Why can't the HDD vendors publish a md5/sha1 hash of the firmware so we know what the value should be?
If the NSA ( or anyone ) are going to modify the firmware and hide malicious or preparatory exploit code in that area, the end user will have little recourse post-exploit. Though, beforehand, if the HDD vendor published, for example: the md5/sha1 of the firmware the OS vendor could then write a "control panel" or application that the number has been entered/seeded by that vendor. If the hash on boot does not match the hash in storage, alert the user the drive has been hampered with. Alert the vendor, they send you a new drive, and you throw away the old drive.
I'm not entirely sure how to do this if they happen to not modify the firmware but instead just store in the areas wasted space. I can think that you would use sized to make values you could then hash. As long as the vendor knows the values of of what they did, those can always become keys to compare to make sure they have not been modified. ( I hope at the very least. I don't want a stalemate or a loss when it comes to this type of security, it has to be a win for the consumer. )
Is there any reason this approach wouldn't work? What other alternatives are there if they are writing to the firmware area of the HDD?
What if this were the firmware of the hardware itself. There are firmware(s) within your USB bus, wifi chipset, cpu chipset, keyboard chipset, display, power management, some cables, everywhere. Those can be leveraged individually or via a RAID style merging of all these firmware areas to give you, hundreds of MB of super difficult to locate storage space.
If no one is looking, you can get away with anything you want. And in this case, even if someone is looking, it will take a very good set of eyes a few times over, as it seems one voice is never loud enough to get the word out. Be prepared to go to jail for talking about any of their methods, even in a theoretical sense.
>Why can't the HDD vendors publish a md5/sha1 hash of the firmware so we know what the value should be?
Because the only way to actually verify the hash of the firmware is to connect to the drive's controller outside of the firmware's control with something like JTAG or a direct dump of the flash. Otherwise, the PC would send a command to ask the HD firmware what it's own hash is. The compromised HD firmware can then simply respond with a published vendor hash.
Why should the hard drive manufacturer send you a free replacement just because the hard drive firmware has changed? For all they know, you modified it yourself. Or are just lying about the problem.
If the NSA ( or anyone ) are going to modify the firmware and hide malicious or preparatory exploit code in that area, the end user will have little recourse post-exploit. Though, beforehand, if the HDD vendor published, for example: the md5/sha1 of the firmware the OS vendor could then write a "control panel" or application that the number has been entered/seeded by that vendor. If the hash on boot does not match the hash in storage, alert the user the drive has been hampered with. Alert the vendor, they send you a new drive, and you throw away the old drive.
I'm not entirely sure how to do this if they happen to not modify the firmware but instead just store in the areas wasted space. I can think that you would use sized to make values you could then hash. As long as the vendor knows the values of of what they did, those can always become keys to compare to make sure they have not been modified. ( I hope at the very least. I don't want a stalemate or a loss when it comes to this type of security, it has to be a win for the consumer. )
Is there any reason this approach wouldn't work? What other alternatives are there if they are writing to the firmware area of the HDD?
What if this were the firmware of the hardware itself. There are firmware(s) within your USB bus, wifi chipset, cpu chipset, keyboard chipset, display, power management, some cables, everywhere. Those can be leveraged individually or via a RAID style merging of all these firmware areas to give you, hundreds of MB of super difficult to locate storage space.
If no one is looking, you can get away with anything you want. And in this case, even if someone is looking, it will take a very good set of eyes a few times over, as it seems one voice is never loud enough to get the word out. Be prepared to go to jail for talking about any of their methods, even in a theoretical sense.