Under normal circumstances, they can’t. But if they actually want to target you and they want to spend the time and resources, they could potentially send instructions to the backdoor to secretly sabotage the backup process:
Basically showing you that the backup is working, while in the background, it has been encrypting the files to a key they control during that backup process, and essentialy act as ransomware. (Modern computing has made hardware encryption so fast that it would be seamless, so it would be hard to notice that happening.)
So every time you check the backup’s integrity, it uses the key to unlock the files and show you “everything is fine”.
But when the time comes, they would nuke the keys from the Intel ME / AMD PSP then next time you try to access your files, you get an error message, then you try to plug in the backup drive, also shows errors. Because they already nuked the keys, you have a bunch of encrypted data you can’t access.
Sounds far fetched, but theoretically its possible.
Belarusian hackers apparently did pretty precisely this to the biggest airline in the Russia, Aeroflot. They had been doing something for a whole year that successfully disabled Aeroflot’s backups, and deleted everything from every computer belonging to that company. They no longer know who’s working for them, for example.
I’d assume they must’ve done pretty precisely what you just described. So, it has been done once. And it probably will be done again, somewhere.
Alternately, if you don’t live in China, Zhaoxin makes x86-64-compatible CPUs. No need to worry about the Chinese government/corpos helping the American government/corpos tyrannize it’s own citizens.
They’re not quite as good as intel/AMD in perf or effeciency/dollar.
I don’t think they can nuke files from my linux computer.
yeah, the funny and sad thing here is, that there are people in the world for whom “locally” means “in my phone”. 🤷♂️
Is your CPU open source? I bet you have a Intel ME or AMD PSP on your computer.
Yes, but how are they going to wipe my offline backups?
if a government or corporation or whoever is seeking to delete your personal files specifically, i think you have much bigger problems to worry about
A government isn’t going to care about your files outside of using them as evidence against you.
Naive
Under normal circumstances, they can’t. But if they actually want to target you and they want to spend the time and resources, they could potentially send instructions to the backdoor to secretly sabotage the backup process:
Basically showing you that the backup is working, while in the background, it has been encrypting the files to a key they control during that backup process, and essentialy act as ransomware. (Modern computing has made hardware encryption so fast that it would be seamless, so it would be hard to notice that happening.)
So every time you check the backup’s integrity, it uses the key to unlock the files and show you “everything is fine”.
But when the time comes, they would nuke the keys from the Intel ME / AMD PSP then next time you try to access your files, you get an error message, then you try to plug in the backup drive, also shows errors. Because they already nuked the keys, you have a bunch of encrypted data you can’t access.
Sounds far fetched, but theoretically its possible.
Belarusian hackers apparently did pretty precisely this to the biggest airline in the Russia, Aeroflot. They had been doing something for a whole year that successfully disabled Aeroflot’s backups, and deleted everything from every computer belonging to that company. They no longer know who’s working for them, for example.
I’d assume they must’ve done pretty precisely what you just described. So, it has been done once. And it probably will be done again, somewhere.
They would just as well nuke me litetally if we are that far down
Alternately, if you don’t live in China, Zhaoxin makes x86-64-compatible CPUs. No need to worry about the Chinese government/corpos helping the American government/corpos tyrannize it’s own citizens.
They’re not quite as good as intel/AMD in perf or effeciency/dollar.
well I’m happy I know those exist now but its a little scary what with everything else going on in the world.