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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

#81

Post by tobr »

mrb wrote: post #52

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/artic…

If you read the The Information article[1], an Apple spokesperson says that Apple was “not aware of...infected firmware found on the servers purchased from this vendor”, but they’re not really denying that there was some kind of incident.

1: https://www.theinformation.com/articles/apple-severed-ties-w...

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

#82

Post by Pharmakon »

appleiigs wrote: post #48

What happens to Tim Cook if Bloomberg is correct?

He utterly loses the confidence of his shareholders and customers, and probably leaves Apple. I don’t know if this story is true or not, but I doubt he’s going to be in a position to be proven outright wrong. I’d he were, I think he’d be keeping shtum.

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

#83

Post by donarb »

mrb wrote: post #52

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/artic…

Why would you type just part of the quote from Apple?

"Our best guess is that they are confusing their story with a previously-reported 2016 incident in which we discovered an infected driver on a single Super Micro server in one of our labs. That one-time event was determined to be accidental and not a targeted attack against Apple."

And the AppleInsider article was updated to reflect the information that Apple provided in its press release. So there's no there there.

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

#84

Post by jim-greer »

apeace wrote: post #56

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…

It wouldn't be one engineer. Bloomberg says that they have three senior sources inside Apple.

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

#85

Post by electrograv »

jstanley wrote: post #72
electrograv wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not trying to argue that Bloomberg did anything illegal, so lets stay away from that red herring. I'm talking about whether their action was morally right; granted, morality and civic duty is a much more ambiguous topic, and I'm open to the possibility that my position is incorrect here. To make an analogy: What if a newspaper was given sensitive personal information about someone that was legal to publish, but c…

Private people can have secrets, the government shouldn't. I don't think they did anything immoral by publishing (unless they believed what they wrote to be false).

> Private people can have secrets, the government shouldn't.

That's a rather extreme claim, isn't it?

Are you saying that governments should widely publish all defense research? Are you saying governments should widely publish and distribute military plans before putting them into action? Are you saying governments should publish the locations of all defensive and offensive weaponry, as well as constant position updates of all military submarines?

That kind of openness would be suicidal. I agree that governments should encourage transparency, but not when that transparency would endanger lives etc.

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

#86

Post by kickopotomus »

user5994461 wrote: post #39
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…

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.

Yeah, that is typically the case, sure. But you are comparing business-as-usual operations to an incident investigation. Sure, Tim Cook likely new nothing or very little about the organization's business dealings with Super Micro before the story broke, but not now. If this story is true, the implications for Apple are huge. It makes them look inept and creates a large problem that must be solved. Tim Cook would be very aware of any potential problem at this point.

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

#88

Post by avip »

aero142 wrote: post #28
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.

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.

It's also "the exact kind of story you would want" in order to:

  - PR a HW verification firm.
  - manipulate a stock
  - and many more

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

#89

Post by rconti »

appleiigs wrote: post #64
user5994461 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm flabbergasted that you are being downvoted. I have the same opinion as you, but to the point where i think it's almost fact... executives at a company that size (# of employees) don't know anything. 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.

You mean, there haven't been a few weeks for someone, ANYONE at Apple to say "hey, Tim, you know, about that hack..."
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