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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

#121

Post by leroy_masochist »

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…

> 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).

Meh. I'm a former SIGINT guy and I think that democracy is well-served by investigative journalists (who are not cleared and have no ethical obligation to protect classified information) trying to dig up the classified details of sources and methods that are ultimately being employed in the taxpaying citizens' name.

Clearly there are going to be times when the intel community is going to have sharp differences of opinion about what the public needs to know, e.g. with the Snowden-related disclosures or whatever else. The point is that continued journalistic attempts to divulge the details of classified programs constitutes an effective check on the potential excesses of these programs and has the additional salutatory effect of making people in the intel community more OPSEC-conscious.

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

#122

Post by SahAssar »

dragonwriter wrote: post #106
mcphage wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would expect that if it's fabricated, Bloomberg will have to face a slew of defamation suits from the named companies. I'm not sure defamation is the right word here—"X was attacked by a foreign government" isn't defamation.

It could be. Particularly of the foreign government, but also of the supposed target especially if security of the kind that was claimed to be compromised is key to their business reputation.

Just think of the repercussions if that was proven to be true. Any company could sue any reporter for reporting that they had a exploit, true or not.

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

#123

Post by moretosee »

parliament32 wrote: post #14

Interesting tidbit from the linked twitter post: "Something is wrong. Blanket denials from companies, NCSC and DHS are v. unusual. The only precedent for this is a 2014 Bloomberg article, by the same author, which claimed NSA exploited Heartbleed, and was vigorously knocked down with zero follow up by Bloomberg or correction." https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth

Bloomberg has no credibility. ZERO.

the freedom in U.S.A is: freedom of fake news. no any consequences. like Colin Powell made his Iraq presentation at the United Nations.

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

#124

Post by appleiigs »

rconti wrote: post #89
appleiigs wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..."

I bet there aren't many people who have access to Tim. And not many people who have access to people who have access to Tim, and so on.

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

#125

Post by jessaustin »

IBM wrote: post #79
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…

What they denied was that the servers were used in production. They also said they didn't find the firmware on the server as shipped from Supermicro, it was downloaded from their website [1]. >Update: A source familiar with the case at Apple told Ars that the compromised firmware affected servers in Apple's design lab, and not active Siri servers. The firmware, according to the source, was downloaded directly from Su…

That is neither a confirmation nor a denial, although it is obnoxious. Who is this guy, Chairman of the Fed? A simple "I can't comment on ongoing investigations" would have sufficed. Instead, he's warning Congress about their reading habits? It sounds like something JEH would have said...

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

#126

Post by cmurf »

Shades of Operation Mockingbird (1953), and "The CIA and the Media". http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php

Of course, whether the story is true or not matters, but at least as important is who Bloomberg's source is - as that goes to motive for releasing this information (true or false). And it isn't just Bloomberg who will be asking these kinds of questions.

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

#127

Post by jessaustin »

GrinningFool wrote: post #96
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…

I would expect that if it's fabricated, Bloomberg will have to face a slew of defamation suits from the named companies. If it's real, the absence of those suits may tell us something too...

One element of such a case would be showing that the claims are untrue. Discovery on that question would dig deep into all sorts of areas that no one besides Bloomberg would want dug into.

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

#128

Post by why_only_15 »

tw1010 wrote: post #15

Has anyone written a blog about the game theory of this whole ordeal? Feels a bit like the snowdrift game.

I feel like we don't really know enough what is happening. It is very possible, as another commenter mentioned, that both sides are acting in good faith.

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

#129

Post by stochastic_monk »

mtgx wrote: post #114
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…

Still waiting for WashPost to disclose their owner's deals with the CIA whenever it publishes a post about the CIA...

There’s also that one time they published 16 anti-Sanders articles in 16 hours, probably because his ideas would reduce Amazon’s profits. [0]

[0] https://www.democracynow.org/2016/3/11/headlines/washington_...

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

#130

Post by krn »

sandyarmstrong wrote: post #47
parliament32 wrote: post #14

Interesting tidbit from the linked twitter post: "Something is wrong. Blanket denials from companies, NCSC and DHS are v. unusual. The only precedent for this is a 2014 Bloomberg article, by the same author, which claimed NSA exploited Heartbleed, and was vigorously knocked down with zero follow up by Bloomberg or correction." https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth

For the lazy: https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/104901890298483507...

I think it's in the best interest of the US not to turn this case into international relations nightmare.

> I mean, this is just intense now. On record statements from four different huge players in this field, clearly and forcefully stating there was no hardware-based backdoor inserted by PLA with regard to Apple and Amazon.

https://twitter.com/hatr/status/1048859348489916417

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