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Super Micro says review found no malicious chips in motherboards

reuters.com

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Re: Super Micro says review found no malicious chips in motherboards

#31

Post by rincebrain »

Cyph0n wrote: post #15
nscalf wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely easier for a reporter to be a little over eager with a story and run it before being fully vetted than it is to co-opt federal agencies and independent auditors. I'm not saying that it's not possible for the situation you described to have happened, just that it would be an extreme outlier.

That's true, but why hasn't Bloomberg retracted the article yet? It's been two months since the piece was published. Given all this attention, don't you think that Bloomberg would have issued a retraction by now if it was simply the case of an overzealous reporter?

Given the nature of their doubling down upfront about it, it could be quite problematic for them to admit they were Very Wrong.

It's also possibly permanently going to be unclear whether this is factually accurate unless someone discovers a compromised system or the sources for the reporters provide enough information on why they believe what they do to actually investigate.

Re: Super Micro says review found no malicious chips in motherboards

#32

Post by joshstrange »

majia wrote: post #25
assblaster wrote: post #2

The question I have is: is it possible that there was such an incredible threat to national security that even an auditor could be convinced by a federal agency to give a false report? If it really didn't happen, how could a reputable news agency get a report so wrong? What exactly is going on here?

It's rather easy for someone to mislead a BP reporter who understands little about the technical details but is very eager to publish something shocking. The reporter may have emailed a few dozen security researchers to verify the story, but those who don't believe in the story are less likely to reply (and the reporter is more likely to ignore them), leading to a sampling bias.

And/or the people who did reply gave a response of something along the lines of “Its technically possibly but...” and the author ignored everything after the but.

Re: Super Micro says review found no malicious chips in motherboards

#33

Post by thetricia »

So correct me if I'm wrong, but the most sinister part of the story in how some might assume SuperMicro is a Chinese or a MainlandChinese-founded company. It came right around the time ZTE, Huawei and others were facing renewed scrutiny. So you can imagine how easy it is to read the story and just think "oh, another Chinese company got busted".

Re: Super Micro says review found no malicious chips in motherboards

#34

Post by rincebrain »

neya wrote: post #28

Let's say Super Micro is right and there were no malicious hardware at all for sure. What are the consequences for Bloomberg for this incompetence? I mean, there needs to be something.. Just because you're a news organization, you can't simply escape with "Oh, my bad". This had real implications on stock prices of so many companies and wiped off shareholder value on many of them, including Super Micro. If Bloomberg's…

I believe the current line there, at least in the US, is whether they knowingly ran factually inaccurate information.

Given their doubling down, unless we assume they somehow didn't ask their legal department, I would bet they have enough sources for the information that they think they're not at risk of being prosecuted for libel or slander.

Re: Super Micro says review found no malicious chips in motherboards

#35

Post by stilky »

deadbunny wrote: post #23
jamesholden wrote: post #6

Has Bloomberg even replied to the "Uhm, WTF you talking about Willis" responses from Apple/Amazon? I don't recall seeing one. I wonder what they will say now.. How can they just make up a story like this and it can slide?

To be super cynical: They got their ad revenue from the story, why would they care?

The reputation hit from being wrong is much bigger than the ad revenue from this one story. Bloomberg has been a very reputable and trusted source and wouldn't willingly throw that away

Re: Super Micro says review found no malicious chips in motherboards

#36

Post by wklauss »

sschueller wrote: post #26
assblaster wrote: post #2

The question I have is: is it possible that there was such an incredible threat to national security that even an auditor could be convinced by a federal agency to give a false report? If it really didn't happen, how could a reputable news agency get a report so wrong? What exactly is going on here?

The media falls for bullshit all the time, Weapons of mass destruction, incubator babies in Kuwait, etc. They are in the business of making money and not getting the story right and since there is hardley any consequences for them why would they care? Bloomberg here will blame its source and take no responsibility.

> They are in the business of making money and not getting the story right

All business are "in the business of making money", that's what being a business is. What sets them apart is how they make it. In the case of media companies is, precisely, by getting the story right. A publisher that doesn't is more likely to lose influence and readership as time goes by. For a publication like Bloomberg, more so.

So yeah, they do care. That doesn't mean they don't fall for scams or bad reporting. They do, but it's in their best interest not to do so. In this case, I'm sure Bloomberg is already frantically calling all the reporter sources. They should have done it before the piece was published, sure, and they'll sure blame the reporter and the sources, but I think it's disingenuous to think they just shrug these things off.

Re: Super Micro says review found no malicious chips in motherboards

#37

Post by endorphone »

deadbunny wrote: post #23
jamesholden wrote: post #6

Has Bloomberg even replied to the "Uhm, WTF you talking about Willis" responses from Apple/Amazon? I don't recall seeing one. I wonder what they will say now.. How can they just make up a story like this and it can slide?

To be super cynical: They got their ad revenue from the story, why would they care?

The story was given legs because Bloomberg has generally been a credible organization. They are tainted if they don't firmly explain their side, and forever anything they report will be coupled with "they were the ones behind that debunked SuperMicro thing".

Clickbait and manufactured stories is a dead end tactic, so they certainly do care, and they certainly have some reasoning. Perhaps they were intentionally mislead.

Re: Super Micro says review found no malicious chips in motherboards

#38

Post by dracodoc »

cannedslime wrote: post #19
hau wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should really do thorough examination of the article it's really short. They did examine hardware both in production and already sold to Apple and Amazon samples.

Well what I was wondering was, what did they examine to be exact? Did they decap chips and reverse engineer them? The article as you say, is really short. Too short, there isn't really any information in it, besides "Trend micro said this, take their word for it"...

Why are you keep using "Trend micro"? Did you realize that's a totally different company?

Re: Super Micro says review found no malicious chips in motherboards

#39

Post by SCHiM »

joshstrange wrote: post #32
majia wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's rather easy for someone to mislead a BP reporter who understands little about the technical details but is very eager to publish something shocking. The reporter may have emailed a few dozen security researchers to verify the story, but those who don't believe in the story are less likely to reply (and the reporter is more likely to ignore them), leading to a sampling bias.

And/or the people who did reply gave a response of something along the lines of “Its technically possibly but...” and the author ignored everything after the but.

I see how this could have happened yes. Especially if the reporter was not clear on the angle of the questions.

It's easy to see how security researchers could go off on a tangent about the insecurities of IMPI and other out of band management systems. Which'd sound like an endorsement to the reporter.

Who knows what really happened.

Re: Super Micro says review found no malicious chips in motherboards

#40

Post by cannedslime »

dracodoc wrote: post #38
cannedslime wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well what I was wondering was, what did they examine to be exact? Did they decap chips and reverse engineer them? The article as you say, is really short. Too short, there isn't really any information in it, besides "Trend micro said this, take their word for it"...

Why are you keep using "Trend micro"? Did you realize that's a totally different company?

Oh, my bad... Doesn't really change much though.
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