[kuroguro]

Basically there's a master key that allows reading blocks that are supposed to be unreadable.

> put in there on purpose by the manufacturer

Hard to prove "on purpose" either way, my guess it was for debugging.

[wkat4242]

If they put it there for debugging it certainly qualifies as "on purpose". No matter what the reasoning behind it was.

[kuroguro]

Technically. I'm saying there's a huge difference between what a layman might read "large org conspires to spy" and a possible dull reality of "some engineer neglects to remove convenience feature".

[hulitu]

40 years ago, maybe. Today, no.

(but hey, taking Croudstrike into account, everything is possible)