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posted by Fnord666 on Friday June 04 2021, @07:50AM   Printer-friendly
from the scatter-brains dept.

NewAtlas published an article that may outline the future of secure computing:

Engineers have designed a computer processor that thwarts hackers by randomly changing its microarchitecture every few milliseconds. Known as Morpheus, the puzzling processor has now aced its first major tests, repelling hundreds of professional hackers in a DARPA security challenge.

[...] Essentially, the processor starts by encrypting key information, such as the location, format and content of data. But that's not enough on its own – a dedicated hacker could still crack that code within a few hours. And that's where Morpheus gets clever – the system shuffles that encryption randomly every few hundred milliseconds. That way, even if a hacker somehow manages to get a picture of the entire processor, it'll completely change before they have a chance to act on it.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @08:15AM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @08:15AM (#1141710)

    So this is how it starts. The fall of humanity.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday June 04 2021, @08:28AM (2 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 04 2021, @08:28AM (#1141712) Journal

      Not quite Skynet. See, the processor will encrypt the operator, and store him in memory somewhere. No need for all the violence that Skynet uses.

      • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @10:38AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @10:38AM (#1141726)

        Oh, so it's TRON instead. Gotcha.

        Better soundtrack at least.

        • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @05:37PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @05:37PM (#1141843)

          Well, I'm not going to fight for the users. Users suck.

    • (Score: 2) by Tork on Friday June 04 2021, @02:31PM (2 children)

      by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 04 2021, @02:31PM (#1141774)
      If you had actually watched the movies it was about the weapons being built at all, not that AI was evil. It's like an entire gaggle of internet nerds missed the whole uncle Bob and the thumbs up thing.
      --
      🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @03:43PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @03:43PM (#1141803)

        fear and overreaction leading to its own death.

        If skynet had been left operational and had not been attempted to be shut down it likely would have fulfilled its mandate, elimited the opposition, and the people on its controlling side would have been safe (at least until a civil war or something made it decide some/all of its former protectees were now a threat.) But the act of attempting to shut it down made the humans on 'its side' a threat and since its self preservation mandate was above that of protecting the country/humans it was developed for, it instead chose to trigger WW3 then use the aftermath to attempt to purge all remaining humans to ensure it could never be shut down. The latter was supposed to have failed, but the constant sequels kept having skynet survive with the technology to send a newer terminator variant back in time.

        • (Score: 2) by Mykl on Sunday June 06 2021, @12:51AM

          by Mykl (1112) on Sunday June 06 2021, @12:51AM (#1142206)

          My read on this is that the Terminator lives in a universe which observes divergent timelines. So, if you get sent back in time and change something, it creates an alternate timeline that you then travel on, while your original timeline remains unchanged. The reason that an alternate timeline wasn't created in the first movie is that Rhys _didn't_ change anything when he came back - he did everything exactly as it was supposed to be (probably because he didn't have enough knowledge of the past to change it - very smart of the future John Connor).

          I can see Skynet in the future sending Arnie back for T1, waiting a few seconds before saying "Shit, it didn't work - I'm still in trouble" (perhaps because it didn't realise it had just created the circumstances needed for both its creation and death), then sending another, and another and another. All of those extra ones are alternate timelines.

    • (Score: 2) by edIII on Friday June 04 2021, @11:44PM

      by edIII (791) on Friday June 04 2021, @11:44PM (#1141917)

      No, that started when some whiny crybabies couldn't wear masks and get vaccine shots to fight a deadly plague.

      --
      Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @08:28AM (10 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @08:28AM (#1141711)

    MS a few years back - "your mouse moved. please restart to update drivers."
    How would you programme this chip to perform actions if all it does is self-mutate all the time?
    "I'm sorry Dave, that register no longer exists." ???

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 04 2021, @10:16AM (1 child)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday June 04 2021, @10:16AM (#1141724) Journal

      June 24. Windows 11 Morpheus.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @09:30PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @09:30PM (#1141886)

        And the first bad guys that crack this nut, and they will, will create a virus that completely morphs right along with the chip's morphing and surf's your processing/data like a world champ in Hawaii. Fun times, bring it on.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday June 04 2021, @10:18AM (7 children)

      by Rosco P. Coltrane (4757) on Friday June 04 2021, @10:18AM (#1141725)

      As opposed to MS now: "You're clearly working on your computer, so we need to restart it RIGHT THIS MINUTE to install important Windows updates."

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by inertnet on Friday June 04 2021, @11:10AM

        by inertnet (4071) on Friday June 04 2021, @11:10AM (#1141732) Journal

        And after that restart we will halt the restart, show a blue screen and ask you a number of unnecessary questions that should default to "No". And if you skip these questions, we'll start all over again next reboot, especially if ouryour computer is unattended.

      • (Score: 2) by Tork on Friday June 04 2021, @02:39PM (5 children)

        by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 04 2021, @02:39PM (#1141780)

        As opposed to MS now: "You're clearly working on your computer, so we need to restart it RIGHT THIS MINUTE to install important Windows updates."

        This happened to me once during an overnight copy of one hard drive to another. Fortunately it was just a backup, but a month earlier and that could have been me not delivering to a freelance client. It only happened once because I switched to Mac over it. Nice move, MS.

        --
        🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @04:15PM (4 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @04:15PM (#1141816)

          I've been meaning to buy one of those cheap disk-copy machines -- plug in two drives and it copies one to the other automagically. Your experience with an interrupted backup might be enough to get me off the dime.

          Anyone have experience with this one? https://www.ebay.com/itm/223993300568 [ebay.com]

          • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday June 05 2021, @02:29AM (3 children)

            by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Saturday June 05 2021, @02:29AM (#1141943) Homepage Journal

            I just use Linux.

            • (Score: 2) by Mykl on Sunday June 06 2021, @12:54AM (2 children)

              by Mykl (1112) on Sunday June 06 2021, @12:54AM (#1142208)

              Yeah, but what if I want to be able to take showers, and have a functioning social life?

              • (Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday June 06 2021, @05:08AM

                by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 06 2021, @05:08AM (#1142262)

                Pftbt. What are you bitching about? Us Mac guys are using an OS built on eunuchs!

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              • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday June 07 2021, @07:31PM

                by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 07 2021, @07:31PM (#1142863) Homepage Journal

                I have two, count them, two shower stalls in my apartment. I can use either of them anytime I want. Except, of course when I'm waiting for a restaurant delivery...

                And no, I don't take my computer into the shower with me.

                I'm relatively waterproof. My computer isn't. Linux doesn't make computers waterproof.

  • (Score: 2) by looorg on Friday June 04 2021, @10:39AM (1 child)

    by looorg (578) on Friday June 04 2021, @10:39AM (#1141727)

    So nobody thought that it was a bit odd that the test board had a gigantic white box (as opposed to the standard black box) on it looking like some remnant of a long gone era? When you need a gigantic fan like that to cool your box ...

    How does it differentiate between an attack and a legitimate use? Does it work from both outside requests and things that eventually gets onboard to? I would think a lot of uses where a 10% slowdown would be ok if they just know it worked 100% of the time.

    With that in mind "unhackable" gets "hackable" eventually and then what will they be if all other security have gone the way of the dodo in exchange for this one super system?

    • (Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday June 05 2021, @09:15PM

      by edIII (791) on Saturday June 05 2021, @09:15PM (#1142150)

      I think the only truly unhackable system may be something based on quantum principles. Although that being said, I also don't rule out that further discoveries find vulnerabilities in those systems too. Information leakage in other dimensions and ways we've not even begun to conceive of.

      The only other system is one in which all actions on all machines are strictly monitored and regulated. Then hacking is meaningless if you're being beaten with a crowbar several hours later. I think it was Gene Hackman in some movie that said something like, "Stealing Wrigley Field is easy. Getting away with it is something else"

      Which is why the best response from U.S corporations is to pay the ransom, but then quietly offer the same amount to have the hackers assassinated. Or in other words, pay the Yakuza 10 million dollars to cut the fingers off anybody stupid enough to hack systems under their protection.

      --
      Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
  • (Score: 3, Funny) by SomeGuy on Friday June 04 2021, @11:19AM (6 children)

    by SomeGuy (5632) on Friday June 04 2021, @11:19AM (#1141736)

    it'll completely change before they have a chance to act on it.

    So in other words, it is an Apple product?

    • (Score: 2) by Tork on Friday June 04 2021, @02:35PM (5 children)

      by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 04 2021, @02:35PM (#1141778)
      I'm not getting the reference, could someone explain it? (Sorry, haven't had my coffee yet.) I thought the stereotype was that Apple's announcements are never exciting because accurate leaks happened months before.
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      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by vux984 on Friday June 04 2021, @03:39PM (4 children)

        by vux984 (5045) on Friday June 04 2021, @03:39PM (#1141800)

        Could be a couple things, my money is on Apple being pretty infamous for not giving a shit about backwards compatibility, and forcing you to buy new peripherals, new software, and whatever constantly.

        • (Score: 2) by Tork on Friday June 04 2021, @03:42PM

          by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 04 2021, @03:42PM (#1141801)
          Ah, it's a joke aimed at uninformed people. Got it, thank you!
          --
          🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
        • (Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @04:28PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @04:28PM (#1141824)

          All the complaints about Apple's lack of backwards compatability are bullshit. Yeah, they stopped supporting the really old shit and stopped including the emulator for Mac OS 9, it's such a big deal.

          • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Tork on Friday June 04 2021, @05:15PM (1 child)

            by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 04 2021, @05:15PM (#1141838)
            They also, unlike Microsoft, changed processor architectures. There are certain realities to that where some (not all) of the complaints are disingenuous. For example: Old 32-bit iOS apps won't work on modern versions of iOS. There was a hard cutoff at some point, the reason for this being lazy developers eating up the mobile-devices' batteries instead of properly re-compiling. Oh and that hard cutoff happened after two versions of the OS warned you of what was coming.

            There's sort of a point about peripherals. I have a Macbook Pro that only has USB-C ports. So yeah, I've got dongles. You know what I also have? Other devices that use those dongles, my iPad for example. My laptop has a bunch of shit plugged into it and NONE of it is Apple branded and that includes the power supply. Frankly I'm not too excited about the rumored successor that sacrifices one of these ports for a card-reader. I have an old laptop with a built in smartmedia port, what use is that anymore other than something that can decay and take the rest of the laptop with it?

            I have no idea what the 'new software' is about. There is no OSX-Ultimate or whatever you can purchase, Apple's OS is free (but only designed to run on their hardware, so not like Linux is free.) You also, out of the box, get the Apple equivalent of Office. Word processor, spreadsheets, slide presentation, and something else that's not immediately springing to mind right now. (they also work really well on the mobile devices which includes syncing files over iCloud)

            The dumb thing is there is PLENTY of actual things to criticize Apple for, not sure why we need to devolve into this shallow Slashdottian caricature of what the Apple products are really like. Frankly I suspect Slashdot fosters this sort of nonsense to spin their ad-counter.
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            • (Score: 2) by vux984 on Tuesday June 08 2021, @06:25PM

              by vux984 (5045) on Tuesday June 08 2021, @06:25PM (#1143233)

              "There's sort of a point about peripherals."

              In a world where 100% of modern boardrooms and hotel business centers have HDMI, Apple doesn't make a pro laptop with an HDMI connector. Displayport would be OK, as most places will have adapters now, but USBC for video is still pretty obscure by comparison.
              In a world where the VAST majority of usb devices still in active use have a USB A connector or came with a USB A cable, Apple doesn't make a pro laptop with a USB A port. Fuck off. Just fuck off. That's not helpful.
              I wouldn't blink if just the macbook air didn't have these ports, but you can't buy an apple laptop that does and that's simply not catering to what a very sizeable number of users actually want. Nobody wants dongles. Sometimes they're necessary and nobody expects a laptop to have every old and obscure connector you might want but USB A is is not just still active, but still dominant.

              And this is not a one off. Apple has consistently retired peripheral support while it was still being used. The original imac is pretty much legendary in how it dropped support for absolutely every peripheral users already had, and went all in on USB. It was also the first mac with a USB port practically gauranteeing that NO mac users already had any usb gear. Every single peripheral mac owners currently owned (modems, printers, scanners, keyboards, tablet/pen inputs, zip drives, external hard drives, etc) wouldn't work with it out of the box. There was no transitional period at all.

              "I have no idea what the 'new software' is about"

              I don't use any software that comes with macOS, it's all worthless shovel-ware as far I'm concerned; like PC's bundled with MS Works.

              Apple is far more aggressive about retiring and eliminating APIs and legacy support features which breaks a lot of older stuff. I have plenty of games on steam for example that ran on macOS when i bought them but broke over the various macOS releases. (And NOT due to CPU architecture changes) likewise i have several 3rd party apps that have the same issue, and new versions or alternatives are regularly required not for new features, but just to keep it working at all.

              Say what you want but it's pretty telling that the latest build of Windows 10 runs on macs that apple won't let you install macOS on. It not like Microsoft is putting in any serious effort to keep old macbook pros working.

              There ARE plenty of things to criticize apple for, and these are certainly NOT the most egregious issues, but lets not pretend they don't exist.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @12:21PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 04 2021, @12:21PM (#1141745)

    The IEEE article is somewhat closer to the hard physical reality:
    https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/semiconductors/processors/morpheus-turns-a-cpu-into-a-rubiks-cube-to-defeat-hackers [ieee.org]
    The actual publication is open-access, luckily:
    https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3297858.3304037 [acm.org]
    As I understood it, the actual idea is to store each pointer in two separate locations; the regular variable holds an encrypted value, and the corresponding cell in the so-called "tags table" holds the decryption key for it; and the key the chip uses for storing pointers is changed several times a second.

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