AWS CEO Jassy follows Apple in calling for retraction of Chinese spy chip story • Hacker News Board

Re: AWS CEO Jassy follows Apple in calling for retraction of Chinese spy chip story

#201

Post by monocasa » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 2:23 AM UTC

tomjakubowski wrote: post #176

dis-sys wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be very careful about the term "the intelligence community", that is the "community" which told the world the WMD story in Iraq.

That would be politicians who ignored any of the "IC" analysis that contradicted their claims, and made up their own conclusions from dubious sources of "raw" intelligence like Ahmed Chalabi.

Bullshit. Straight from the CIA's NIE, page 9:

> High Confidence:

> Iraq is continuing, and in some areas is expanding, its chemical, biological, nuclear and missile programs contrary to UN resolution.

> Iraq could make a nuclear weapons in months to a year if it acquired sufficient weapons-grade fissile material.

https://www.scribd.com/doc/259216899/Iraq-October-2002-NIE-o...

I'm not sure where this "the IC is this blameless group that only looks like they screw up because of those pesky politicians" meme came from, but it has no basis in reality.

Re: AWS CEO Jassy follows Apple in calling for retraction of Chinese spy chip story

#202

Post by SEJeff » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 2:32 AM UTC

sonnyblarney wrote: post #61

jackconnor wrote: post #16

There should be hundreds of thousands or millions of these hacked motherboards, and nobody has found a single one despite hardware geeks worldwide searching like it was Willy Wonka's final golden ticket. This story was bogus, it most likely came from a ton of rumors that got conflated, hence why they had to go with anonymous sources as opposed to any physical evidence. I'd be surprised if Bloomberg has any credibilit…

"There should be hundreds of thousands or millions of these hacked motherboards" No, the boards would be selectively hacked. And we know it happens because 'we' do it as well. Surely there is evidence floating around but it's also unlikely that companies would want to admit the breach. I kind of believe Apple and Amazon though, there's too much risk if they were to be caught lying. This is a weird one ...

The Apple and Amazon statements were bulletproof, and would very likely guarantee them shareholder lawsuits if they were in fact falsified. Additionally, the SEC would likely investigate if this did happen (since it would be fraud with harmed investors looking for blood)

Re: AWS CEO Jassy follows Apple in calling for retraction of Chinese spy chip story

#203

Post by yourapostasy » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 2:35 AM UTC

drb91 wrote: post #126

moftz wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only want to slip in as few of these implants as possible to get in. You obviously want to hit as many networks as possible but only for targets that actually make sense. Hitting a DoD network has higher value than hitting the Mormon church's streaming servers. If these implants are real, they aren't cheap and the less that are in the wild, the less chance someone will find one on accident. If the implant actuall…

Any evidence of this theory?

No evidence that this alleged attack was highly-targeted, but it is pretty much SOP now, since the history of Stuxnet [1] publicly revealed the strategy. I was initially impressed the Bloomberg's story, but the longer this drags on with no independent proof, and given the one of the author's previous infosec reporting gaffe with no follow through, I've dismissed the story's veracity to a low probability.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet#History

Re: AWS CEO Jassy follows Apple in calling for retraction of Chinese spy chip story

#204

Post by monocasa » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 2:37 AM UTC

paxys wrote: post #87

sonnyblarney wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There should be hundreds of thousands or millions of these hacked motherboards" No, the boards would be selectively hacked. And we know it happens because 'we' do it as well. Surely there is evidence floating around but it's also unlikely that companies would want to admit the breach. I kind of believe Apple and Amazon though, there's too much risk if they were to be caught lying. This is a weird one ...

You just need ONE board to be able to prove it. Surely Bloomberg or their sources can get their hand on a single piece?

They were internally designed boards that Super Micro simply manufactured. Why would Bloomberg be able to put their hands on a custom board like that?

Re: AWS CEO Jassy follows Apple in calling for retraction of Chinese spy chip story

#205

Post by kbenson » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 2:40 AM UTC

stevehawk wrote: post #178

kbenson wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the intelligence community expects what they say to be reported as fact, then they need to pony up at least something to verify their claims. Otherwise the news media is just a mouthpiece for the intelligence community. That's particularly bad because one of their jobs is to be a check against just such behavior.

But it likely isn't the IC saying it so much as a whistleblower saying.

Does that somehow mean they should be less skeptical and not require more evidence before publishing the whistleblower assertions as fact? Do whistleblowers, by asserting that they are whistleblowers even without evidence, deserve more trust in this scenario for some reason?

Re: AWS CEO Jassy follows Apple in calling for retraction of Chinese spy chip story

#206

Post by monocasa » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 2:41 AM UTC

simonh wrote: post #148

fludlight wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big companies are now scandal proof. No amount of negligence or criminality is bad enough to bring one down. Wells Fargo committed millions of counts of bank fraud, yet they still exist and people buy their services. BP destroyed a large part of the economy and ecosystem in the Gulf of Mexico, yet they still exist and people buy their products. One of their top lawyers just became Assistant Attorney General for the D…

Crimes are committed by individuals, not companies. If execs at VW break the law, you go after the execs, you don’t put the whole company in jail or turf out all it’s employees on the streets.

HSBC laundered nearly a billion dollars for terrorists and Mexican cartels. Which execs faced any legal repercussions again?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2012/07/16/hsbc-h...

Re: AWS CEO Jassy follows Apple in calling for retraction of Chinese spy chip story

#207

Post by stupidbird » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 2:43 AM UTC

simonh wrote: post #145

stupidbird wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>most likely came from a ton of rumors that got conflated, hence why they had to go with anonymous sources Just noting that anonymous sources aren't unknown sources — if Bloomberg says that these are people working in US Intelligence then they've very likely validated it, but are protecting their identities by request. Also worth noting that Amazon and Apple have a tremendous amount to lose here. That doesn't mean th…

Let’s size up the options. Bloomberg is wrong. Apple and Amazing have every incentive to strongly deny the story. Bloomberg is right. Multiple employees up to executive level at 30 US companies and the government know about it and are actively leaking to Bloomberg about it. Numerous boards are out there at 30+ companies as physical evidence. There’s no way Apple and Amazon could risk denying this so strongly. It’s al…

If they were instructed to do so by the government they would not really have a choice, which would very likely produce leaks.

If true, this is vastly different from the government requesting a backdoor or various warrant canaries, this would be an actual national security threat.

Re: AWS CEO Jassy follows Apple in calling for retraction of Chinese spy chip story

#208

Post by stupidbird » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 2:47 AM UTC

paxys wrote: post #101

stupidbird wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>most likely came from a ton of rumors that got conflated, hence why they had to go with anonymous sources Just noting that anonymous sources aren't unknown sources — if Bloomberg says that these are people working in US Intelligence then they've very likely validated it, but are protecting their identities by request. Also worth noting that Amazon and Apple have a tremendous amount to lose here. That doesn't mean th…

While something like this will no doubt be damaging to some large American tech companies, it is way worse for China. Are they really going to potentially devastate their entire economy over the long term over such an easy to detect hack?

We already know that they're constantly trying to hack American IP. Our economies are symbiotic. Hurting theirs would be hurting our own.

Re: AWS CEO Jassy follows Apple in calling for retraction of Chinese spy chip story

#209

Post by newscracker » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 3:14 AM UTC

I said it recently in different words and I'll say it again. There is no good ending for Bloomberg in this story, or at least for the reporters on the story and the editor who let it run. The longer it digs its heels in adamantly and doesn't retract this story, the worse it's going to get. Its deep pockets can handle a huge scandal and embarrassment for a while, but it'll face the ignominy of being ignored by sources in many circles if it doesn't act quickly (one of the ways, perhaps, would be to reveal more information that can be verified by third parties). It's as sticky a situation as it gets, and it will define/decimate Bloomberg for the future.

Re: AWS CEO Jassy follows Apple in calling for retraction of Chinese spy chip story

#210

Post by will4274 » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 3:26 AM UTC

SEJeff wrote: post #202

sonnyblarney wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There should be hundreds of thousands or millions of these hacked motherboards" No, the boards would be selectively hacked. And we know it happens because 'we' do it as well. Surely there is evidence floating around but it's also unlikely that companies would want to admit the breach. I kind of believe Apple and Amazon though, there's too much risk if they were to be caught lying. This is a weird one ...

The Apple and Amazon statements were bulletproof, and would very likely guarantee them shareholder lawsuits if they were in fact falsified. Additionally, the SEC would likely investigate if this did happen (since it would be fraud with harmed investors looking for blood)

> Additionally, the SEC would likely investigate if this did happen

The phone companies all denied providing metadata to the NSA when the story first came out. I couldn't find the WaPo article from the same week, which I remembering reading in hardcopy, but here's a cite for the same from NPR: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=540913.... Did the SEC sue Verizon here?