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Reverse Engineering a Computer Chip (Read 10943 times)
Victor6799
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Re: Reverse Engineering a Computer Chip
Reply #15 - Nov 01st, 2011, 9:43pm
 
rfcooltools.com wrote on Oct 16th, 2011, 9:41pm:
Victor6799,

Have you exhausted all possibilities like the obvious ones.  
Internet connection, spyware software or some kind of hardware malfunction?
If these chips have a built in receiver/transmitter the transmitter would have to be very close possibly only feet away.  The digital switching at the memory controllers is an unwelcome environment for any type of robust communication via an antenna especially an un-optimal one that might be in an IC package.  
Ask yourself this question?
What is so important about what you are doing that would warrant such a clandestine action by someone else?  

I would guess that unless you are in the state department or using some top-secret defense department computer you probably are not being attacked through a radio remote interface.  Then again you would not be posting your question on a public forum if you where.  I am not trying to be rude but you may be avoiding some other more common hacking techniques.  

http://rfcooltools.com



Thanks a lot for the reply. I am sorry how I missed this post. To be honest with I don't know why anyone would want to do that since anything that is done via the internet is monitored by big brother i.e the government. However this issue that is happening is going on all computers which we have 4 of them. We run our browsers with a sandbox technology which is very good at catching old and existing vulnerabilities in web browsers. On top of that we use a program called DeepFreeze which essentially freezes the state of the drive so that nothing is saved during any session but the computers still behave at will. On top of that we use a firewall which should alert us if a program is trying to phone home. I personally have worked with computers for over 13 years now and have never seen anything like this. We have formatted the drives and repartitioned them and done a clean install. So I know for 99% sure that the computers are not owned by us anymore but the person who is controlling them.

Would you be kind of and explain a little more about the transmitter part being about a feet away ? I am unclear about away from what ? The receiver perhaps ? Which could possibly be embedded inside a say Southbridge chip that has been reversed engineered with extra command and control routines ? So essentially your saying that the receiver could be inside the SB chipset (for example) and the transmitter away from this chip about 1 feet at most ? I appreciate your reply.

Thanks again.

Victor.
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rfcooltools.com
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Re: Reverse Engineering a Computer Chip
Reply #16 - Nov 2nd, 2011, 1:57pm
 
Victor6799

In Basic terms the conditions that come into play are:

Faraday Cage (shield surrounding most desktop computers usually a metal case and limits radio interference and susceptance int the US its to meet FCC requirements other countries have equivalents) .  

Wavelength of transmission and antenna performance.  Basically to transmit or receive you need an antenna.  The minimum size of an optimum antenna is 1/4 wavelength of the signal frequency.  For a PCB circuit board at 1GHz this would be around 2-4 cm.  In silicon oxide this reduces by around 65% but its still large when compared to chip-scale dimensions.  Increasing the transmission frequency will reduce the size of the antenna needed, but comes with other equally degrading issues such as receiver sensitivity degradation with frequency and propagation length reduction due to atmospheric effects, and many more)

Interference for example a cpu clock running at 1GHz will have specific harmonics at 1GHz,3GHz,5GHz, 7GHz..etc.  But data is a different story, due to the random nature it will have a spectral content that will fill in the frequencies between the clock harmonics.

Most of these degradation's can be  can be overcome by increasing the transmission power and/or transmitting at a close range.  So if the transmitted power to your PC was high enough, it may be enough to get a signal through and cause a strange operation.  But this would make it easy to locate the transmitter and catch the spy.  



There are far easier ways to explain this problem.  
I have an HPpavilion 6000 laptop I bought from Costco after a year the display started acting weird so I looked to the internet and woa and behold others where experiencing the same thing.  Its clearly a design flaw, but what if there was a bad batch of connectors that were installed on a batch of motherboards at around the same time and we were the unlucky population that experienced the same issue after around a year of regular use.  

Incorrectly written software drivers can cause the same set of issues.  Thermally hardware can reset or act strange and degrade with time.  

Finally improperly written software or software that operates on one platform acts differently on another.  This is the big headache Microsoft  has to deal with, while Apple doesn't because of the limited hardware platforms.  Complex systems such as computers do strange things and usually have to be corrected when the bug is reported to the developer and thus corrected.

You may be being hacked by some one who wants to do you in, or you may be experiencing some kind of more likely problem.  Don't let the excitement of a clandestine operation interfere with root-causing the real issue.

http://rfcooltools.com


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Victor6799
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Re: Reverse Engineering a Computer Chip
Reply #17 - Nov 4th, 2011, 1:47pm
 
rfcooltools.com wrote on Nov 2nd, 2011, 1:57pm:
Victor6799

In Basic terms the conditions that come into play are:

Faraday Cage (shield surrounding most desktop computers usually a metal case and limits radio interference and susceptance int the US its to meet FCC requirements other countries have equivalents) .  

Wavelength of transmission and antenna performance.  Basically to transmit or receive you need an antenna.  The minimum size of an optimum antenna is 1/4 wavelength of the signal frequency.  For a PCB circuit board at 1GHz this would be around 2-4 cm.  In silicon oxide this reduces by around 65% but its still large when compared to chip-scale dimensions.  Increasing the transmission frequency will reduce the size of the antenna needed, but comes with other equally degrading issues such as receiver sensitivity degradation with frequency and propagation length reduction due to atmospheric effects, and many more)

Interference for example a cpu clock running at 1GHz will have specific harmonics at 1GHz,3GHz,5GHz, 7GHz..etc.  But data is a different story, due to the random nature it will have a spectral content that will fill in the frequencies between the clock harmonics.

Most of these degradation's can be  can be overcome by increasing the transmission power and/or transmitting at a close range.  So if the transmitted power to your PC was high enough, it may be enough to get a signal through and cause a strange operation.  But this would make it easy to locate the transmitter and catch the spy.  



There are far easier ways to explain this problem.  
I have an HPpavilion 6000 laptop I bought from Costco after a year the display started acting weird so I looked to the internet and woa and behold others where experiencing the same thing.  Its clearly a design flaw, but what if there was a bad batch of connectors that were installed on a batch of motherboards at around the same time and we were the unlucky population that experienced the same issue after around a year of regular use.  

Incorrectly written software drivers can cause the same set of issues.  Thermally hardware can reset or act strange and degrade with time.  

Finally improperly written software or software that operates on one platform acts differently on another.  This is the big headache Microsoft  has to deal with, while Apple doesn't because of the limited hardware platforms.  Complex systems such as computers do strange things and usually have to be corrected when the bug is reported to the developer and thus corrected.

You may be being hacked by some one who wants to do you in, or you may be experiencing some kind of more likely problem.  Don't let the excitement of a clandestine operation interfere with root-causing the real issue.

http://rfcooltools.com




Wow thank you for the reply. I think I will need to study the information in order to grasp all of the details. I really appreciate the reply. I'm very glad that I posted on this forum...found it by accident. I will definitely let all of you guys know what I find out whether its a software issue or hardware issue that causing all computers to behave in almost the same manner. I agree I should not overlook the obvious. So it will be back to square one and then go from there. You guys are very knowledgeable and helpful on this site.

Best Regards

Victor
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Re: Reverse Engineering a Computer Chip
Reply #18 - Nov 5th, 2011, 12:50pm
 
antennas can actually be put into a much smaller package than what you are describing.

See:

http://search.digikey.com/us/en/products/ANCW12G45SAA117RD3/490-5058-2-ND/187346...

2mm x 9mm for that example. There are many other options as well.

For a computer to be spied on the most common method would be to install some form of spy-ware to provide info over your network connection.

A little less "James Bond" but a lot more effective.
For that make sure you got good anti-virus SW installed and scan on a regular schedule.
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