There are quite a few Chinese (and Russian, not surprisingly...) companies who w...

thr0w__4w4y · on April 20, 2020

I've often wondered -- and perhaps you don't know the answer, or there is no one typical answer -- but, do these companies in Russia, China, etc., that one pays to break the chip, promise to not re-sell the extracted chip contents? (Or maybe we should just remember the saying "no honor amongst thieves")

I think the last time I looked into a service like this, they required that you send them multiple targets to attack because normally the attack is invasive / destructive, and they might need to "burn through a few" before they succeed. If you have any experience in this area, do you know if that still holds true?

Thanks. Sorry to punish your useful answer with more questions.

userbinator · on April 21, 2020

but, do these companies in Russia, China, etc., that one pays to break the chip, promise to not re-sell the extracted chip contents?

I don't know --- I imagine a lot of the time they wouldn't even know what equipment the chip came out of, and/or it's something extremely obscure, so it would be very hard to sell the contents.

I think the last time I looked into a service like this, they required that you send them multiple targets to attack because normally the attack is invasive / destructive, and they might need to "burn through a few" before they succeed. If you have any experience in this area, do you know if that still holds true?

If it's a new MCU they've not done before, they might ask for that --- to find where the protection fuses are. It doesn't have to be the actual one you want, just an example of a protected one along with the code it contains in order to "check their answers". That will cost quite a lot more than known-extractions, however.