Hey I'm one of the "fellow researchers" that the OP was talking about.
It's funny that people are saying how well known this is because I honestly haven't heard ONE person in any PC help forum suggest "Maybe you have a backdoor installed in your hardware and that's why not matter how many times you reformat, your still having problems with your PC." Actually almost 100% of the time, even suggesting something of the like gets you a "Man, you really are paranoid aren't you." or "Time to get out your Tinfoil Hat!".
Yeah maybe this forum doesn't have as many kiddies or clueless "tech support" bots as others, but even people that seem to know their stuff either think it's just a conspiracy or it would be "Almost Impossible" to do.
See the thing is... I've had this backdoor problem on the past 3 PCs. Completely different hardware for the most part on all 3. So if it's gotten to the point where a majority/all hardware has some kind of backdoor, we are getting to an epidemic stage. I have replaced the internet modem before too, to no effect. This mysterious hacker seems to have an encyclopedia of hardware codes and always manages to find me. Same for the OP.
The hard part is, it's really difficult to know what hardware may/may be compromised. Short of sodering your own parts and doing your own programming.:)
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Hey I'm one of the "fellow researchers" that the OP was talking about. It's funny that people are saying how well known this is because I honestly haven't heard ONE person in any PC help forum suggest "Maybe you have a backdoor installed in your hardware and that's why not matter how many times you reformat, your still having problems with your PC." Actually almost 100% of the time, even suggesting something of the like gets you a "Man, you really are paranoid aren't you." or "Time to get out your Tinfoil Hat!". Yeah maybe this forum doesn't have as many kiddies or clueless "tech support" bots as others, but even people that seem to know their stuff either think it's just a conspiracy or it would be "Almost Impossible" to do. See the thing is... I've had this backdoor problem on the past 3 PCs. Completely different hardware for the most part on all 3. So if it's gotten to the point where a majority/all hardware has some kind of backdoor, we are getting to an epidemic stage. I have replaced the internet modem before too, to no effect. This mysterious hacker seems to have an encyclopedia of hardware codes and always manages to find me. Same for the OP. The hard part is, it's really difficult to know what hardware may/may be compromised. Short of sodering your own parts and doing your own programming. :)