Instead of brainwashing and grooming a person to become a political leader in a rival country, like in The Manchurian Candidate, a 1959 political thriller by Richard Condon, it is probably easier to try to sell the rival country computer chips with backdoor technology that their military will use. Backdoor technology is an additional undocumented feature deliberately inserted into the device for extra functionality. Military graded chips with a backdoor in missile systems, airplanes or nuclear reactors could be controlled by an external entity from a distance.
(You do not need a backdoor into IP Dragon to influence us, just filling out this ultra short survey will do, thanks!)
Sergei Skorobogatov of the Faculty of Computer Science and Technology, University of Cambridge claims that he developed a “QVL technology” that can detect a backdoor in chips, and that he actually found one in a military graded chip, see here. Robert David Graham of Errata Security, which is a cyber security consulting company, begs to differ, see here. Instead Mr Graham concludes:
“As somebody with a lot of experience with this sort of thing in software cybersecurity, I doubt there is anything malicious behind it. Also note that the issue is “intellectual property protection” in FPGAs; the “military security” angle is really distant. The Chinese might subvert FPGAs so that they could later steal intellectual-property written to the chips, but the idea they went through all this to attack the US military is pretty fanciful. “
Of course intellectual property infringements of military grade chips can be bad enough. See IP Dragon’s 2008 article on the recycling of old commercial chips into new military graded chips, here.
Eloise Lee and Robert Johnson of Business Insider asked Mr Skorobogatov to respond to Mr Graham’s arguments why Mr Skorobogatov’s claims are unsubstantiated, see here. Mr Skorobogatov:
“We have made no reference to any Chinese involvement in either of the released papers or any reference to espionage. Therefore we don’t agree with Robert Graham’s assertion that we suggest Chinese involvement. So we have no idea why people have linked the Chinese to this as it did not come from us.“
What Mr Skorobogatov did wrote in his report was:
“Current issues. UK officials are fearful that China has the capability to shut down businesses, military and critical infrastructure through cyber attacks and spy equipment embedded in computer and telecommunications equipment.” and “Currently there is no economical or timely way of ascertaining if a manufacturer’s specifications have been altered during the manufacturing process (99% of chips are manufactured in China), or indeed if the specifications themselves contain a deliberately inserted potential threat.“