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Apple CEO Tim Cook Calling for Bloomberg to Retract Its Chinese Spy Chip Story

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Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook Calling for Bloomberg to Retract Its Chinese Spy Chip Story

#51

Post by electrograv »

I think Bloomberg was probably irresponsible to publish the Chinese spy chip story, whether it was true or false! Here's why:

* If the story is false, it's irresponsible because it causes severe monetary and reputational damage to companies that do not deserve it (e.g. Supermicro's stock is still down ~ 40%).

* If the story is true, it's a MAJOR breach of classified information from US intelligence operations; operations which I assume (without evidence to the contrary) are operating in good faith -- in the interest of the US and its citizens. Breaching classified information of such ongoing investigations to trace supply chains of spy chips could very well compromise those investigations (which would be irresponsible to risk).

So either way, it's irresponsible IMO.

P.S. IMO you cannot justify leaking this kind of info by comparing to Snowden, for example, because Snowden was a whistle-blower revealing information about operations that compromised citizens rights, which even congress was lied to about.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook Calling for Bloomberg to Retract Its Chinese Spy Chip Story

#52

Post by mrb »

In the past, Apple has lied about a severe security incident involving Super Micro hardware.

In 2016 Super Micro Senior Vice President of Technology himself said Apple found "infected firmware." It was so bad that Apple "discontinued future business [with Super Micro] as a result of a compromised internal development environment". Strangely Apple at the time was denying the whole thing: https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/02/23/server-firmware-s... But today, 2 years later, in a statement denying the current spy chip saga, Apple now appears to acknowledge this 2016 security incident, while minimizing it: they say it was "an infected driver on a single Super Micro server in one of our labs" (https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/10/what-businessweek-got...)

Why would Apple deny then 2 years later confirm this security incident?

As usual, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. It is very possible the anonymous sources at Apple who support the spy chip story are not technical persons and are confusing this 2016 incident with the spy chip incident (in fact it's what Apple theorizes in their statement.) It is very possible the spy chip does exist and was found at some companies, just not at Apple.

I also find it very interesting that the FBI, the one organization allegedly at the center of this saga investigating the spy chip, has remained completely silent, neither confirming nor denying the story.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook Calling for Bloomberg to Retract Its Chinese Spy Chip Story

#53

Post by MertsA »

Drdrdrq wrote: post #37
goshx wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have become a disappointment for me. A lot of misleading articles, paid promotional content, and so on. Now this one... I have blocked them completely from my social media and news sources.

Oh, so you know what the truth is in this case? Good for you! /s

Bloomberg listed a lot of entities in that article and every single one that wasn't anonymous has all but called Bloomberg outright frauds over it. They have all sorts of anonymous sources telling them anything and everything about this supposed plot yet none of them provided any shred of evidence to back up their claims.

Where's the smoking gun here? Why don't we have die shots of this thing? Why hasn't anyone on this very forum seen the C&C traffic from it phoning home to see if it was a target? Nothing about their explanation even seems remotely plausible. Why on earth would the attacker ever do something as obvious and annoying to deal with as what they supposedly did with altering the layout of the board and adding components instead of just backdooring the BMC? Are we supposed to believe that they were simultaneously competent enough to pull off Bloomberg's fairytale but too incompetent to have an altered BMC load backdoored firmware internally instead of off of an EEPROM chip on the board?

I'm not saying that we should rush to conclusions but Bloomberg has provided absolutely no sources with any shred of credibility. There's nothing to substantiate anything so why should the default stance be anything other than to consider that article a piece of cyberpunk fanfiction?

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook Calling for Bloomberg to Retract Its Chinese Spy Chip Story

#54

Post by twtw »

electrograv wrote: post #51

I think Bloomberg was probably irresponsible to publish the Chinese spy chip story, whether it was true or false! Here's why: * If the story is false , it's irresponsible because it causes severe monetary and reputational damage to companies that do not deserve it (e.g. Supermicro's stock is still down ~ 40% ). * If the story is true , it's a MAJOR breach of classified information from US intelligence operations; ope…

> may take a huge stock market and reputation hit

I think you can use the past tense here.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook Calling for Bloomberg to Retract Its Chinese Spy Chip Story

#55

Post by meowface »

buboard wrote: post #33
fhood wrote: post #9

Man, I am now 90% convinced that someone intentionally misled Bloomberg. It looks like this may end up being an extremely embarrassing episode for them.

Could it be foreign propaganda?

I would be surprised if Bloomberg fell for foreign propaganda. I don't think they'd write an article like this without American sources within, or related to, the companies involved.

It's possible there was a game of telephone or something else where the sources Bloomberg spoke with somehow ended up believing foreign propaganda, but I'm a bit skeptical of that.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook Calling for Bloomberg to Retract Its Chinese Spy Chip Story

#56

Post by apeace »

Is the following a possible explanation?

* Random Apple engineer finds the implant.

* Goes directly to FBI without telling boss at Apple.

* FBI gags the engineer, says "Do not even tell your boss about this, it's national security and we're handling it".

* Bloomberg catches wind of this (maybe the same engineer leaks to them?), publishes their story.

* Engineer is now freaked, goes back to FBI and says "Are you really sure I shouldn't tell by boss?" and they say "Yes, we're sure, you are legally bound to secrecy".

I don't know how security teams, the FBI, or national security work. But that's the only scenario that comes to my mind which would explain both sides being completely sure of their version of the story.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook Calling for Bloomberg to Retract Its Chinese Spy Chip Story

#58

Post by electrograv »

twtw wrote: post #54
electrograv wrote: post #51

I think Bloomberg was probably irresponsible to publish the Chinese spy chip story, whether it was true or false! Here's why: * If the story is false , it's irresponsible because it causes severe monetary and reputational damage to companies that do not deserve it (e.g. Supermicro's stock is still down ~ 40% ). * If the story is true , it's a MAJOR breach of classified information from US intelligence operations; ope…

> may take a huge stock market and reputation hit I think you can use the past tense here.

Fixed!

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook Calling for Bloomberg to Retract Its Chinese Spy Chip Story

#59

Post by IBM »

electrograv wrote: post #51

I think Bloomberg was probably irresponsible to publish the Chinese spy chip story, whether it was true or false! Here's why: * If the story is false , it's irresponsible because it causes severe monetary and reputational damage to companies that do not deserve it (e.g. Supermicro's stock is still down ~ 40% ). * If the story is true , it's a MAJOR breach of classified information from US intelligence operations; ope…

It's not irresponsible at all if the story is true. Bloomberg has no responsibility to Supermicro's stock (or anyone else's). They also aren't responsible for protecting classified information.

But the story probably isn't true.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook Calling for Bloomberg to Retract Its Chinese Spy Chip Story

#60

Post by abalone »

parliament32 wrote: post #19
stingraycharles wrote: post #8

It’s fascinating to see this story unfold. On one end you have Bloomberg doubling down on their claims, and here you have Apple making a move that shows their confidence in their claims. For a while I was buying the subpoena theory, but this action clearly doesn’t fall under that, and they would be setting themselves up for serious liability / damage claims if it were true. Either there is some gross miscommunication…

>Tim Cook is not properly informed - which is very unlikely at this point Humor me, why is this unlikely? Why is it not possible that (whatever three letter agency) grabbed a few engineers, told them to do X without talking to anyone else, at the risk of them and their families getting disappeared to a black site? Besides, in security controlled jobs it's perfectly normal to not be allowed to disclose what you're wor…

> Why is it not possible that (whatever three letter agency) grabbed a few engineers, told them to do X without talking to anyone else...

Even if that were possible it wouldn't account for all the discrepancies here. Bloomberg claimed that Apple worked with the FBI on an investigation and returned thousands of servers. Apple has strongly denied that which casts doubt on the rest of it as well.

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