FBI Says Military Had Counterfeit Cisco Routers

There are new developments in the case of the counterfeit Cisco routers, 
which we have been discussing for some time.
The NYTimes updates the story after an FBI PowerPoint presentation made its 
way onto the Web. It seems that experts at Cisco have examined some of the 
counterfeit routers in detail and proclaimed that they contain no back 
doors. Others don't believe we can be so sure.

"Last month, [DARPA] began distributing chips with hidden Trojan horse 
circuitry to military contractors who are participating in the agency's 
Trusted Integrated Circuits program. The goal is to test forensic techniques 
for finding hidden electronic trap doors, which can be maddeningly 
elusive... The threat was demonstrated in April when a team of computer 
scientists from the University of Illinois presented a paper at a technical 
conference in San Francisco detailing how they had modified a Sun 
Microsystems SPARC microprocessor... The researchers were able to create a 
stealth system that would allow them to automatically log in to a computer 
and steal passwords."

http://it.slashdot.org/it/08/05/09/164201.shtml

NYTimes :

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/09/technology/09cisco.html?_r=2&partner=rssny
t&emc=rss&pagewanted=print