asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: they could it as however many gates it is made of. and conveniently forget to mention that they can't be rewired using the switching matrix (only a rather smallish number of 'generic' gates can)
asciilifeform: 'This gift certificate entitles the bearer to 1 (one) of our latest model of our most popular sexecution device the VibrotineTM 6000 GSP.'
asciilifeform: not even pretending to bother to hide.
asciilifeform: today - no list. today all we have is loud, proud enemy, bragging about his deeds
asciilifeform: heuristic: 1) piece of shit? 2) mysteriously ubiquitous? 3) quickly? 4) author is socially connected to other derpers pushing similar items that match 1-4 ?
asciilifeform: another heuristic that invariably tells us where to dig.
asciilifeform: decimation: just as a cockroach in your kitchen means, inescapably, that not far from it there is a seething brown mass of his brothers.
asciilifeform: decimation: this is how you find them.
asciilifeform: decimation: available. 'ebay' for example.
asciilifeform: decimation: yes, bureaucrats demand some electrical tests to show that 'black' won't short to 'red' by accident.
asciilifeform: decimation: understand that this had no bearing on usg-triggered surprises.
asciilifeform: neither is 'open' in any sense whatsoever.
asciilifeform: 'xilinx' in particular brags of 'nsa certified' whatevers.
asciilifeform: both, afaik, market primarily to usg and subsidiaries
asciilifeform: to make long story short, there are exactly two vendors of 'high-density' fpga, and their products are almost exactly alike - more so even than 'coca cola' and 'pepsi.'
asciilifeform: it would be fairly simple to include a pattern match for 'magic bus cycle' or 'magic instruction' on built-in-cpu that will, e.g., short supply to ground.
asciilifeform: an unexpected cpu in the middle of fpga LUT fabric would stand out even under optical microscope.
asciilifeform: likewise, when people ponder 'chip boobytraps' they are normally thinking of a one-transistor turdlet that creates an 'evil instruction' or whatnot
asciilifeform: if satan is merely listening to your i/o, this is a listening device in the ordinary sense, and not really fpga-specific diddling
asciilifeform: in fact, even if satan lifts the entire netlist of your design, he will have to sweat a great deal to understand which bits to flip.
asciilifeform: counting a shifter as 'xxx gates' worth
asciilifeform: the vendors (there are exactly two worth mentioning, 'xilinx' and 'altera' - the others sell miniscule turdlets, most often with zero linux toolchain support) also play fast & loose with the word 'gate'
asciilifeform: you get a supply of adders, shifters, multipliers, etc.
asciilifeform: bounce: nope. most fpga work is carried out in units considerably larger than 'gate', from considerations of efficiency.
asciilifeform: bounce: search channel logs re: at least three separate discussions of how this came to be
asciilifeform: bounce: all the extant fpga have tightly closed architecture
asciilifeform: kakobrekla: and, in fact, should be presumed dead, and the fellow walking around with my key - ought to go on list.
asciilifeform: kakobrekla: if the item i am presently working on is not easily provable honest to an educated reader, then i will deserve to be placed on the list.
asciilifeform: decimation: at the moment, proven, proud, unrepentant вредители are 'respected faces of the komyooniti', doing as they please.
