Malware Now Hiding In Graphics Cards 125
mask.of.sanity writes "Researchers are closing in on a means to detect previously undetectable stealthy malware that resides in peripherals like graphics and network cards. The malware was developed by the same researchers and targeted host runtime memory using direct memory access provided to hardware devices. They said the malware was a 'highly critical threat to system security and integrity' and could not be detected by any operating system."
Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously? Did no one see this coming? (Score:5, Insightful)
This ridiculous push to offload every type of programming into GPUs including bitcoin mining and no one saw this possibility? (Sarcasm, I know people saw the possibility.)
Measures could have been taken... but then again, what better way for the NSA and other government spies to infiltrate a computer independent of an operating system than this? Seriously. It'll work on Mac, Windows and Linux with or without proprietary drivers.
Re:Seriously? Did no one see this coming? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just another half-assed job. Computer tech is full of half-ass ideas that sounded pretty good but were never completed. The 640k limit and protected mode. Expanded/Extended memory through A20. Half assed effort by Lotus, IBM and Microsoft. Operating systems - sold as secure, almost as insecure as ever. About the only good thing is they don't usually automatically install malware from the internet without asking you first. Half assed. Trusted Computing - half assed. UEFI, half assed.
I don't know if it's a lack of budget, or if computer techies (not your regular coders but the guys that come up with this stuff and implement it) really have such short attention spans. Or maybe it's just a marketing thing - give us a new tech word we can market for this generation, it doesn't have to work, we'll just pretend it's something good and make people want it.
Re:Seriously? Did no one see this coming? (Score:4, Insightful)
Welcome to the real world!
If you open your eyes wide enough,you'll notice that pretty much everything is half-assed in one manner or another. This isn't necessarily a bad thing because doing the job "properly" is either impractical, too expensive, or takes too long. In reality, we don't even know what "properly" is most of the time.
I'd go as far as to say that humanity's real achievement is the ability to say "fuck it" and go forward with a pragmatic solution that's useful enough to come out ahead and not dangerous enough to kill us all.
Re:Killing a CRT (Score:4, Insightful)
Simply shutting of was a step up from the early technology. I don't remember the details but I think it had something to do with burning out some capacitor used in conjunction with the fly back transformer. A three cent part that took 100 bucks to get to and repair.
Not an urban legend I assure you. And the guys getting bit most often were Linux guys trying to figure out X config setting.
Back in the day I was selling a lot of hardware and had to process many warranty returns through our shop.