How many CPUs does your computer have?
If we go way back, we will discover that some time ago there were already ancillary CPUs in our computers. The floppy disk drive of the C64 had a CPU very similar to the one in the computer itself, but very little memory and it was hard, though not impossible, to make use of it. I never really tried. The PC-keyboards had CPUs, it was told that a Z80 or 8080 or something like that was built into them. I never bothered to find out.
Now this concept is not at all new, but was already used 35 years ago. So the question is, if our computers still have such hidden CPUs. This seems to be the case and it is easy to search for „hidden CPUs“ or „secret CPUs“. And it would be extremely strange to expect anything different. They do not have compute power for us, but just run and manage hardware, that appears to be just hardware from the point of view of our main CPU, that we can program. So why not just consider this as hardware and ignore the „secret“ or „hidden“ CPUs and see them as implementation detail of the hardware. That is a very legitimate approach and to be honest what we do most of the time.
The issue is more delicate now, because these hidden CPUs can access the internet, even when the computer is turned off or seems to be offline. There are tools to analyze the network traffic and to detect this. But we should start to become aware of this invisible world that is potentially as dangerous as visible malware. And this applies to all kinds of devices, especially cell phones, tablets, routers, TV-sets and all „things“ that have their own CPU power and network access…
Links
- Intel x86s hide another CPU
- Librebot
- Intel’s hidden in-chip operating system
- slashdot
- The Truth About the Intel’s Hidden Minix OS and Security Concerns
- Is the ’secret‘ chip in Intel CPUs really that dangerous?
- FSF: The Intel Management Engine: an attack on computer users‘ freedom
