Author Topic: Laser-ing the IC markings off on a budget.  (Read 11959 times)

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Offline Alex Eisenhut

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Re: Laser-ing the IC markings off on a budget.
« Reply #25 on: March 23, 2021, 12:20:17 pm »
Another troll?
Since when are ICs made out of metal?

Troll yourself.

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Offline beanflying

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Re: Laser-ing the IC markings off on a budget.
« Reply #26 on: March 23, 2021, 12:39:56 pm »
Another troll?
Since when are ICs made out of metal?

Troll yourself.



Clearly that just makes you a USELESS Smartass then rather than a troll  :palm:

IQ's also come in Ceramic encapsulation along with metal and these total likely way less than 1% of use cases in modern devices. If there is a Metal Case no way I would be hitting the likely delicate internals with anything but TLC and extreme care.
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Offline Simon

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Re: Laser-ing the IC markings off on a budget.
« Reply #27 on: March 23, 2021, 01:05:44 pm »
Another troll?
Since when are ICs made out of metal?

Have you quite finished? You are free to ask questions but not dictate what the responses are. / end of moderator comment.

Protecting from reverse engineering is almost pointless as I told my employer when I came up with an idea that was simple. If the product is that simple why even bother to reverse engineer it? Just design something that does the same and make it cheaper...... you can design stuff faster than you can reverse engineer unless it is some real gem of technological breakthrough.

What also makes a product unique and not worth copying is your position in the market. Is it niche, if it is then there is not much point putting the effort into reversing it or replicating the same functionality. Bit of sand paper on the end of a finger is all you need.

If the device has code then just lock access to the chip. Then most won't even bother and those that will, it will be pointless trying to stop....
 
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Offline mnementh

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Re: Laser-ing the IC markings off on a budget.
« Reply #28 on: March 23, 2021, 05:21:26 pm »
...Is it niche, if it is then there is not much point putting the effort into reversing it or replicating the same functionality. Bit of sand paper on the end of a finger is all you need.

Okay... I've sanded off all my fingerprints... what next...?  :o

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Offline Simon

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Re: Laser-ing the IC markings off on a budget.
« Reply #29 on: March 23, 2021, 05:29:27 pm »
Your supposed to use the sand paper round the other way :)
 

Offline mnementh

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Re: Laser-ing the IC markings off on a budget.
« Reply #30 on: March 23, 2021, 05:38:27 pm »
I blame the tech reference supplied with this service procedure.   ;)

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Offline SilverSolder

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Re: Laser-ing the IC markings off on a budget.
« Reply #31 on: March 23, 2021, 05:40:48 pm »

How hard is it for someone who really wants it, to identify a chip even if the markings have been blitzed?
 

Offline Simon

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Re: Laser-ing the IC markings off on a budget.
« Reply #32 on: March 23, 2021, 05:41:31 pm »
I blame the tech reference supplied with this service procedure.   ;)

mnem
 >:D

Hey, I once had to do a rework instruction for a customer which literally read: remove the screws, lift lid and rotate 90 degrees, place lid on base. Re-insert screws..... |O

Basically they did not want to admit that they had been inside it and they put the lid back on wrong so it went political.
 
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Offline mnementh

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Re: Laser-ing the IC markings off on a budget.
« Reply #33 on: March 23, 2021, 05:54:42 pm »
Addendum: Remove screws. Lift lid. Locate and remove screws dropped inside unit. Rotate lid 180°. Reinstall lid. Reinstall all screws. :-DD

mnem
« Last Edit: March 23, 2021, 06:03:05 pm by mnementh »
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Offline Syntax Error

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Re: Laser-ing the IC markings off on a budget.
« Reply #34 on: March 23, 2021, 06:23:28 pm »
I am sure if the OP posted the schematic minus values to the EEVBlog Forum, it would take about six hours before someone not only identifies the parts but, suggests improvements!

There is no counter measure to the reverse engineering of physical hardware. Afterall, it's how many young EEs learn to be ancient EEs. 'Probbing' with a multimeter is also the bed rock for developer communities such as OpenWRT.

Even if you burried the tracks inside a multi layer board, someone somewhere (in China) is going to xray the board and have an Altium clone out by next Tuesday.

You can ask the chip vendor to send 'black box' chips with pre-flashed firmware and the SPI and Jtag pins dead, but then they might insist on a MOQ of 10,000 units. So try floating that concept past middle managers suffering budget fear.
« Last Edit: March 23, 2021, 06:32:38 pm by Syntax Error »
 

Offline Simon

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Re: Laser-ing the IC markings off on a budget.
« Reply #35 on: March 23, 2021, 06:26:53 pm »
You could set the reset pin of the micro controller if there is one to be an IO pin which will disable any ICSP but they can still try high voltage so may as well just lock access to read out the code.
 

Offline Syntax Error

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Re: Laser-ing the IC markings off on a budget.
« Reply #36 on: March 23, 2021, 06:42:37 pm »
I suppose the question really is, what is the intellectual property that needs protecting, the hardware or the firmware? Even if the firmware in flash is obscurated or even encrypted, that just makes life more difficult for an attacker, not impossible.

That said, an external encrypted EEPROM may be what the OP needs?

"Use an External Encrypted EEPROM to Secure Data in Embedded Systems":
https://www.digikey.com/en/articles/use-external-encrypted-eeprom--secure-data-embedded-systems
 
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Offline Simon

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Re: Laser-ing the IC markings off on a budget.
« Reply #37 on: March 23, 2021, 06:44:31 pm »
by the sounds of it the OP needs to deal with some managers that are not very grown up and don't know what they are dealing with or understand the real world.
 
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Offline Alex Eisenhut

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Re: Laser-ing the IC markings off on a budget.
« Reply #38 on: March 23, 2021, 06:56:19 pm »
In the 1980s hackers were able to break Videocipher by drilling holes into the chip package to probe signals on the die. So if a handful of pre-internet hackers were able to outwit a corporation, as an individual or small company, you don't stand a chance.

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1987-01-25-8701050839-story.html

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Offline Simon

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Re: Laser-ing the IC markings off on a budget.
« Reply #39 on: March 23, 2021, 07:16:00 pm »
which is why I say just rub the numbers off with some sandpaper, if that don't stop them nothing will.
 
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Offline james_s

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Re: Laser-ing the IC markings off on a budget.
« Reply #40 on: March 23, 2021, 07:50:58 pm »
I think it's hilarious when companies sand the numbers off of parts. Nothing motivates me to reverse engineer something I would otherwise ignore than a feeble attempt at preventing one from doing so. Engineers love a challenge, and anyone who thinks sanding the numbers off of ICs does anything to prevent reverse engineering the device is completely delusional. If your gadget is worth copying, Chinese companies will be producing knockoffs in no time.
 
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Offline james_s

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Re: Laser-ing the IC markings off on a budget.
« Reply #41 on: March 23, 2021, 07:54:11 pm »
Even if you burried the tracks inside a multi layer board, someone somewhere (in China) is going to xray the board and have an Altium clone out by next Tuesday.


I have xrayed boards many times as a humble hobbyist. The equipment needed to do so is not expensive or difficult to acquire. Obviously it is necessary from a safety aspect to know what you're doing but it's not rocket science.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Laser-ing the IC markings off on a budget.
« Reply #42 on: March 23, 2021, 07:58:48 pm »
Thanks for advice but I didn't ask for alternative countermeasures or if it can still be reverse engineered or if it makes sense.
I asked if someone used laser and if yes what power of the laser is recommended.

It's very likely that nobody here knows because none of us have tried. Most of us know how utterly useless it is and have thus not bothered to experiment. Give it a try and see what happens. Post the results so the next person wanting to know can find the answer.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Laser-ing the IC markings off on a budget.
« Reply #43 on: March 23, 2021, 08:05:40 pm »

How hard is it for someone who really wants it, to identify a chip even if the markings have been blitzed?

Not very hard at all. I have reverse engineered a couple of different potted assemblies just by gaining access to the bottom of the PCB without ever seeing the top. I identified the ICs by the pinout, it was not difficult to determine that in one device there was a dual op-amp, a 555 and an opto-coupler. I couldn't get the exact part numbers from some of them but I could take an educated guess based on the characteristics of the device they were used in. The first thing I do is identify the power and ground pins, that tends to narrow things down quite a lot. Then look for stuff like clock crystals, filter networks, decoupling capacitors and try to figure out which pins are inputs and which are outputs, a lot of jellybean parts can be identified in minutes. If you are really stuck and don't mind sacrificing a device, there are services and even hobbyists who can de-cap the IC and photograph the die under a microscope which will yield clues as to what it is, occasionally the manufacture or even the part number is etched into the die.
 
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Offline Simon

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Re: Laser-ing the IC markings off on a budget.
« Reply #44 on: March 23, 2021, 09:01:37 pm »
Yea work had a subcontractor once who was utterly useless. He supplied a PWM generator to speed control motors, he sanded the number off. I took one look and was like, pin 6 and 2 are joined together, it's a 555, further easy clue was the level shifter and knowing that the 555 is 18V abs max clearly level shifting would be needed on a 555 for 24V so the chip not withstanding 24V was a further clue at a glance before even starting to draw it out.
 

Offline beanflying

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Re: Laser-ing the IC markings off on a budget.
« Reply #45 on: March 24, 2021, 12:16:17 am »
I don't think even the OP is under the illusion of what removing the markings from chips will and wont do. Anyone determined with the skills and time can figure there way through most circuits. Software protection makes a lot of sense by physical means but that is only a hurdle not a complete solution.

Even potting can be defeated, the first time I did this was on a depth sounder as a 16 year old where the potting (more of a thick 5-6mm coating) was I suspect part waterproofing and part design protection. Messy ugly but got in did the repair on a blown transistor.

Sanding markings off for 1-10 yep sure if you must but 100-1000 not likely and if you use rotary sanding gear you are at risk of static buildup and damage so just don't. A Laser makes far more sense and if a company goes down that path with the right one then they have plenty of other use cases.

Taking the markings off a jellybean 8 pin device is just too :wtf:
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Offline james_s

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Re: Laser-ing the IC markings off on a budget.
« Reply #46 on: March 24, 2021, 01:09:15 am »
Potting is easily defeated in many cases. I repaired a bunch of potted HeNe laser power supplies and even completely de-potted a couple of them by heating the epoxy until it softened and then scraping it off. I found I could also peel the layer off the bottom, desolder all the parts, then heat it up and peel the PCB off of the potted brick containing all the components and then heat that up and break it apart to get most of the parts out. The potting on those is done mostly for insulating reasons but the fact that they are all potted motivated me to reverse engineer several. I repaired a few of them too just by identifying the bad part from the bottom and then milling it out with an endmill and inserting a new part down in the hole.
 

Offline mnementh

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Re: Laser-ing the IC markings off on a budget.
« Reply #47 on: March 24, 2021, 03:45:47 am »
Mill the part smooth then laser-etch a in-house stock number which is "accidentally" similar to a completely unrelated part in a similar package. >:D

You know, like some devices I've seen that "accidentally" have a positive DC rail on a black wire, just for grins.  ;)

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Offline SilverSolder

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Re: Laser-ing the IC markings off on a budget.
« Reply #48 on: March 24, 2021, 04:16:51 am »
Potting is easily defeated in many cases. I repaired a bunch of potted HeNe laser power supplies and even completely de-potted a couple of them by heating the epoxy until it softened and then scraping it off. I found I could also peel the layer off the bottom, desolder all the parts, then heat it up and peel the PCB off of the potted brick containing all the components and then heat that up and break it apart to get most of the parts out. The potting on those is done mostly for insulating reasons but the fact that they are all potted motivated me to reverse engineer several. I repaired a few of them too just by identifying the bad part from the bottom and then milling it out with an endmill and inserting a new part down in the hole.

LOL keyhole surgery!  :D
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Laser-ing the IC markings off on a budget.
« Reply #49 on: March 24, 2021, 04:27:36 am »
Mill the part smooth then laser-etch a in-house stock number which is "accidentally" similar to a completely unrelated part in a similar package. >:D

Some early arcade games from the pre-microprocessor era did that. I saw a board that had a standard 74xx number on a part that was obviously a bipolar PROM. Just looking at the schematic you could see it was clearly the sprite ROM.
 


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