Trojan Kill Switches In Military Technology 392
Nrbelex writes "The New York Times reports in this week's Science section that hardware and software trojan kill switches in military devices are an increasing concern, and may have already been used. 'A 2007 Israeli Air Force attack on a suspected, partly-constructed Syrian nuclear reactor led to speculation about why the Syrian air defense system did not respond to the Israeli aircraft. Accounts of the event initially indicated that sophisticated jamming technology was used to blind the radars. Last December, however, a report in an American technical publication, IEEE Spectrum, cited a European industry source in raising the possibility that the Israelis might have used a built-in kill switch to shut down the radars. Separately, an American semiconductor industry executive said in an interview that he had direct knowledge of the operation and that the technology for disabling the radars was supplied by Americans to the Israeli electronic intelligence agency, Unit 8200.'"
Open Source (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Open Source (Score:4, Funny)
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a) If we knew "the inner workings" of said chips, it would give us a substantial boost. We'd no longer be wondering how something could work, only how to make it. We'd probably also be able to infer some of the decisions that eventually led to that design.
b) You should consider embracing your parenthetical statements with parenthesis:
I wonder if people from 2050 er 2060 where did the decade go? from 50 years in the future...
Becomes something like:
I wonder if people from 2050-- er 2060 (where did the decade go?)-- from 50 years in the future...
Re:Open Source (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh jeebus. Building a missile, bomb or anything that kills people is NOT HARD. I can get the relevant documents needed for anyone with a mild training in electronics to build a guidance system for a missile or a homing system for a rocket.
If you think there is something magical and wondrous in military hardware that makes it "special" you are watching way too much TV.
Hell I have made ground launched model rockets that would home in on a ground target, and I did not use GPS to get within a 50 foot radius from a 1500 foot apogee point. This was with very basic electronics and almost no processing power plus parts from a hobby shop for helicopter and RC plane flying.
I only needed 1-29/240 size engine to lift that payload. This was back in college for my EE degree, with todays stuff I could make the accuracy far better and use off the shelf GPS for long range AND would not need to lift as much as servos are smaller and lighter and the avaionics payload would be far lighter.
Note: you can even buy UAV kits today.
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There is a distinction to be made between a material resource budget and an information resource budget. Information is free. Rocket propellant is not free.
Re:Open Source (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, toy rockets won't be reliable. Yes, they'll often fail. Yes, it's hard to scale the production.
But they're more than enough for one-off operations like assassinations or terror acts.
Re:Open Source (Score:5, Insightful)
Another thing you are forgetting is that we built atomic bombs with minimal computing power. The first computers had trouble doing ballistic tables. Now you could make ballistics tables as an iPhone app. The level of information processing available to the public is staggering. There really isn't much that an individual so inclined couldn't produce.
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However, if your goal is to indiscriminatingly kill people it is very easy to do with off the shelf components, if you are so inclined.
In general, only non-state actors want to kill people indiscriminately. Nations (Syria included) have to worry about their own people, diplomacy, UN resolutions, etc. If you're a terrorist organization, simple technology can fulfil your requirements. An IED is effective for an insurgency, but not for full-scale war.
However, on the nation-nation level, it would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to carry out long-range warfare without comparable technology to your opponent. This stuff doesn't c
Re:Open Source (Score:5, Insightful)
The parent was (I think) trying to refute the "you need secret stuff to build a machine that kills people" type claim.
Which in no way contradicts your experience based statement, which I interpret as: "you really do need lots of advanced hi-tech to build an accurate, advanced, effective killing machine"
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Which in no way contradicts your experience based statement, which I interpret as: "you really do need lots of advanced hi-tech to build an accurate, advanced, effective killing machine"
http://www.aardvark.co.nz/pjet/cruise.shtml [aardvark.co.nz]
http://www.interestingprojects.com/cruisemissile/ [interestingprojects.com]
This is years old and I have no idea how his story ended.
Last I read, the New Zealand version of the IRS had dropped on his head like a ton of bricks...
But since he's updated his site this year, I guess he's 'back'.
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You mean those people who have NDAs and will likely get charged with treason if they tell you anything of what they actually do? Or the people who have no NDAs because they do nothing of importance?
Oh well, never mind, I'm sure either of these would make for an extremely reliable source of information.
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Just like building atomic bombs "is not hard". After all, poor countries like North Korea and Pakistan can do it.
BUT building the FIRST atomic bomb took an enormous effort by the richest country on the planet. If my military has a technological advantage, I'd like to hang on to that advantage for as long as is possible.
Re:Open Source (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure the EE guys who built the Syrian's air defense system thought the same way as you. "I'll use all this great off-the-shelf tech, it's just so easy". Ohhh, it had a backdoor in the hardware... damn.
I do get what you're saying, but i think it applies differently to platforms of war. When your opponent owns the companies that built half the parts for your weapon systems... can you really trust them?
I have no doubt you could build some nifty weapons to seige a neighbor with but not a local government. The bomb techs would have analyzed the debris and come up with a short list for an investigator to pin down.
One of my fav military techs is round return radar... even though it is simple and old. There's nothing like hearing outgoing fire before the first incoming round hits!
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However building a missile which destroys an invading warplane is rather harder. If you are in Syria, Lebanon, Iran (or quite a few other places) then this is the kind of missile you are likely to need.
The claim here is that the attackers were somehow able to disable the SAMs which
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U-238 is available in bulk from the disused counterweights in retired B747 aircraft. I guess all you need now is a hydro plant and you're a world power.
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The only use of secrecy at this point is to hide your criminal activities.
I love the hypocrisy in this. Being secretive is any person's right - unless said person is working for the government. ONOZ PUBLIC CAMERAS, but at the same time, ONOZ GOVERNMENT HIDING TANK PLANS!!1.
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It's not hypocrisy, it's power differential.
The government wields an enormous amount of power over us, and as such should expect a greater amount of scrutiny (as in less privacy) than us. This isn't hypocritical because the same rule applies to everyone. If you are given power over others, you sacrifice privacy through security screenings, etc.
Also, the government is an artificial organization that we, the people, make up. It has no inherent, natural, moral, or ethical rights -- only those that we collectiv
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I agree. If we can trick them into spending a large fraction of their GDP building this useless shit, they will be unable to compete. Victory: ours. Please, opponents, build military hardware. Oh, and press more of your could-be-workers into military "service." Muahahaha!!
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This is a good point or maybe a bad one depending upon which side you are on. I guess we need to be for open hardware, but really how would you know if the part is being supplied by the Chinese? It really would be hard to test for it. As for the Syrian stuff. That was just probably old Soviet stuff that got jammed by high powered AESA. No the Russians keep stuff to their selves like we do. They might sell countries weapons as we do, but there will something in there that is left out of the export package.
ht [wikipedia.org]
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Funny, but maybe. I was thinking about the electronic warfare packages.
You see, I really just don't get it. Did we sell the hardware to Syria? If we didn't, I don't think that was the most like method used. I also think that the Israelis are just as capable of doing the same thing.
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No, jamming Syrian radar with or without our help. I hear they have some stuff their selves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbit_Systems [wikipedia.org]
I don't think they we need us Mr. Pope on a Rope.
Re:Open Source (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Open Source (Score:4, Funny)
Army no! An already organized unruly mob of idiots.
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4chan has provided a means by which people can organize themselves with little fear of social retribution, but 4chan itself is NO
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Oh, yes -- most chanraids are exactly that, because there's no real impetus to organize on a large scale. But Chanology showed that if you give a bunch of randomly disorganized people sufficient motivation they will efficiently organize just the way you say, without a centralized organizing force.
Just because there's no command authority pointing everyone in the same direction doesn't mean that there's no organization. There was in fact an elaborate system of forums and subforums and IRC channels and wiki pages keeping things organized during the whole thing.
Anarchy in action. Organization without hierarchy, just informal committees created to perform a specific task and disbanded afterwards.
Syria, you morons (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what you get for not building the hardware yourself. We on the other hand have been intelligent enough not to outsource our industries to foreign countr... Doh.
It's not very sophisticated after all (Score:5, Funny)
(ring)
Hello. Syrian Air Defence.
Hello, Mr. Air Defence. My name is Raji - I mean Bob - from technical support. I have a service request you made on your Acme 2001 Target Tracking Module.
What? We are not having problem with that -
Now, now. I have to clear this ticket, Mr. Air Defence. You wouldn't want me to get into trouble, would you?
Well, no, I guess not.
Ah. Good then. Please reboot your system and we can get started solving your problem.
Re:It's not very sophisticated after all (Score:5, Interesting)
Lesson learned? (Score:3, Insightful)
Dont buy important technology from foreign countries, do it yourself. Especially if you ever under any way, shape or form could cross paths with said foreign country.
I think this should be a really big wakeup call to european countries that relies 100% on american tech, both on hardware and software.
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Lesson learned? You must be joking.
The military/corporate complex won't be happy until EVERYTHING is made overseas. It's better for their short-term budgets, you see. They know they would be first against the wall if there was ever any real problems here so why care if we're caught with our pants down militarily later on.
Re:Lesson learned? (Score:4, Insightful)
--They know they would be first against the wall--
No they don't know that or they wouldn't be doing this in the first place. I agree with your other assessments of short term thinking but they think they will get away with it and we will be left holding the bag. How many Nazi war criminals got away percentage wise? Few? Half? Most all of them?
Re:Lesson learned? (Score:5, Insightful)
Dont buy important technology from foreign countries, do it yourself. Especially if you ever under any way, shape or form could cross paths with said foreign country.
And in TFA they say that only 20% of chips are manufactured in the US - so that makes it kinda hard not to buy goods from foreign countries.
However what you are suggesting is that 100% of goods used by the US military should be made in the US - and that might be a good reason in itself as that would certainly stimulate the US economy
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However what you are suggesting is that 100% of goods used by the US military should be made in the US - and that might be a good reason in itself as that would certainly stimulate the US economy.
Indeed. I've never understood any decisions to do otherwise. For example when the military wanted to replace their standard sidearm (The Colt M1911 - 84 years in service, but it was due for a change) they ended up going with a Beretta!?!?!
An Italian company. For a handgun. Now, that's not to knock the Beretta M92. It's a good gun, but there are equally good American guns that would have done just fine. Most police departments (not technically military, but still goverment) have also gone with Glocks - a
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The problem is that American companies act like jackasses toward the government. Not only do they tend to ridiculously inflate costs (especially American defense industries) but they also take weird ideological stances. I am thinking, of course, about Barrett firearms.
I don't know why the government would want to do business with a domestic corporation like that.
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Dont buy important technology from foreign countries, do it yourself. Especially if you ever under any way, shape or form could cross paths with said foreign country. I think this should be a really big wakeup call to european countries that relies 100% on american tech, both on hardware and software.
Why? Is America planning to invade France?
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I'd recommend that you google around for the phrase "Propaganda of the deed". Reasonably enough, French anarchists generally preferred to avoid absorbing their own explosions; but they had a more than adequate taste for risks and high explosives.
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That's assuming you can do it yourself. Syria is hardly a hotbed of industry and innovation, and most of the Middle East is even worse. E.g. when Libya gave up their "nuclear and biological weapons program", which had been reasonably well funded and resourced over several decades had lead to only one viable weapon, a landmine spiked with human faeces.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/dec/21/politics.libya [guardian.co.uk]
Libya's biological weapons programme too has suffered from similar mismanagement and lack of funds, say sources; at best succeeding in producing munitions boobytrapped with human faeces that can be fatal if it enters the blood stream.
So it's not too surprising these sorts of countries decided to buy stuff from the USSR instead. Unfo
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Dont buy important technology from foreign countries, do it yourself. Especially if you ever under any way, shape or form could cross paths with said foreign country.
I think this should be a really big wakeup call to european countries that relies 100% on american tech, both on hardware and software.
I found it very upsetting to learn that the Brazilian government set up a PKI, but bought all the components for the vault with the root private key from US vendors.
I went inside that vault to install the network synchronization server that gets the time from the Brazilian National Observatory and makes sure the machines inside the vault are set to Brazilian Legal Time, and I was impressed with the security measures the Brazilian government had taken, but I was just shocked that they would buy components,
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Warning for the US which has >90% of its call processing run by Israeli devices.
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Really, I don't think the Terrans are prepared for a war with the Sirians right now. They out number us all to hell, and our economy's kind of creaky already. Try diplomacy instead. And low budget secret agent stuff during the delay.
Outsourcing (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, I understand the cost benefits of going with the lowest quote and all but sometimes it's best to keep things "in house" to ensure quality and accountability. And that applies to companies all the way up to governments. In this case, when dealing with national defense, it especially applies to governments...
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Where do you expect countries run by dictators (Syria has been under martial law since 1963 and more or less a client state for Iran) that have shit for university, shit for engineering, and oppression as the norm to get advanced anti-missile systems? They cant design their own. They would be starting with 1950s tech at best.
They knew they were taking a chance with foreign made equipment, but, they really dont have a choice.
Also, its worth noting that there may not have been an intentional backdoor/killswi
Don't buy weapons from your enemies? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, if you are going to wage war, it is a very bad idea to buy non trivial weapons systems from your enemy or his allies. Actually it's a bad idea to buy it from anyone that is not 100% on your side. Best would be to build it yourself.
Those amateur war mongering folks down there. Still don't think that anyone is learning out of it, I mean, where are the chips for NATO equipment come from? Oh yea, who manufactures them cheapest. How does this make sense in the context?
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Why? Its irrelevant anyway, the only way the ROC can win a military conflict with the PRC is to launch a preemptive attack on the Communist SRBM facilities. If every airfield and military harbor on the island is hit by SRBM's (there are over a thousand sitting there) it becomes a lot harder to muster an effective resistance.
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Actually it's a bad idea to buy it from anyone that is not 100% on your side.
True. Also, history teaches us that today's 100% ally can easily become tomorrow's 100% enemy.
Syrians have U.S. military hardware ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does that mean that the U.S. provided *Syria* with sensitive military hardware (ok.. with built-in kill switches) ?
If they didn't then it's not a kill switch and the U.S. simply provided their Israeli allies with electronic warfare technologies.
It was my understanding that syrian military hardware was russian based anyway..
So I'm not sure I understand the whole thing..
--Ivan
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Re:Syrians have U.S. military hardware ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Integrated air defence (Score:3, Interesting)
My understanding is that they took out the NETWORK and COMPUTERS connecting all the weaponry, not the weaponry. So while the guys in the missile batteries were playing cards, or whatever, the search radar was showing cartoons, and nobody ever woke the general up with an attack warning until the bombs dropped. Lieutenants do not shoot missiles unless the general says it is OK.
This happens quite often in many devices (Score:5, Funny)
My PC for sure has a kill switch somewhere. Now and then an odd blue screen with a funny message appears on the screen. I wonder who is operating the switch and why...
Riiight (Score:5, Insightful)
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Also, kill switches of this sort are kinda stupid: It's intentional bugs, and intentional security by obscurity. You just hope your enemy hasn't hacked your system through the backdoor you put in.
(Of course, this assumes you are building the hardware yourself. If you are buying it from someone, expect these to be there in case they ever decide they don't want to be your friends.)
Re:Riiight (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's another explanation - it's a red herring. By floating this story, you kill 2 birds:
1) It "explains" the lack of Syrian response in a way that maintains security on the real capabilities of Israeli jamming, and
2) It sends foreign powers on a wild goose chase, spending resources trying to root out "kill switches" that aren't there. This takes away from resources that could be spent improving the system's ability to see through jamming.
The elegance is that it has JUST enough plausibility that it can't be ignored, due to the (now) well publicized Soviet gas pumping station sabotage.
Re:Riiight (Score:4, Interesting)
supporting your argument, the CIA encouraged belief in UFO sitings to use as cover for SR-71/A-12 and U-2 flights. Mind you, and I need to say this on/., but this has nothing to do with weather or not there really are UFOs; it's just that if more people believe in then fewer will think that a jet they may see from extreme range/altitude is really a jet.
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Re:Riiight (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe or it could just be that the US has samples of all these radar systems and found the best way to jam or overload them.
Nothing is perfect so I am sure they have torn those system apart and found any weakness. The US then shared that information.
Kind of like in WWII when the US found a Zero.
They found that the Zero had a longer range, could out climb, out turn, and was faster than the F4F fighters the US had. The only thing advantage the F4F had was that it could out dive the Zero and as built like a tank.
The one problem it had was at high speed it didn't turn well to the left. So F4Fs made diving attacks at high speed and turned left to escape. The F4F ended up with a very good kill rate when dealing with the Zero.
If you can find a weakness and exploit it you will often win.
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The military continues to do these things to this day. This is why we have intelligence centers for each branch of hte military.
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...And right now, precious Syrian resources are being squandered in a futile examination of their OTHER eaquipment; Probably create a new department of homeland security or some fuck-all bureaucracy to address the issue.
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Bombing a nuclear reactor seems worthwhile.. even if they only got to use that switch once, it seems worth it.
Dude, shut up! (Score:2, Insightful)
That dude is going to get himself killed by Mossad if he's not careful.
What, did you think the Russians, Germans, Americans, and Chinese are going to risk facing their own stuff?
Morons. Of COURSE there are kill switches in all the things that are sold to the third-worlders. Duh.
Semiconductor Executive Should Be Investigated (Score:5, Insightful)
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Or at least until he can be tracked down and killed by Mossad/The CIA/MI6 etc...
-Nano.
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Re:Semiconductor Executive Should Be Investigated (Score:4, Insightful)
The first rule when you see classified information splash across the front page of the New York Times, it to keep your mouth shut. Running around, arresting people, only confirms that the information is true. You start a secret investigation and covertly limit the information that the people suspected of the leaks have access to. Then, when the brouhaha dies down, use special rendition to disappear the perp in the middle of the night.
Usually when someone's clearance is revoked publicly, it's because they broke a rule, not because real secrets were reveled.
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"...and how long the executive should serve."
Senators serve six-year terms. If he wants to stay in longer than that, he'll need to run for re-election. Haven't you figured out how this works yet?
Standard operating procedure (Score:5, Interesting)
In the cold war the united states did this several times to the USSR, one notable example was a gas pipeline explosion caused by a specifically sabotaged piece of software.
Here is an article detailing the event;
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39147917,00.htm [zdnet.co.uk]
The USSR attempted in several instances to steal or otherwise acquire technology from the united states, and whenever this was detected our counter-intelligence services would provide flawed or otherwise sabotaged technology in place of the actual information sought. This had the desired cascading effect of the USSR unable to trust any technology that may have been introduced from non-USSR sources and was considered an extremely significant part of the eventual collapse of the USSR.
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...was considered an extremely significant part of the eventual collapse of the USSR.
Oh, come on. Was considered by whom, exactly ?
I might point out that both sides stole constantly from each other, in many cases quite successfully (viz, the first Soviet fission bomb), as well as energetically developing their own technology (viz, the first Soviet fusion bomb with the "layer cake" design), and that the USSR did not implode because of external pressure.
Re:Standard operating procedure (Score:4, Informative)
Except that there is no evidence that any explosion took place. The whole story is based on the book of a former Reagan administration official. Go ahead and check newspaper archives at at that time, and you will find no mention of any explosion. I suppose you could claim it was covered up by the Soviets, but if it was truly a "massive" explosion, I doubt they could have achieved a complete media blackout.
In addition, the entire story is described as a hoax here:
http://www.bookscape.co.uk/short_stories/computer_hoaxes.php
I think it's fair to say The Great Trans-Siberian Pipeline Computer Sabotage of 1982 is dubious at best.
The Chinese and Windows (Score:2, Insightful)
I understand why the Chinese don't want to use Windows in their defense systems. I am sure there are back doors to encryption, and remote access, and all kinds of sneaky things that the CIA can do to anyone using Microsoft products.
Microsoft can say , no, its fine. Without the source code, how could you trust them?
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http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9909/03/windows.nsa.02/ [cnn.com]
Backdoor (Score:3, Informative)
What about a Trojan "Launch" Switch (Score:4, Insightful)
Turning off your enemies defenses is one thing, but what about when stuff like this is used to make the enemy seem to be on the offensive?
Oddly (Score:2)
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Radars and kill switch (Score:3, Interesting)
A kill switch needs external communication to be activated which can be quite impossible to implement in many case but radars are basically radio receivers so a specific sequence of radio impulsion at a given frequency could activate the kill switch..
Interesting.
Unit 8200 (Score:2)
http://extrados.mforos.com/620462/4505345-israel-unit-8200/ [mforos.com]
Reminds me of David Gerrold's Rage for Revenge (Score:2)
In Gerrold's Chtorr series, they used this. A lot of US military tech was in the hands of rebels, and they just deployed a kill switch. But in the book, it was expressed as a last-ditch measure. Once you use it, everyone knows about it, and you lose the advantage. Suddenly all the US allies were very, very concerned, as they began to wonder what US technology wasn't booby trapped.
I'd be really surprised we'd just hand this over to the Israelis if we had it. I'd think we would be saving this for a major
The answer is clear: McAfee (Score:2)
Colossus, WarGames, Battlestar:Galactica (Score:2)
The Syrian radar disable code: (Score:2)
I've obtained the secret code used to disable the radar systems:
1-6-3-0-9
Y'know... (Score:2)
uhh...Russian technology (Score:4, Insightful)
Could it be ... (Score:2)
James Mowrey?
Re:Thatcher and Argentina (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Thatcher and Argentina (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps you're referring to the French-made Exocet missiles, launched from the Argentine Super Etendard planes? The 20 dead sailors on HMS Sheffield, sunk by an Exocet, would disagree.
Re:Thatcher and Argentina (Score:5, Informative)
Wait! I retract my earlier assertion.
According to this article [theage.com.au] (cited elsewhere in this thread by acb) about French President Mitterand, PM Thatcher successfully pressured the French to reveal the "codes to make the Exocets deaf and blind" after the Sheffield was sunk.
Very interesting.
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Are you referring to the french made Exocet [wikipedia.org] missiles that sank the type 42 destroyer HMS Sheffield causing 44 casaulties, whereof 20 were fatal?
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Given that the Argentinians didn't actually have any launchers for the Exocets in the first place, it's a bloody miracle any got launched at all. There's no mention of a kill switch anywhere that I can find, and given that they launched all four they had, and all but one are accounted for, the kill switch story sounds unlikely.
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Re:Thatcher and Argentina (Score:5, Interesting)
most of the exocets the argentinians had were naval versions designed to be lanched from ships. since they were keeping their ships away from the combat zone after a british sub sunk ARA general belgrano.
after that they were left with the very few aircraft lanuched units they had. in the end, 3 hit. one in the HMS sheffield, two on MV atlantic conveyor. sheffild sunk near the exclusion zone. atlantic conveyor lost the cargo and was towed back to england, then scuttled bacuase the damages were so extensive it'd be cheaper to build another ship thank repair her.
to tell the truth, the argentinians were ONE exocet away from winning the war. if they had scored one fatal hit against HMS invincible, that would have given them the war and the malvinas islands. unfortunatelly, our "hermanos" only had one left. the super etendards atacked the invincible with support of four A4 skyhawks, but the exocet only caused superficial damage, and the bombs from the skyhawks missed.
thus the british kept their islands.
disclaimer: i'm brasilian, was alive during the war and living in rio grande do sul, a brasilian state that shares a large border with argentina.
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Close, but if I remember a documentary on the conflict correctly the missiles needed codes to work which the French government was /going to/ withhold, but someone leaked them to the Argentinians
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That's War with a capital W,
which rhymes with Cue, and that stands for Pool!
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In general, your objections are valid. In this case, the device with the supposed kill switch is a radar. A giant radio receiver. You would be hard pressed to find a better communication channel than that, and it is hidden in plain sight.
Everything that is received by the radar goes through software at some point or other, and this is not trivial stuff, it is likely in ROM and not easily dumped or disassembled. Possibly encrypted to boot. A kill switch in general? Hard. For a radar? very plausible, and mos