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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

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your snark aside, Bloomberg made these claims, it's on them to back it up. Not the other way around. So far, not a single fact has surfaced that lends those claims any credence.

I personally have learned more about the supply chain for various big tech firms. I have learned that something like what the original story described is possible, in that USA-based firms have no reliable way to prevent such hacking. That doesn't mean I believe Bloomberg's version, but then again I rarely do. I'm just not in such a hurry to believe SuperMicro's version either... We don't have to act as if we know what really happened. I don't see why anyone would be so sure that GP's speculation above about the State Department is unfounded either.

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

#83
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, th…

> In the case of media companies is, precisely, by getting the story right.

Strongly disagree. Media companies make money by publishing stories that people want to hear about.

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

#84
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If they were to publicly say they were wrong then suddenly that would be News the way the original reporting was. If they don't then only specialty publications will cover the failure to pan out.

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

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There really are some publications where you can read an article on a topic you're familiar with and they get it right. For instance I have a subscription to The Economist and sometimes their coverage is a bit shallow. And sometimes it repeats an expert consensus I disagree with. But most of the time the coverage is as good as it can be in the number of paragraphs allotted and sometimes it's downright excellent[1]. Y…

And I’m guessing a lot of people here conflate simplifying for a mainstream audience as getting it wrong because they’ve omitted a lot of details.

Mind you, simplifying with a degree of accuracy is difficult and top writers like those with the Economist do it better than most. With tech stuff, I find more poor and incomplete explanations than I do outright errors. Mind you, back when I provided commentary for a lot of news stories, there were some reporters I always dreaded calls from because I knew steering them in the right direction was going to take an hour out of my life.

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

#86
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

One was also the author of the fake NSA Heartbleed exploit story, which Bloomberg stood by: https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/104901890298483507...

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

#87
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's up to SuperMicro to sue for libel.

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

#88
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…

SuperMicro, Apple, Amazon, and others could sue Bloomberg.

But they didn't.

I guess if you sue every news outlet for Rumours then Apple would be basically suing everyone. My problem is, why Apple and Amazon has such as "restrained" action to Bloomberg. May be the story isn't true, but something do smells fishy to me.

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

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If newspapers were in it for the money they wouldn't be newspapers. It's not an incredibly lucrative business.

Correlation != causation. The fact that most newspapers aren't lucrative doesn't mean they don't value profit.

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

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There really are some publications where you can read an article on a topic you're familiar with and they get it right. For instance I have a subscription to The Economist and sometimes their coverage is a bit shallow. And sometimes it repeats an expert consensus I disagree with. But most of the time the coverage is as good as it can be in the number of paragraphs allotted and sometimes it's downright excellent[1]. Y…

Just don't try to cancel your subscription ... Suddenly they become impossible to communicate with.
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