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

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 7:12 PM UTC

abalone wrote: post #80

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…

In the past, these Bloomberg reporters have misreported on NSA exploiting Heartbleed. Here is the Washington Post giving them shit about it:[1] As for the 2016 incident, read Apple's denial more closely. They denied finding infected firmware on servers purchased from SuperMicro. What happened is someone in the design lab (not in production) downloaded infected firmware from SM's support site, where it was "still host…

Post by munificent » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 7:16 PM UTC

duskwuff wrote: post #71

manfredo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I concur. If it really is a chip being inserted on a board, then that's hard evidence that can be verified by cracking open the hardware and looking for said chip.

And Apple -- being, in part, a hardware company -- has extensive tools and expertise at their disposal to investigate any hardware abnormality. If they've concluded that everything is normal, I'm inclined to believe them.

Post by abalone » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 7:17 PM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #105

abalone wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the past, these Bloomberg reporters have misreported on NSA exploiting Heartbleed. Here is the Washington Post giving them shit about it:[1] As for the 2016 incident, read Apple's denial more closely. They denied finding infected firmware on servers purchased from SuperMicro. What happened is someone in the design lab (not in production) downloaded infected firmware from SM's support site, where it was "still host…

> someone in the design lab (not in production) downloaded infected firmware from SM's support site Other than the claim that the infected firmware is "still hosted there" (which beggars belief) that sounds more like an engineer was spearphished and fooled into downloading firmware from what he believed to be the SM support site.

Post by mtgx » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 7:19 PM UTC

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…

Post by moretosee » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 7:23 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #36

newscracker wrote: post #12

With all the strong denials so far, my guess is that heads are going to roll at Bloomberg and that there may be retractions. Worst case, Bloomberg gets caught as publishing fake news endangering entire countries and companies, and closes shop in shame. There’s too much at stake for Bloomberg here. Hopefully someone at the top at Bloomberg is taking this seriously and looking at some quick and decisive actions. These…

I'm fairly certain that both Bloomberg and the companies involved have a high degree of confidence that what they're saying is true and have sufficient facts to prove it. That confidence would seem to be misplaced on one side or the other. If anybody had any real doubt they'd let this story die.