Why It’s So Difficult – and Costly – To Secure Chips
After reading &quot;Ghost Fleet&quot; by P.W. Singer and August Cole, the idea in there about China putting backdoors in chips sent to the US for years -- laying the &#x27;groundwork&#x27; for an eventual cyber and physical invasion -- has really stuck with me. He makes the point in the book (which has tons of citations to describe the attacks&#x2F;weapon systems) that even critical defense-related chips, for things like our most advanced fighter jets, are often still assembled&#x2F;manufactured in China. But I imagine an equally useful strategy could just be putting backdoors in all the various things ordinary people order off Amazon each day: fast charger wall outlets, USB cables, etc.<p>I&#x27;ve always assumed that we just had a way to &#x27;check&#x27; each chip used in critical industries, such as defense, if they came from another country. It kind of feels the same way it did the first time I learned how to pick pin and tumbler locks, and realized locks are purely an illusion of security.