Super Micro says review found no malicious chips in motherboards
1–10 of 355 posts
Re: Super Micro says review found no malicious chips in motherboards
#2The 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?
Re: Super Micro says review found no malicious chips in motherboards
#3So 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?
Re: Super Micro says review found no malicious chips in motherboards
#4Their stock price increased 30% from the drop after the publication of the article, but still 20% down from before the article. Though most of that is probably tech stocks tanking. So they are probably close to where they would have been without the article.
Re: Super Micro says review found no malicious chips in motherboards
#5The 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?
Plausible deniability? Perhaps the ramifications were so huge (maybe for Apple and others) they would have gone bankrupt in lawsuits. So maybe this is a easier way to bail them out. Just using a tinfoil hat here.
Re: Super Micro says review found no malicious chips in motherboards
#6Has 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?
Re: Super Micro says review found no malicious chips in motherboards
#7The 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 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.
Re: Super Micro says review found no malicious chips in motherboards
#8The 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?
Could it be, whoever supplied the information to begin with was just trying to burn the news org?
Or possibly the leaker made a horrible mistake regarding facts?
Or possibly there is indeed a conspiracy to cover up a hardware backdoor?
These are tough times my friend.
Re: Super Micro says review found no malicious chips in motherboards
#9So 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?
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.
Re: Super Micro says review found no malicious chips in motherboards
#10The 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?
>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?
Absolutely possible, even somewhat plausible but unlikely. Conspiracies are hard to maintain "2 can keep a secret if 1 of them is dead".
You could outright threaten someone with any number of means to get them to comply with your wishes, this is how espionage often works at a state level "ho ho, you like underage boys Mr. Smith, we have these photos of you, you will help us spy on your government!" or "You owe us much monies from your gambling, you can give us information or we make your life very difficult", simply using sex to ease someone into complying (sexpionage both as blackmail and as reward/entrapment. A possible famous case of the blackmail route was with the NSA in 1960, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_and_Mitchell_defection ), finding actual irregularities in someone's finances and threatening to go after them for it etc.
Again, possible and somewhat plausible but probably just a journalist fabricating a source or being misled by one. Yellow Journalism is a thing after all https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism and if you look at papers in the 19th century you see all sorts of outright fabrications just to sell papers, like the Great Moon Hoax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moon_Hoax