Hector Martin

Seriously if I could make evil semiconductors I would just replace one which is already present rather than adding it. Show me a picture of its alleged placement and then maybe we will have something to work with here, otherwise zero evidence.

Here is the alleged placement:https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1047806561760890880 …

That is loose interpretation based on a GIF animation of a board which doesn’t even appear to be the one involved in the article.

And don’t get me wrong, @marcan42 is awesome and knows is stuff, one of the few that knows what he his talking about. But this is only an alleged placement and still no facts are on the table.

The GIF from the article does match the blades used in the later diagrams. I'm only saying the theory has some internal consistency, which at least means if the story is made up, someone tried reasonably hard. It's walking a fine line of plausibility.

But yes, personally, I think it makes a hell of a lot more sense to just replace the actual SPI flash IC with an MCM containing the implant right inside. Good luck noticing that without xraying every chip.

Alternate take: they stuck a fake coil on top of a more standard chip package, and the whole photoshoot is based on Bloomberg getting the wrong kind of "signal conditioning coupler".https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1047938864579469312 …