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Xerox PARC Creates Self-Destructing Chip
angry tapir writes: Engineers at Xerox PARC have developed a chip that will self-destruct upon command, providing a potentially revolutionary tool for high-security applications. The chip, developed as part of DARPA's vanishing programmable resources project, could be used to store data such as encryption keys and, on command, shatter into thousands of pieces so small, reconstruction is impossible.
From the halt-and-catch-fire dept. surely?
Challenge accepted?
That's going to make DoS attacks very effective.
Who ordered that?
Halt and Catch Fire?
The only companies interested in it will be consumer electronics companies just waiting for the next big thing to lock consumers out of their own shit.
Digital is, by definition, imperfect. Analog is the way to go.
Coming soon to a toner cartridge near you?
Now companies will be able to impose the upgrade cycle to all of us for every device known to man (including cars, fridges, etc.)
Ownership of anything is now dead......
"reconstruction is impossible."
After watching things for awhile I would steer away from saying something's impossible. Highly unlikely, next-to-impossible. Something like that. But never underestimate the ability for technology to evolve to solve "impossible" problems. Or even finding a critical mistake (hello AM passwords!) that makes it not so impossible after all.
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a difficult battle. - Plato
I can't name a specific product, but this seems very familiar. One time fuses and eeproms come to mind. Sure'y this has already been done?
I'll skip the 1960 pop culture reference, Mr. Phelps.
... chips with integrated plastic explosives? As in, standard Mission Impossible/Inspector Gadget type stuff. If there was actually a market for such devices in the real world, wouldn't it have already been fulfilled by now?
Or... are we just now learning about this, because certain "spy-craft" methods have recently been declassified, or something of that nature? Hmmmmmm.....
The hard part would be making a chip that self-destructs if and only if a legitimate owner wants it to. If Xerox PARC could solve that one, then we could have systems that would give access only to those who should have it, computers that run only software that the legitimate user wants,and email that can be read only by those a user wants it to be read by. Maybe those guys could spend some time on that.
Next they'll create the cone of silence.
Can't wait for Apple to copy that!
> Entropy cannot be reversed
Everybody who has ever assembled a jigsaw puzzle begs to differ. Unlight something? You can burn hydrogen and oxygen to make water, then electrically reverse that process as many times as you want. Reversing entropy requires energy.
In this particular case, cracking the glass into many pieces, without stirring those pieces, creates something like a fully-assembled jigsaw puzzle. If the pieces of glass are really small, they're called sand. An object composed of many pieces of sand would be a sand castle- the structure is still intact until the pieces are stirred.
the world over are creaming their jeans at this new vector to be famous
Manufactures have had this tech for years.
The warranty runs out and the product promptly fails beyond reasonable repair.
Is this technology is based on their toner cartridge designs? Because every time I try to print, they seem to self-destruct on command.
to be used in the ink cartridges that will go out as soon as the ink level goes past what even they set it to and refills do not reset the level.
Finally, I can have a big red button marked 'Self Destruct' on my kit
There you go. Planned obsolescence has just gone from a conspiracy theory to a fact.
BTW, 'murica is the greatest country in the whole world. YEAH@!!!
Sounds like the old Tom Selleck movie Runaway (back in 1984) with those chips that burst into flame when you tried to look at them.
I'm surprised it took this long to build one. Just a little thermite in the chip casing should do it.
Diddle-little-liddle-little
dun dun dun-DUN, dun dun DUN-dun, dun dun dun-DUN, dun dun DUN-dun
Na na naaaaaa, na-na naaaaaaa, na-na naaaaaaa, na-nuh
One of the reasons why computer security has turned in to a cat and mouse game - that quite frankly we are losing, is the computer architecture model we use for everything hasn't really changed. A physical separation of user space and kernel space in to two systems, then ideas like this become rather useful.
Use a low-power microcontroller like an MPS430, power from lithium-battery, keep keys in RAM and invert them every minute or so. You can wipe that MPS430 in a few microseconds on command and without using much energy.
Seriously, this is a stunt, not anything new or special.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
So you've got fighter jet or spy plane flying over enemy or contested lands; I'm guessing there would be a capacitance changed and rigged to a dead-mans switch? Unless there's a proper shutdown, certain equipment shatters their ICs to prevent reverse engineering via X-Ray technology. Meaning, no gate / logic layout to discern?
Life is not for the lazy.
>> The chip could self-destruct on command
Congratulations! You've invented the Sony Vaio!
http://www.techhive.com/articl...
Any non-famous/non-rich private individual using this tech would just be thrown in jail for destruction of evidence.
Xbox 360 is clearly prior art in the "self-destructing hardware" department.
Isn't it ironic that the Xerox ushered the both the beginning of the personal computer, and it's end.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
The IronKey flash drive has had this kinda tech for years.
http://www.ironkey.com/en-US/encrypted-storage-drives/250-basic.html
Surely we are beyond this... don't we already have self destructing software?
Making a self destructing chip, will not destroy the software and data on the electronic device powering and commanding the chip (chips need, power, storage, memory and other i/o stuff to be useful)
There is no practical need for theatrics, just a controller that supports reliable overwrite of data. If permanent hardware alteration is needed, there is a mainstream, inexpensive e-fuse technology.
Stressed glass chip destruction could be triggered unintentionally. Since you are a secret agent, you might drop things or travel to hot places. Wouldn't want to lose all your secret photos just because you left your phone on car dash or something.
It's a simple plan.. your iWatch monitors your biometrics, right? When you die it kicks off an app to wipe all your browser history, and the special chip/drive where you store your porn gets shattered into a million pieces. No more embarrassed children, spouses, or friends when your dirty dirty secrets come to life after yours has left.
I've heard engineers in defence talking about halt-and-catch-fire opcodes in their stuff for years, since at least early 2000s.
> N
You are on a concrete surface.
> RAISE IPHONE
The iPhone is now 30cm from the ground.
> DROP iPHONE
The iPhone is now secure from corporate and foreign espionage.
This is why Nokia died - they simply could not make a device flimsy enough to satisfy modern security standards.
First, it takes a specific, intentional, not free step to implement this. Unless the manufacturer of a given device thinks security will be important enough to its customers to warrant a self-destruct they're not going to incorporate this. It's not like hardware manufacturers are thinking "Oh what the hell - consumers won't mind if our widget costs more than the competition's, let's build in an auto destruct and use Majel Barrett-Roddenberry's voice" or even "we can blow 'em up the day after the warranty runs out and defy everyone to prove our product isn't just plain crappy."
Second, it isn't fully tested yet. They're incorporating stresses into a component whose durability must now be examined - as previously noted, some highly specialized applications might benefit from a "failure before compromise" behavior, but most won't. Will these things spontaneously shatter five years after manufacture? Can this be triggered by anything other than the designed mechanism? Be a shame to have these things fail every eleven years because of sunspots, after all.
Finally, this is not the only tamper-resistant technology ever created. I can recall many items of military hardware which incorporate operationally similar safeguards, and it deserves remembering that the people who want to learn military secrets often have the resources to do ridiculous things like manually reassembling a three-dimensional puzzle consisting of thousands of nearly microscopic pieces. Combine this with our existing technologies and you end up with an incredibly effective tool . . . that's tool, not solution. Like anything else of security (and especially military security) multiple layers are the only possible approach. Multi-layered security includes physical security, information security, and resource security. This technology could serve as part of a tamper-deterrent system.
"Hey Boss, you wanted to see me?"
"The new version just went gold. Man your station. On my command, turn your key."
Meanwhile:
"What the hell!? My computer just stopped working! I guess I gotta go buy another!"
I am pretty sure this technology is already in use in Comcast and AT&T U-verse routers.
to Mission Impossible playing in the background:
Voice Over
As always, should you or any of your IM force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. Good luck, Jim. This chip will self-destruct in five seconds!
The year is 2020. A massive arctic high sits over North America on a very cold January day. An Al Quaeda operative sends a command from his PC to a botnet which activates multiple zero-day "sleeper" trojans that have been waiting for the command. PC's, printers, and various other machinery in offices and electric power plants and water pumping stations and telephone offices fail.
A second command is sent that hijacks satellite downlinks for GM Onstar and similar systems. They can shut down the car via satellite if it's reported stolen. In the middle of rush hour, traffic grinds to a halt, as the shutdown code is activated en masse. You have millions of motorists stuck on the roads in bitterly freezing weather. +1 if the system can be programmed to lock all car doors, and trap the motorists inside.
Another command is sent out that cranks "internet of things" furnaces and stoves to max power and locks them there. Fires break out all over. Fire departments are unable to respond. Even if their trucks don't have Onstar tech, the roads are so clogged with stalled cars that they can't get to any fires.
Civilization breaks down as distribution chains collapse due to non-functioning equipment. Millions die of cold and starvation in the following weeks. Martial law is declared. Somewhere, in the middle-East, a bunch of Mullahs are laughing their butts off.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Old eproms stored there data with a series of fuses. When first programming the chip fuses would be selectively burnt out to store the program data. A program that burnt out the remaining fuses would brick the chip. Modern eproms have limited read write cycles. A program that rewrote the chips over and over again could brick a chip in a matter of seconds.