|
6
Nerd-Its
|
|
current event
by Almost everything in the US military relies upon electronics. The economy thrives on electronic trading floors, nationwide networking and a 100% reliance upon business computers. Even the national infrastructure is tied heavily into microchips with computerized utilities and transportation systems. For the longest time, the fear of widespread shutdown came from nuclear EMP but now fear has rightfully turned to simpler, more mundane attacks - hidden kill switches. The DoD is concerned enough with the threat of unknown kill switches residing in much of its equipment that DARPA has been tasked heavily with coming up with a detection technique. The idea is very simple, a kill switch does not need to be embedded deeply into a system to make it shutdown, even if a common integrated circuit responded to an single number transmitted by radio and shut itself down, an entire system could turn off depending on the nature of the shutdown circuit - e.g. power supply. Part of the kill switch conspiracy hubbub was revived following the Israeli air strike against the alleged Syrian nuclear facility. Amazingly, the advanced Syrian radar warning systems "just failed."
Could this impetus bring manufacturing back to domestic plants to impose better regulations and bring increased security?
Add a Comment (2)
Email This
Message Author
RSS
Most, if not all DOD electronics by ldsudduth :: NR7 :: 6 days ago
I think they are made right here in the USA. My wife currently works for a contract electornics manufacturer (who is NOT, and does NOT plan to be DOD Certified). The process to be a DOD supplier is arduous, requires very tight securty and intense background checks on anyone who works around what is being manufactured. We both worked for a company who was a DOD manufacturer--they were subcontracted to build a piece of a system. The manufacturing area was closed off from the rest of the facility, and had coded locks and it's own shipping/receiving dock. I was the network guy, and I didn't have clearance to enter the area. If something needed fixed, it had to be brought out to me, and returned back--all by the SecOps person.
While most components come from overseas--because that's where they are manufactured, I think most, if not all DOD and related circuit boards are made right here. Government and medical work have kept the small-middle sized electronics manufacturing companies alive--that and the fact that most facilities overseas are not designed for small board runs--say 1,000 or less. Those types of runs are what the DOD and Medical companies do most of, and our ability over here to switch out quickly with small board runs is a major plus.
RE: Most, if not all DOD electronics by VnutZ :: NR8 :: 6 days ago
The concern isn't actually that the final products are assembled and manufactured within our border, it's that the components that went into them came from abroad. If you get a chance to read the linked article (about three pages) it goes in depth about the threat.
Taken very simplistically, imagine something as simple as an RFID-like circuit hidden within the integrated circuit. It's not even necessarily a separate part of the circuit, rather just another piece of logic embedded into the design through some abstract K-mapping. A highly directed signal that happens to trigger that one logic gate activates some self-EEPROM erase or override that in turn kills that one IC (or all of those IC's within a machine). Anything dependent on it subsequently fails. It's actually ingeniously insidious and simple.
But it doesn't just have to be on the highly specialized equipment. The anger over $500 hammers leading to the usage of cheaper COTS equipment means stuff that wasn't built here is in place. Perhaps not in the vehicle, but in the equipment that relays the orders to that unit on the ground. Or, (an example from the article), an override such that encryption never happens or is weakened. The damage isn't so much from taking down a really big score, but weakening the entire effort from crippling all the little things we depend on.