Apple CEO Tim Cook Calling for Bloomberg to Retract Its Chinese Spy Chip Story • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by htk » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 9:57 PM UTC

jmull wrote: post #195

So interesting. With a year of reporting on this story Bloomberg has a LOT of unpublished info. If they are correct they should have a ton of information to back up the claims in their story, including plenty of stuff to put the lie to some/many of the specific denials Apple has made. Maybe they are waiting, to let Apple hang itself with strong, detailed, public proclamations. Then, bam! They publish all their proof,…

They might have nothing, but even so, celebrate.[1]

[1]:https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2014/04/...

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

#202

Post by raarts » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 9:58 PM UTC

If the Chinese can infect hardware, and they obviously can, they could also infect phones. Where are phones manufactured? How easy would it be to move the manufactoring back to the US?

All this is a PR and business Armageddon.

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

#203

Post by bigbluedots » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 10:05 PM UTC

Now would be the time for Bloomberg to publish some of the hare evidence they have from the year-long investigation. Let's see it.

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

#204

Post by CamperBob2 » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 10:10 PM UTC

kakarot wrote: post #169

stephenr wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If there is something like a NSL involved, Apple's legal team would have already reviewed it. Apple's official statement clearly said, they're not under any form of NSL or gag order. The prevailing logic seems to be that US courts still believe the government can't force you to say something against your will, only prevent you from saying something.

I'm not saying I don't believe they could be telling the truth, but why should we should take their word for it?

Are you asking Apple, or Bloomberg?

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

#205

Post by GeorgeTirebiter » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 10:10 PM UTC

nil_pointer wrote: post #188

Tim Cook has called China the biggest and most important market for Apple. With this in mind, of course he wants the story retracted. Appeasing China is the most important thing for Apple. It definitely doesn't mean the Bloomberg story isn't true, though.

Exactly. Why hasn't Apple sued Bloomberg?

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

#206

Post by mark-r » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 10:11 PM UTC

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #186

emilfihlman wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bloomberg? Sounds more like Bloomberg was the messenger and is being silenced.

If Bloomberg was "being silenced," we...all wouldn't be talking about this. I'm aware how pedantic this may come across, but words matter, and in cases like this it seems dreadfully important not to fuel or even create conspiracy theories through carelessly (or perhaps carefully) chosen phrasing. It's possible that Bloomberg got everything right, and that the vigorous denials from the cited companies and the objectio…

Not silenced, but discredited. A preemptive strike against future exposes.

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

#207

Post by abalone » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 10:11 PM UTC

philipodonnell wrote: post #181

abalone wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI "still" meant as of the time of the follow-up reporting in 2016, not today. I think it's believable that SuperMicro's support site got hacked. But I agree that was an incident on par with a sole developer installing malware on their system, not a supply chain compromise or major security incident with production systems.

Isn't hacking the support site a supply chain compromise? Much discussion about software supply chain attacks was around the role of NPM as a vector, which can be thought of as a source of "drivers" that make various products and services work, similar to the role that a support site for a physical manufacturer plays.

I meant the supply chain for their data center. But I won’t split hairs.. yes support site compromise is a supplier problem and probably a factor in Apple shifting away. But clearly Apple had more protections in place for their production systems than what some dev installed in the design lab. So I think Apple’s denial is fair.

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

#208

Post by vmchale » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 10:13 PM UTC

tunesmith wrote: post #63

Is it precedented for a news organization to double down like this in the case where a reporter just makes stuff up Stephen Glass style? 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 secu…

> Either Apple was hacked, they know, and are denying, which is evidence of them being under the thumb of U.S. national security.

You'd think the accusers would be able to produce the chip if that were the case.

> 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.

More plausible but again - there should be hard evidence of this.

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

#209

Post by cronix » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 10:14 PM UTC

Let's just say the Bloomberg reporting is accurate for the sake of discussion. They claimed it wasn't ONLY Apple, but also the NSA, CIA, military and other critical defense/intelligence systems used some of these boards. Do we think those "entities" wouldn't do whatever they had to do in order to keep that secret, legal or not, to preserve national security? What would the public response be if everyone knew our major national security systems were breached? I think it would cause a panic immensely larger than if we knew Apple was breached.

I do agree with others that Apple has a hell of a lot to lose if this story proves to be true, but I think that's really more of a footnote compared to what will happen if the article proves to be true in its entirety. The data Apple has is nowhere near as critical as the data the NSA/CIA/MIC have.

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

#210

Post by acqq » Fri, Oct 19, 2018, 10:21 PM UTC

GCA10 wrote: post #175

abalone wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gruber made a good point: They aren't quite doubling down as hard as they could.[1] They said their reporters spoke with a lot of people and spent a long time on the story. They checked the boxes in the journalistic process, so to speak. But they didn't detail, like, that there was substantial corroboration of specific details like Apple working with the FBI. That leaves open possibilities that it came from just one…

Also in the mix is the possibility that Bloomberg's "17 sources" consist of a only a few that claim first-hand knowledge, supplemented by a larger circle of people who were briefed about it. If so, the rest of the 17 are just echoing what the inner group told them, without having done substantial independent verification.

Out of the 17 at least one says that the Bloomberg’s article “has no sense.” Apparently Bloomberg first just asked him “what kind of attack were possible” he explained to them that and then he reads the article that claims that exactly that kind of attack was actually performed. But he claims that for the stated goals that attack would be the least practical:

https://iphone.appleinsider.com/articles/18/10/08/security-r...