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Comment by dsfyu404ed | Hacker News Reader

Makes perfect sense but implementing it at any sort scale seems cumbersome/expensive with current tech. Implementing it without scale is meaningless, you could just send a beautiful woman to seduce someone important and have a ton less loose ends, fewer things to screw up, etc

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I'm pretty sure this attack consists of a slight alteration to the design of the chip (namely, adding that extra logic gate), so it automatically scales to precisely the number of chips made with that design.

I think it might be able to be pulled off for example by hacking a computer containing the design, for example at a fab in China.

We already know the NSA hacked the specialized computers of the Iranian centrifuges.

As a beautiful man I take exception to this. Why can't I be sent to seduce someone important?

You can, there's just a slightly smaller demographic.

I mean, this goes against community rules, but gotta say it: bravo! Perfect setup and delivery. :)

Thanks, I thought I would be down faded into oblivion, but instead I get 13 points and you get down faded. Sorry mate, what a fickle audience.

Probably quite a cheap route for a state actor. The problem is that if the secret gets out then anyone can do the same attack.

>you could just send a beautiful woman to seduce someone important and have a ton less loose ends

and they're even advertising these days: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/a-qa-with-the-woman-who-des...

Eh, for a state actor, I don't think there's such thing as "too cumbersome or expensive."

There's certainly "more cumbersome and expensive than the alternatives" though.

Can something like this be used to tamper with the Blackbox type voting machines used in India?

If so, why have there not been much of a hue and cry about it.

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