Rakshasa: The hardware backdoor that China could embed in every computer

Two things:

First - how is this any different from the fact that any data that flows through a pipe in the US is probably being monitored by the NSA? Presumably that's what we get for being overreliant on a nation.

Second - how many people are going to notice a covert BIOS flash? I'd miss the boot splash, and my overclocks, but what would the average user notice?