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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

#241

Post by sailfast »

wpdev_63 wrote: post #100

I really have little doubt that the Chinese are integrating their spy chips into computer hardware going to the big four or even the pentagon. It's probably how they stole the designs to the f-35[you know that plane that costs over a trillion dollars to develop]. It would catastrophic if apple knew or even acknowledges the possibility of the Chinese having a backdoor into their servers and would result in massive shi…

Do you think it’s really that hard to phish a defense contractor or hack them? Huge threat surface: mediocre OPSEC, lots of layers not involved but with access, and really bad SharePoint discipline. If I had to guess, most of their “cyber” is being sold, not used internally.

Why would you burn a hardware hack like that for plans?

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

#242

Post by nradov »

dustingetz wrote: post #136
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…

It could simply be classified

That's not how the classification system works.

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

#243

Post by thstart »

lwansbrough wrote: post #44
aero142 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm all for globalism but that's one area where the best strategy is probably to keep production inside the borders. Not that I'd condone misleading the press to create a case for the legislation.

You are for globalism -and which side of the table are you on?

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

#245

Post by AlexCoventry »

Kocrachon wrote: post #161

I doubt anyone will see my comment since I am a few hours late. BUT, I want to say, despite what bloomberg AND apple say, here is why I think Bloomberg failed on this report, and didn't do enough to PROVE their claims were accurate. They made the flat out claim that AWS sold its Chinese infrastructure because of the hack. But this is flat out not true, anyone who actually knows anything about the Chinese goverment kn…

> anyone who actually knows anything about the Chinese goverment knows that AWS, same as Microsoft, cannot operate out of China. They are required to have a PARTNER to operate in China.

IIRC, the Bloomberg article is consistent with this. AWS sold their business interests to that partner.

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

#246

Post by lovich »

roblabla wrote: post #190
garmaine wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple's official statement clearly said, they're not under any form of NSL or gag order. Except that a NSL can (legally) command the recipient to lie about it.

An NSL cannot force you to lie. You can say "no comment", and that's how it's always been handled. Why would they vehemently deny an NSL (with all the risks involved) when "no comment" would suffice ?

Is that still true though? The NSL already compel speech in that they limit what you can say. We already have secret courts making decisions that we find out about years later.

At this point the major wall has been breached in terms of rights, altering speech for national security, and we can no longer trust anything. If the secret courts decided they were going to compel active speech instead of compelling negative speech, what mechanism would let us know of the change? I don't think there is any

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

#247

Post by rohit2412 »

catchaway727 wrote: post #165
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…

The Clinton administration and CIA tried to deny the China-Boeing technology transfer incident. But others in the CIA were concerned, raised the issue and were later proven right. I asked people in the CIA about the Bloomberg story and their response seemed to indicate that the story is real. There’s immense pressure to deny this story for several reasons.

I think this is the Boeing incident the above comment is talking about.

https://www.wired.com/story/us-china-cybertheft-su-bin/

I wondered why the United States does not care about such state sponsored violations of intellectual property, going as far as to deny the crime.

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

#248

Post by x220 »

garmaine wrote: post #222
vageli wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Except that a NSL can (legally) command the recipient to lie about it. Do you have a source for this statement? As far as I'm aware, you can be compelled to remain silent but not compelled to give a false statement.

You can be compelled to act exactly as you would as if the NSL had not been issued, and indeed they seem to contain language to that effect. A reasonable response would be to adopt a policy of "no comment" and most do, but if you have previously responded to questions about NSLs in the negative, you would then be required to continue doing the same. Q: Have you received an NSL? A: No. Q: Now have you received an NSL?…

Has anyone been prosecuted for acting similar to your example?

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

#249

Post by usrusr »

saagarjha wrote: post #228
garmaine wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can be compelled to act exactly as you would as if the NSL had not been issued, and indeed they seem to contain language to that effect. A reasonable response would be to adopt a policy of "no comment" and most do, but if you have previously responded to questions about NSLs in the negative, you would then be required to continue doing the same. Q: Have you received an NSL? A: No. Q: Now have you received an NSL?…

How exactly do canaries work, then? Isn't the point there that you have a canary that you remove later?

I think the point gp was trying to make is that canaries are not working. Schneier for example has publicly doubted their effectivity.

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

#250

Post by Bluestrike2 »

garmaine wrote: post #185
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.

> Apple's official statement clearly said, they're not under any form of NSL or gag order. Except that a NSL can (legally) command the recipient to lie about it.

A NSL can compel the recipient's silence in the form of a gag order, but the government cannot compel speech outside of very particular circumstances, such as consumer warning labels, that don't include verifiably false statements.[0] Thus the concept of warrant canaries, though they haven't been challenged in court.[1] There are other articles on both out there, but the EFF links are decent starting points if you're interested in reading further.

Making an explicitly false statement to preserve the silence about an NSL or its subject matter goes well beyond a gag order. The gag order compels your silence; it doesn't compel you to become an active participant in maintaining that silence beyond not acting to break it, let alone persuading people to believe any explanations or stories to explain it or shield the investigation the letter is a part of.

But there's another issue beyond the constitutional problems with trying to order Apple or its officers to make verifiably false statements about the existence of Chinese spy chips: any statement about said spy chips would constitute a material fact to shareholders. And it'd be a a really big one with an effect potentially measured in billions of dollars of market value, multiplied by the fact that Apple lied and destroyed every iota of credibility on privacy issues they've developed over the years. Making that statement--even if ordered to do so by an NSL--would be a blatant breach of the their fiduciary duty to shareholders and SEC regulations.

Even if compelled to do so, Apple (or its officers) literally can't make that false statement. They'd have no choice but to fight an NSL that orders them to make false statements, and even if they lost, they'd limit themselves to "no comment." So while they might be under a gag order on a given subject due to an NSL, if they're commenting about it, we can reasonably accept those comments as true. Or, at minimum, that they are their own words rather than the government's. As a hypothetical, it's plausible that they could be lying about the chips; but if so, it would be because of their own deliberate decision to do. Not that that's very likely, of course.

0. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/04/warrant-canary-faq

1. https://www.eff.org/issues/national-security-letters

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