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What Happened with Supermicro?

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Re: What Happened with Supermicro?

#71

Post by kevingadd »

ikeboy wrote: post #66
derefr wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is interesting that Bloomberg has stood by the story My guess as to why: one of their reporters was misled by a trusted source, or multiple trusted sources (who were maybe actually catspaws of some-group-or-other who would benefit from getting this story out.) So now, although Bloomberg would like to speak truth by issuing a retraction, such a move would likely severely damage the original reporter's career; and…

In that scenario, the obvious solution is to publish a new story and name names of all the people who lied to get the story published. If you lie to a newspaper to get fake news published, you no longer have any right to remain off the record. That's what a newspaper with integrity would do.

That requires having a degree of certainty supporting any attempt to name names. If you're not certain they lied to you, then your new story is potentially libel. For example, let's say they were given information they were certain was correct, and they handed it to a journalist in confidence. They're a trusted source. You both got duped. What's the value in burning them publicly, especially if you're going to do it by calling them a liar and exposing yourself to risk?

There are cases where the press really needs to take people to task but the amount of secrecy and ambiguity in this story makes it seem like a case where it can't (or shouldn't) be done.

Re: What Happened with Supermicro?

#72

Post by Causality1 »

I'm perfectly happy to believe Chinese hardware is riddled with backdoors. What didn't make sense to me is why Bloomberg was so adamant about this claim but never provided a single shred of evidence in support of it. If someone proved this to them why don't they have a compromised board they can publish pictures of and give to a third party for examination?

Re: What Happened with Supermicro?

#73

Post by ssnistfajen »

derefr wrote: post #37
patorjk wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Tim Cook came out against the story, I did the same thing. It just didn't seem plausible that he would be lying. Then add to that Joe Fitzpatrick's (one of the named sources) discomfort about the story, and something seemed wrong. Time seems to have validated this idea somewhat, but it is interesting that Bloomberg has stood by the story.

> it is interesting that Bloomberg has stood by the story My guess as to why: one of their reporters was misled by a trusted source, or multiple trusted sources (who were maybe actually catspaws of some-group-or-other who would benefit from getting this story out.) So now, although Bloomberg would like to speak truth by issuing a retraction, such a move would likely severely damage the original reporter's career; and…

I'm leaning towards that something did happen at SuperMicro, but the FBI agents who were interviewed by Bloomberg lacked the technical knowledge to understand what happened or how it happened and thus did not convey an accurate view of the incident(s). Bloomberg decides to give the go-ahead on publishing this story despite providing zero provable evidence, which is still a poor demonstration of journalism integrity on their part. However I don't believe Bloomberg will use completely fabricated stories to smear anyone despite how suspect such acts seem. If they realize that they've been misled, the proper reaction should be making a disclaimer regarding the story containing misinfo. Apple/Amazon/SuperMicro also could have sued Bloomberg for defamation but none of them did, which means they don't have a strong enough case on hand.

I have this view because FBI agents have acted upon information they could not fully understand or analyze before, only to be proven wrong later e.g. the arrest and subsequent exoneration of Dr. Xi Xiaoxing.

Re: What Happened with Supermicro?

#74

Post by ikeboy »

kevingadd wrote: post #71
ikeboy wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that scenario, the obvious solution is to publish a new story and name names of all the people who lied to get the story published. If you lie to a newspaper to get fake news published, you no longer have any right to remain off the record. That's what a newspaper with integrity would do.

That requires having a degree of certainty supporting any attempt to name names. If you're not certain they lied to you, then your new story is potentially libel. For example, let's say they were given information they were certain was correct, and they handed it to a journalist in confidence. They're a trusted source. You both got duped. What's the value in burning them publicly, especially if you're going to do it…

They claimed to have something like over a dozen sources. Some of those were lying outright.

>If you're not certain they lied to you, then your new story is potentially libel.

No, you report the truth that they said X to you, and your opinion that it isn't true, along with any verifiable facts supporting that opinion.

Re: What Happened with Supermicro?

#75

Post by ssnistfajen »

Causality1 wrote: post #72

I'm perfectly happy to believe Chinese hardware is riddled with backdoors. What didn't make sense to me is why Bloomberg was so adamant about this claim but never provided a single shred of evidence in support of it. If someone proved this to them why don't they have a compromised board they can publish pictures of and give to a third party for examination?

Because they don't have the evidence or it's unobtainable (either too sensitive or doesn't exist).

If China really has a chip that can reprogram/modify server motherboard instructions with only 3 pins all within the size of a rice grain (according to Bloomberg's story), they've already won the tech war.

Re: What Happened with Supermicro?

#76

Post by cyphar »

derefr wrote: post #36
cantrevealname wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean, people were tearing these boards apart, looking for anything. There's no way they could keep that quiet, even if they were willing to disappear people. Without commenting on whether or not I believe the Bloomberg story, I very much doubt that "people were tearing these boards apart", doing reverse hardware-level engineering looking for an unknown. Even in the case of open-source software, with full source c…

I mean, it's not that expensive to just take some hi-res X-ray photos of old and new boards of the same make, and compare the trace paths near each component. Maybe you can even take a visual diff of the X-ray negatives, if you can get everything lined up tightly enough. You can parallelize this search, because the people doing it don't need to know much about what they're looking for—they're just hunting for visual…

> I mean, it's not that expensive to just take some hi-res X-ray photos of old and new boards of the same make, and compare the trace paths near each component. Maybe you can even take a visual diff of the X-ray negatives, if you can get everything lined up tightly enough.

There are examples of attacks which cannot be detected by staring at X-rays of components[1]. Now, to be fair they are very advanced attacks but we know they exist.

[1]: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13389-013-0068-0

Re: What Happened with Supermicro?

#77

Post by mixmastamyk »

dylan604 wrote: post #55
jhallenworld wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likewise, it's been good until the recent tariff war news. I made similar money in the 2008 crash betting that certain banks would not fail.

After 9/11, American Airlines took a beating. I was in my 20s and had no clue about stocks. I went to my IRA guy, and asked to buy AA stock. I was told because it was down in the penny stocks they could not sell it. I had no idea of how else to buy stocks, and let it go. Regret that every time I think about it.

Cheer up kid, I went all in on Apple stock with the debut of the iPhone. A year or so later lost it all in the crash. Value approx $2.25 million today.

Re: What Happened with Supermicro?

#78

Post by CamperBob2 »

abrookewood wrote: post #61

What I can't fathom is why Supermicro haven't sued Bloomberg? Their stock took a massive hit and so far no one has been able to independently verify Bloomberg's claims. Seems like a court case would be fairly easy to win for Supermicro.

Could be a weird variant of insider trading. Pay some "security consultants" to call up reporters and throw your own company under a fictitious bus. Then, when the stock dives, buy.

Problem with that idea is that it wouldn't just chase investors away temporarily, it would chase customers away who are a lot harder to get back.

Re: What Happened with Supermicro?

#79

Post by ETHisso2017 »

lsc wrote: post #2

Huh. so shortly after the story broke, I bought a bunch of SMCI. (It's actually the first OTC stock I've ever bought. It was easier than I thought, too... I had to call vanguard to enable OTC trading, but after that? super easy.) I sold it months later, at a pretty good profit, mostly 'cause while I think the bloomburg accusations are clearly false, there are huge accounting irregularities surrounding supermicro; get…

Friend tells me that it's the National Security Council - and specifically Matt Pottinger - feeding these stories to Bloomberg. The goal is to force US companies to shift their electronics supply chain away from China.

Re: What Happened with Supermicro?

#80

Post by anarazel »

ETHisso2017 wrote: post #79
lsc wrote: post #2

Huh. so shortly after the story broke, I bought a bunch of SMCI. (It's actually the first OTC stock I've ever bought. It was easier than I thought, too... I had to call vanguard to enable OTC trading, but after that? super easy.) I sold it months later, at a pretty good profit, mostly 'cause while I think the bloomburg accusations are clearly false, there are huge accounting irregularities surrounding supermicro; get…

Friend tells me that it's the National Security Council - and specifically Matt Pottinger - feeding these stories to Bloomberg. The goal is to force US companies to shift their electronics supply chain away from China.

That's an interesting theory that I'd not heard before (and haven't found iterated anywhere within a few minutes of searching). Any additional details / references?
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