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Investigating an “evil” RJ45 dongle

(lcamtuf.substack.com)
508 points zdw | 2 comments | 17 Jan 25 20:41 UTC | HN request time: 0.406s | source
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klik99 ◴[17 Jan 25 21:24 UTC] No.42743428[source]▶
"If you want to try it, be aware that it requires Intel Pentium 166MHz or above."

Made me laugh. Fun article, also really love the genre of "bored smart person goes too deep on something that the end result is obvious by common sense but proving it requires surprising amount of ingenuity and scrappiness"

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1. ryukoposting ◴[18 Jan 25 13:30 UTC] No.42748175[source]▶
It's fun, but I think this kind of thing is important because it underscores the xenophobia in the original post. A flash chip on a circuit board? Hoo boy, must be Chinese spyware!

That isn't to say Chinese spyware isn't a problem. But, if you don't have the baseline technical competence to detect it, it's bad to go running around yelling "CHINA CHINA CHINA!" That's how our politicians pick up a bogus news story and use it as an excuse to enact stupid policies. It's bad for society.

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2. lazide ◴[18 Jan 25 17:56 UTC] No.42750032[source]▶
Well, the CIA did it to Russia in the 80’s and blew up a pipeline…. [https://www.risidata.com/index.php?/Database/Detail/cia-troj...]

Also Stuxnet [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet]