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All of the people who think that Apple is being misled coerced by the government into denying factual reports, I want to know how that belief is squared with the _lack_ of a retraction. If the government is powerful enough to get Apple to go to these lengths in defense of a falsehood, why can't they convince Bloomberg to retract?
if you doubt this information, look on youtube for 'chip decapping defcon' and see how 2 british persons show how they do this kind of assurance work and show how people have already found these kind of implants many many many times before.!
Because barring a Stephen Glass scenario, what's fascinating here is that no matter which side is right, this is evidence of some sort of mysterious power play.
Either Apple was hacked, they know, and are denying, which is evidence of them being under the thumb of U.S. national security.
Or, they were hacked and an internal team knows and Cook doesn't, which is evidence of U.S. national security having powerful influence inside of Apple.
Or, they weren't hacked, and Bloomberg is doubling down, which at this point would mean that someone has successfully hacked their journalistic verification processes to an extreme level.
In all three of those cases, it points to a level of attacker competence that I'm not normally inclined to believe in.
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…
There is no reason to believe than Tim Cook or any executive would be aware of anything. In large companies with a hundred thousand employees and contractors, barely anyone is aware of anything. Ask a thousand people about project something and they will assert in good faith that they have never heard of it. It doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, just that you didn't find the handful of people who knows about it.
It's up to Bloomberg to prove their hypothesis is true, but don't see how Apple can say it's without a doubt untrue.
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…
In a context where the geopolitical and commercial forces would all strongly prefer that such things never come to light, I'm on the side of more sunlight, not less.
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 reall…
This is really hard to believe. An engineer who found this bug at Apple would most likely be praised for finding it. It is a huge discovery. What motivation would he have to not tell his manager?
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.
To make an analogy: What if a newspaper was given sensitive personal information about someone that was legal to publish, but could have damaging effects to that person and the population as a whole if published too soon? Do newspapers have a civic responsibility to hold off on publishing information that would only be damaging to everyone (at least until it's safe to do so)?
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…
Hold on. If a reporter is uncovers hostile, state-sponsored corporate espionage in extant, US hardware, it's "shockingly irresponsible" to report that? The putative fact that our supply chain is so totally compromised is immediately relevant to everyone. I'm sorry-not-sorry if that's inconvenient for the FBI and Tim Cook. In a context where the geopolitical and commercial forces would all strongly prefer that such th…
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.
It's all just speculation but this seems like the exact kind of story you would want in order to pass some legislation to prevent foreign manufactured chips being used by USG.
Heck, just the HN replies to previous discussion on this story had some comments from people who had jobs for a while detecting espionage on their boards, which were created precisely because some was found prior to that. For instance: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18138699 You could make more hay with that story than a faked-up one. There's no need to lie for propaganda's sake, because the truth would be more than adequate! (The propaganda element would be in the spin and claims about the scale of the problem, not the brute facts, which certainly exist.)
If this ever was government propaganda, they changed their mind before finishing the job and hung Bloomberg out to dry.
At the moment, the best theory that seems to fit all the facts, including the comments from people who were interviewed for the story, is a not-sufficiently-technical reporter very motivated to tell this story (perhaps because of the reward for stories that move the markets?) who compounded confusion upon confusion in a domain they were suffering from Dunning-Kruger until they were able to write that story. And presumably, similar problems in the fact-checking and editorial staff. I'm still not guaranteeing this, but I'm giving it at least 75% at this point.