerebus

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Re: Chinese manufacturer puts hardware backdoor onto Supermicro server boards.
« Reply #210 on: October 08, 2018, 06:59:44 pm »
The Register is basically the same as The Sun and The Daily Mail here. But with less tits. Other than the editor.

Oh no, el Reg is much more fun. I used to know both of the founders, worked with one of them. They were both the kind of men you had "drinking stories" about that you could dine out on.  :) Mike, no longer there, had a justified reputation for digging out stories that others couldn't - possibly by giving his sources liver failure in a single evening. John, still a director there, is known for single-handedly keeping the publicans of Bloomsbury in gainful employment - IT journalism's Jeffrey Bernard.
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Offline bd139

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Re: Chinese manufacturer puts hardware backdoor onto Supermicro server boards.
« Reply #211 on: October 08, 2018, 07:28:10 pm »
Yes Mike disappeared off to start the Inquirer. Surprised he's still alive. Surprised any of them. I don't know them personally but have heard the stories by proxy of someone who indeed was one of their sources many years ago. He now lives in Thailand away from it all as I think he pissed off so many people to the point he was unemployable in the UK and Europe.

Edit: I made the mistake of employing him  :-DD (fortunately we had nothing to leak)
 

Offline mnementh

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Re: Chinese manufacturer puts hardware backdoor onto Supermicro server boards.
« Reply #212 on: October 08, 2018, 07:51:43 pm »
Jeezus... you two come along and the IQ in here increases 50 points...

mnem
And then I come along and...  :palm:
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Online coppercone2

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Re: Chinese manufacturer puts hardware backdoor onto Supermicro server boards.
« Reply #213 on: October 08, 2018, 08:44:36 pm »
Well I would not be surprised if some alphabet agency, ordered by executive order, confiscated all this crap and or was aware of this crap and thats why apple/big dogs stopped doing business with these people. the whole trade war could have been planned way in advanced.

If you admit to compromise all sorts of foreign companies not on US soil could benefit greatly and massive amounts of US infrastructure could be considered compromised. If intelligence was able to figure out what the Chinese were doing we could do damage control and play geopolitical and economic games using these things, i.e. controlled leaks.

Given how focused the american goverment is on economic growth I don't really think they would just flip out, they have to plan something out to limit economic damage (cuz now we are in a three superpower world, not only USSR/USA), so if our economy falls the Russians and other people can get stronger.

It's often the case when taps and other bugs are discovered they are left in place and used to misguide the enemy.

I expect that this whole thing is a complete and utter cluster fuck by our standards. I think that there might be secret services doing counter stock market manipulation using knowledge of stuff like this. 

Also the DHS is new by intelligence standards and they don't have the same connections as the CIA/OSA that has been around for a long time now, so they don't know fuck.

If it was used for counterintelligence purposes, identical boards could have been made in CIA run facilities to replace compromised boards with some kind of filter or protection diode or whatever too, then reinstalled, with the surveillance chips removed when no longer useful. This could be used to cover up machiavelian stock market manipulation, which favors the growth and protection to companies that are more vital to the US economy then companies which were naturally more successful (kind of like load balancing, the successful companies that can tolerate the hit got hit, while the weaker or more important ones for reputation were protected to have a overall less effect on the US economy).  A few businesses suffering on the stock market or losing IP is alot better then some big one going down, causing big unemployment, leading to the expensive retrofit of otherwise high quality infrastructure and military stuff.

The existence of communist china, with its great focus on economic growth by any means necessary, could have lead to this reaction, be it necessary or out of a sense of justice or pride. Since many businesses could be seen as doing Machiavellian things (like operating out of low tax areas to avoid paying the US government) they could be seen as pawns to manipulate with little moral qualm from someone that considers themselves a patriot that wants to protect their own country and sees those companies as having a hostile or 'i dont give a fuck about anything but my business' mentality. Eventually when you try to make money by any means necessary some patriots are going to get pissed off when your logically fucking the country you live in in a legal way. If you make a 'psychological profile' of a company you can kind of determine its various levels of allegiance to values, stock holders, employees, country of origin and its owners. A focus on pure economy is easily seen as sociopathic, so you don't really have much of a concern for its well being?

Someone setting up massive factories in china, allowing communist party members into its nerve centers and running out other loyal American businesses is not really seen as that much of a friendly citizen, especially if their trying to avoid paying taxes.
« Last Edit: October 08, 2018, 09:02:36 pm by coppercone2 »
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Chinese manufacturer puts hardware backdoor onto Supermicro server boards.
« Reply #214 on: October 08, 2018, 09:05:16 pm »
The trade war is pretty shallow. All it takes is a nose through some modern history books to see where we’re being nudged.

Or not because national governments are incredibly weak and vulnerable the moment they deployed technology unaware it can and is being used against them until it’s too late.

Another empire falls. Then you find our Firefly was right and you’ll be speaking English but insulting each other in Cantonese :)
 
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Offline Bud

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Re: Chinese manufacturer puts hardware backdoor onto Supermicro server boards.
« Reply #215 on: October 08, 2018, 09:18:52 pm »
and running out other loyal American businesses is not really seen as that much of a friendly citizen, especially if their trying to avoid paying taxes.

I am pretty sure US requires you to report income regardless of where the business is located and you still get taxed.
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Online coppercone2

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Re: Chinese manufacturer puts hardware backdoor onto Supermicro server boards.
« Reply #216 on: October 08, 2018, 09:20:51 pm »
and running out other loyal American businesses is not really seen as that much of a friendly citizen, especially if their trying to avoid paying taxes.

I am pretty sure US requires you to report income regardless of where the business is located and you still get taxed.

https://itep.org/fact-sheet-apple-and-tax-avoidance/
 

Offline apis

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Re: Chinese manufacturer puts hardware backdoor onto Supermicro server boards.
« Reply #217 on: October 08, 2018, 09:26:11 pm »
Then you find our Firefly was right and you’ll be speaking English but insulting each other in Cantonese :)
Technically they were all supposed to speak as much Chinese as English (if not more), but for obvious reasons they were mainly speaking English but kept insults in Chinese as a way of getting around the US censorship.
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Chinese manufacturer puts hardware backdoor onto Supermicro server boards.
« Reply #218 on: October 08, 2018, 09:33:51 pm »
That makes sense  :-+
 

Offline Cerebus

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Re: Chinese manufacturer puts hardware backdoor onto Supermicro server boards.
« Reply #219 on: October 08, 2018, 09:37:54 pm »
Another empire falls. Then you find our Firefly was right and you’ll be speaking English but insulting each other in Cantonese :)

Only a 杘頭 would think that.  :)
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Offline tooki

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Re: Chinese manufacturer puts hardware backdoor onto Supermicro server boards.
« Reply #220 on: October 08, 2018, 10:00:38 pm »
Also this was targeting servers. Servers have no RF capable parts on.

Actually I don’t have any  Supermicro ones available to me but after scanning tens of high res motherboard pictures there’s nothing that looks even remotely like a balun on any server motherboards. There’s decoupling, power conversion, protection, identifiable ICs, transistors/MOSFETs/diodes, connectors and bugger all else. anything with enough pins is identifiable.
^^^ this. I've been saying this since I read the article.

If you were going to camouflage a chip to covertly install it on a server mobo, you'd masquerade it as a component normally found on a server mobo! You would't make it look like an RF component, which has no place on a server board!!   :palm: |O :-DD

There are so many issues with this alleged infiltration that I'm surprised anyone with half an ounce of technical savvy is giving it a second thought. There are just too many layers of too many organizations that you'd have to infiltrate in tandem, to maintain version control throughout design, manufacturing, and testing. It defies belief.
 
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Offline wraper

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Re: Chinese manufacturer puts hardware backdoor onto Supermicro server boards.
« Reply #221 on: October 08, 2018, 10:13:15 pm »
Also this was targeting servers. Servers have no RF capable parts on.

Actually I don’t have any  Supermicro ones available to me but after scanning tens of high res motherboard pictures there’s nothing that looks even remotely like a balun on any server motherboards. There’s decoupling, power conversion, protection, identifiable ICs, transistors/MOSFETs/diodes, connectors and bugger all else. anything with enough pins is identifiable.
^^^ this. I've been saying this since I read the article.

If you were going to camouflage a chip to covertly install it on a server mobo, you'd masquerade it as a component normally found on a server mobo! You would't make it look like an RF component, which has no place on a server board!!   :palm: |O :-DD

There are so many issues with this alleged infiltration that I'm surprised anyone with half an ounce of technical savvy is giving it a second thought. There are just too many layers of too many organizations that you'd have to infiltrate in tandem, to maintain version control throughout design, manufacturing, and testing. It defies belief.
FWIW there are also EMI filters in similar package https://media.digikey.com/pdf/Data%20Sheets/Murata%20PDFs/NFA31C_Series(1206%20Size).pdf
As I said earlier, I dunno if this story has any truth in it. I just consider it technically feasible. IIRC article called rogue component disguised as "filter". Picture probably is just something they googled as filter.
« Last Edit: October 08, 2018, 10:17:23 pm by wraper »
 

Offline cdev

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Re: Chinese manufacturer puts hardware backdoor onto Supermicro server boards.
« Reply #222 on: October 08, 2018, 10:30:30 pm »
What a mess. And I don't see this getting any better soon, either.

Time to go back to reading books and spending time with real people instead of on the Internet.

The Register has a good overview of thestory and the issues of competing credibility here:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/04/supermicro_bloomberg/?page=1
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Offline donotdespisethesnake

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Re: Chinese manufacturer puts hardware backdoor onto Supermicro server boards.
« Reply #223 on: October 08, 2018, 11:10:01 pm »
It seems that all the "on the record" commentators are denying the story, and the only people "confirming" it are Bloomberg's anonymous sources. Bloomberg are not providing a shred of evidence, nor even evidence that they have seen any evidence....

However, Bloomberg can just the story sit there, whoever is behind it presumably achieved their mission (shorts, alphabet, POTUS etc), no one can prove Bloomberg's "scoop" is fake. Win win basically.

Well, the Russians meddled with US elections, annexed a country, murdered people in the UK, downed a whole airliner over Ukraine, and they basically get away with it. So spreading a little FUD about China is pretty small beer really.

It's kind of like the computer game sequel to "Cold War I", with new player factions.
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Offline bd139

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Re: Chinese manufacturer puts hardware backdoor onto Supermicro server boards.
« Reply #224 on: October 08, 2018, 11:20:42 pm »
I think you may have just nailed it there.
 


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