20 Mar
1999
20 Mar
'99
4:18 p.m.
If the ART chips that drive the serial ports are gone, they won't work no
matter what it used to access them.
--
-Jason Willgruber
(roblwill(a)usaor.net)
ICQ#: 1730318
<http://members.tripod.com/general_1>
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-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Smith <eric(a)brouhaha.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Friday, March 19, 1999 10:25 PM
Subject: Re: Security question (sort of)
Jason wrote:
programmer,
A virus planted by a hacker can damage hardware
by "eating" at the chips,
I'm not a virus expert, but I am an experienced embedded systems and have done some hardware design. That said, this
claim sounds
completely
ridiculous to me, on par with an urban legend. Care to
explain this from a
electronics (or physics, or chemistry) point of view?
trash
or just scrambling the code in the chip.
In a flash BIOS, maybe, although that would be tend to be specific to a
certain motherboard. There's no general way to write a virus that can the BIOS on any arbitrary motherboard, because unlike
much of the
"PC standard", there is not a stanard for how the flash BIOS programming
works. Different motherboards use different types of flash chips that
have different programming requirements.
I've never yet heard of a virus doing this, although I'll concede that it
is
possible. Decent motherboards require you to
physically move a jumper in
order to enable programming the BIOS, to prevent exactly this kind of
problem.
However, changing the BIOS such that the machine still booted but simply
didn't have INT 13 serial support wouldn't prevent all software from
using the serial port. Most software these days doesn't even bother to
go through the BIOS to access the ports, because (1) the BIOS interface
is incredibly lame, and (2) on some machines the BIOS functions don't even
work correctly.
microcontroller,
(I know someone (Ironically, it's the sister
of the person that did this
to my computer), who's keyboard controller chip got scrambled.
Sounds like a complete coincidence to me. Except for exotic (and fairly
expensive) keyboards, the firmware is in masked ROM inside a and there is no way to modify it without physically
replacing the chip.
Eric
20 Mar
20 Mar
2:10 p.m.
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2:34 p.m.
On Sun, 21 Mar 1999, Tony Duell wrote:
The problem is, I can't think of a single way to
damage any UART chip by
programming it. I've read the data sheets for quite a lot of standard (and
obscure) serial chips and there is no way to damage them...
For one thing, maybe Jason had a coincidental power surge? Certainly not
impossible. One of my computers has a fried serial port because I was
holding the mouse while wiping the screen with my hand. The static from
the screen jumped right through to the serial port (at any rate, I saw a
spark leaping from my finger to the mouse).
--Max Eskin (max82(a)surfree.com)
6:09 p.m.
Date sent: Sat, 20 Mar 1999 20:34:02 -0500 (EST)
Send reply to: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu
From: Max Eskin <max82(a)surfree.com>
To: "Discussion re-collecting of classic computers"
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Security question (sort of)
Originally to: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
On Sun, 21 Mar 1999, Tony Duell wrote:
>The problem is, I can't think of a single way to damage any UART chip by
>programming it. I've read the data sheets for quite a lot of standard
>(and obscure) serial chips and there is no way to damage them...
Uh, uhuh... can anyone still their assummpations and endless
debates about which OSes is good for a second? Some have good
points but let's face this, some chipsets and CPU's can be blown
by "overrevving" and been done before in rare cases. And that
sounds like Jason might had it happen to him via backorifice
infected system or similar methods. Too bad Jason's case is less
certain because he erased the HD without a careful fine tooth thru
it to find out how that came about.
PnP on all the cards are modifiable plus the bios (PnP muddles
with it by PnP bios and again by Win9x if configured improperly.
Write protected jumper is really a bad joke only protects the boot
area on bios, what worse, M$ decreed that no jumpers of certain
items be used on current boards of last 2 years and future so it's
wide open now. :-(
That is true of boards out there currently without any hardware
jumpers to protect the bios.
For one thing, maybe Jason had a coincidental power surge? Certainly not
spark leaping from my finger to the mouse).
That is another possible way to hose that chipset.
Happened to me once on a beloved Asus 'TP4XEG board but I was
able to swap the SMD I/O chip for another off a 5 dolllar junkyard
board special.
--Max Eskin (max82(a)surfree.com)
To Jason, try to avoid recontacting the "viruii" on your data stuff,
remove everything, take your bios ic out and do the hot swap
reflash on a known working system. Take the CMOS coin out,
short the battery contacts and short all the chips with grounded
blunt metallic object few times around and finally check that stupid
PSU for -5V and -12V. Then put the coin back in, and a good bios,
HD's and cards left out outside of computer system, power up and
see if you can re-enable and test the serial/parallel ports.
All Dallas style and clones based on this with internal battery
backed IC requires PSU in place and CMOS clear jumper in place
and blip on the power for 5 seconds then power off, pull the that
jumper. to clear the CMOS contents.
cih viruii is known to mess up the bios as well.
BTW, what model of that system or what brand or model of that
board that that has conked out i/o ports? Details please! Intel is
infamous for using nonstandard NVRAM on many of their boards.
:-(
If you have any sick PnP cards, see if you can clear it out by
resetting the settings or exhange them where you got those parts
from.
Wizard
2:19 p.m.
"Jason Willgruber" <roblwill(a)usaor.net> wrote:
If the ART chips that drive the serial ports are gone,
they won't work no
matter what it used to access them.
What are "ART" chips? I've never heard of them, and apparently none of
my serial ports have them.
And if your serial ports do have ART chips, how is it that a software
virus managed to remove them?
3:42 p.m.
New subject: Ebay suspect?
As a lurker on this list for many months, the general discussion revolving
around Ebay is amusing in some respects.
Those that are trying to make money from their collections are behind it.
Those that are trying to make a monument are against it.
Both views are valid but.... contradictory positions.
So....
Which one of you hacked Ebay's site ? :)
jax(a)tvec.net
5:02 p.m.
New subject: Ebay suspect?
I might have been unnecessarily vague on this post, goto
http://www.excite.com/computers_and_internet/tech_news/wired/?article=/news/
r/990320/00/net-ebay.inp
the story is there.
Fess up, which one of you guys did it ?
At 08:42 PM 03/20/1999 -0600, I wrote:
As a lurker on this list for many months, the general
discussion revolving
around Ebay is amusing in some respects.
Those that are trying to make money from their collections are behind it.
Those that are trying to make a monument are against it.
Both views are valid but.... contradictory positions.
So....
Which one of you hacked Ebay's site ? :)
jax(a)tvec.net
jax(a)tvec.net
5:33 p.m.
New subject: Ebay suspect?
On 20 Mar 99 at 22:02, jax wrote:
I might have been unnecessarily vague on this post,
goto
http://www.excite.com/computers_and_internet/tech_news/wired/?article=/news/
r/990320/00/net-ebay.inp
the story is there.
Fess up, which one of you guys did it ?
At 08:42 PM 03/20/1999 -0600, I wrote:
>As a lurker on this list for many months, the general discussion revolving
>around Ebay is amusing in some respects.
>
>Those that are trying to make money from their collections are behind it.
>
>Those that are trying to make a monument are against it.
>
>Both views are valid but.... contradictory positions.
>
>So....
>
>
>Which one of you hacked Ebay's site ? :)
>
>
>
> jax(a)tvec.net
>
Now we know why Yowza's disappeared. :^))
ciao larry
lwalker(a)interlog.com
4:09 p.m.
New subject: OT: Re: Security question (sort of)
On Sat, 20 Mar 1999, Jason Willgruber wrote:
If the ART chips that drive the serial ports are gone,
they won't work no
matter what it used to access them.
So you're saying this guy came over to your place with a screwdriver and
dykes and physically removed the UARTs from your PC?
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
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9252
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9 comments
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participants (9)
-
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
dastar＠ncal.verio.com -
eric＠brouhaha.com -
jax＠tvec.net -
joe＠barrera.org -
jpero＠cgocable.net -
lwalker＠mail.interlog.com -
max82＠surfree.com -
roblwill＠usaor.net