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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

#51

Post by thoughtsimple »

cannedslime wrote: post #20
thoughtsimple wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: “Nardello tested samples of motherboards in current production and versions that were sold to Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc, which were both named in the article, the person said.” At some point it is up to Bloomberg to show something. It isn’t possible to show a negative in this case.

Well the article doesn't mention how or what was tested. The article doesn't really state what they tested for... Did they swing a dead chicken over the board while chanting "Evils reveal yourself", did they decap chips? Did they just install trend-micro antivirus and let it run?

Again from the article: “A person familiar with the analysis told Reuters it had been conducted by global firm Nardello & Co and that customers could ask for more detail on that company’s findings.”

So ask if you are interested.

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

#52

Post by mtgx »

notabot wrote: post #43
mtgx wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What bothers me most about this article is that it's based around what "Super Micro says" -- why would I care about what Supermicro says? They are the ones being accused of having backdoors in their chips. I would've liked to hear this directly from the company doing the audit, without Super Micro's own "interpretation". The second thing that bothers me about this story is that it was Supermicro that paid for the aud…

"A person familiar with the analysis told Reuters it had been conducted by global firm Nardello & Co and that customers could ask for more detail on that company’s findings." So I guess yes you can bypass Super Micro if you're a customer.

I saw that, but it's not nearly enough. Why isn't the report made public? Why do we have to take Super Micro's word for it?

I seem to remember a very hostile and skeptical attitude from HN against Binance doing exactly this sort of thing when they announced the results of their paid-for "audit" of Tether financials. Why aren't we treating Super Micro's report of the audit the same way?

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

#53

Post by suls »

scarhill wrote: post #49
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?

WRT the how could they get it so wrong question, I guess it's time for the obligatory link to Michael Crichton's essay "Why Speculate?" and his discussion of the "Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect" [1] Money quote: "You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either t…

Brilliant. Thanks for sharing this.

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

#54

Post by finnthehuman »

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…

>What are the consequences for Bloomberg for this incompetence?

You, not the general concept of the reader, but you personally neya. You stop trusting Bloomberg's reporting. That's the consequence. Their reputation suffers.

Why do threads like this on HN always have such a desire for retribution?

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

#55

Post by bob_theslob646 »

finnthehuman wrote: post #54
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…

>What are the consequences for Bloomberg for this incompetence? You, not the general concept of the reader, but you personally neya. You stop trusting Bloomberg's reporting. That's the consequence. Their reputation suffers. Why do threads like this on HN always have such a desire for retribution?

Their reporters are compensated based off of whether or not they move markets.

Did you know that?

(https://www.businessinsider.com/bloomberg-reporters-compensa...)

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

#56

Post by stareatgoats »

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…

No, they shouldn't just walk away. They should apply sound journalistic principles to investigate exactly how they came to the conclusion, and then publish that investigation with full disclosure. Not sure if I've ever seen a news organization do that though (minimal retractions in a place no-one looks doesn't count).

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

#57

Post by vertline3 »

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…

If they are wrong about this, they can be wrong about anything.

Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect.

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

#58

Post by Symmetry »

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…

It apparently wasn't the first time these reporters had gone off the rails.[1]

[1]https://twitter.com/RobertMLee/status/1049617855396933632

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

#59

Post by jessaustin »

noselasd wrote: post #48
crunchlibrarian wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the state department tells you to write a story you write the story, or face the real prospect of the end of access which will be the end your journalism career. Not an ideal system for anyone, except the state department.

Anything to back that up ?

Oh sure, that's what we need backup for, some random comment on a social news site. Not some hardware firm's claims that they haven't been hacked, nor some news media firm's claims that they were.

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

#60

Post by nik736 »

cannedslime wrote: post #3

So let me get this straight... Super Micro hired a firm, who then asked the manufacturers, "Hey guys can we please have your design files for your PCBs" and then they looked at the parts list and said, "Nope, no dedicated backdoor chips here" ? They didn't really do a thorough examination of the devices in question, but asked the manufacturer for the CAD files?

Trend Micro ???
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