New Evidence of Hacked Supermicro Hardware Found in U.S. Telecom • Hacker News Board

Re: New Evidence of Hacked Supermicro Hardware Found in U.S. Telecom

#371

Post by azinman2 » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 1:59 PM UTC

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #364

AsyncAwait wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should, but China rarely cares about people beyond its own boarders. They don't have the power of the U.S. to reach for anyone across the globe, so I think NSA doing this is a tad more worrisome.

I think the main difference between the US and China, the Chinese have no mission to convert every country to their thinking. Not that they influence countries through their investments, see Greece as an example.

Ummm other than Silk Road pulling tons of countries into their sphere, using it to push new Chinese standards for people to switch towards, making HK/Taiwan/Tibet fully incorporated and culturally homogenous, taking islands away from other countries across SE Asia and calling it all china’s sea, etc etc.

They’re just more subtle, until they’re not. They have a very long term outlook on their efforts.

Re: New Evidence of Hacked Supermicro Hardware Found in U.S. Telecom

#372

Post by prirun » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 3:03 PM UTC

The article says: "The manipulation of the Ethernet connector appeared to be similar to a method also used by the U.S. National Security Agency, details of which were leaked in 2013."

So the US doesn't exactly have clean hands. Here's a theory:

1. The US wants to have more ability to spy

2. With most manufacturing in China, this is hard

3. Implicating Supermicro might cause their customers to switch suppliers. It has already caused Supermicro stock to go down 41% then 27% again.

4. The US / Sepio Systems / former Mossad / former CIA officials come to the rescue with a company manufacturing "secure servers" not made in China. Or more likely, still made in China, only under different control.

5. Result: profit, increase US ability to spy, "bring manufacturing back to US companies"

IMO, governments - all governments - have no ethics and will do whatever they want to further their agenda.

Re: New Evidence of Hacked Supermicro Hardware Found in U.S. Telecom

#373

Post by _Codemonkeyism » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 3:05 PM UTC

azinman2 wrote: post #371

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main difference between the US and China, the Chinese have no mission to convert every country to their thinking. Not that they influence countries through their investments, see Greece as an example.

Ummm other than Silk Road pulling tons of countries into their sphere, using it to push new Chinese standards for people to switch towards, making HK/Taiwan/Tibet fully incorporated and culturally homogenous, taking islands away from other countries across SE Asia and calling it all china’s sea, etc etc. They’re just more subtle, until they’re not. They have a very long term outlook on their efforts.

China is not pushing countries to become 'communist' states.

Re: New Evidence of Hacked Supermicro Hardware Found in U.S. Telecom

#374

Post by AsyncAwait » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 3:07 PM UTC

azinman2 wrote: post #371

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main difference between the US and China, the Chinese have no mission to convert every country to their thinking. Not that they influence countries through their investments, see Greece as an example.

Ummm other than Silk Road pulling tons of countries into their sphere, using it to push new Chinese standards for people to switch towards, making HK/Taiwan/Tibet fully incorporated and culturally homogenous, taking islands away from other countries across SE Asia and calling it all china’s sea, etc etc. They’re just more subtle, until they’re not. They have a very long term outlook on their efforts.

China does have ambitions, sure, but they're mostly local ones. I was mainly talking about cases like Kim Dotcom, where the U.S. reached all the way to NZ. China doesn't have Five Eyes, has not attacked a foreign country etc. It does not mean this cannot change, but I get the feeling China strives for a more local "sphere of influence" strategy, (hence the things like you mentioned), whereas the US strives to maintain "global dominance". As someone sitting in Western Europe, I don't think China has that much interest to dominate here.

Re: New Evidence of Hacked Supermicro Hardware Found in U.S. Telecom

#375

Post by mindcrime » Wed, Oct 10, 2018, 3:37 PM UTC

mark-r wrote: post #351

mindcrime wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That raises an interesting question about just how targeted this kind of attack could be. At manufacture time, do the folks on the assembly line (so to speak) know who a particular board is going to? If not, they would have to add the extra chip to all outgoing boards, which means there should be plenty of them in the wild, no?

If the motherboards were customized for a particular customer, you'd know exactly who they're going to. That would eliminate the problem of letting the exploit travel too widely as well.

Right, but does that happen? I honestly don't know. Clearly a company like Amazon or Apple buys in large enough volume that they could be asking for customized MB's, but does anybody know if that actually happens? If it does, then that would definitely moot the question I was posing above...

Re: New Evidence of Hacked Supermicro Hardware Found in U.S. Telecom

#376

Post by Latteland » Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 3:41 AM UTC

AsyncAwait wrote: post #362

azinman2 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be concerned by China’s super position in the global supply chain...

You should, but China rarely cares about people beyond its own boarders. They don't have the power of the U.S. to reach for anyone across the globe, so I think NSA doing this is a tad more worrisome.

They kidnap people from other places who are dissidents including from Hong Kong, Malaysia, and even the us.

Re: New Evidence of Hacked Supermicro Hardware Found in U.S. Telecom

#377

Post by Latteland » Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 3:59 AM UTC

Latteland wrote: post #376

AsyncAwait wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should, but China rarely cares about people beyond its own boarders. They don't have the power of the U.S. to reach for anyone across the globe, so I think NSA doing this is a tad more worrisome.

They kidnap people from other places who are dissidents including from Hong Kong, Malaysia, and even the us.

Here's an article discussing this worldwide kidnapping. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/29/the-disappeared-china-r...

Re: New Evidence of Hacked Supermicro Hardware Found in U.S. Telecom

#378

Post by lenkite » Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 11:39 AM UTC

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #364

AsyncAwait wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should, but China rarely cares about people beyond its own boarders. They don't have the power of the U.S. to reach for anyone across the globe, so I think NSA doing this is a tad more worrisome.

I think the main difference between the US and China, the Chinese have no mission to convert every country to their thinking. Not that they influence countries through their investments, see Greece as an example.

You need to be a citizen of a nation neighbouring China to know the severe pressure that China exerts on borders, trade and geo-politics. You just don't hear about it much in the world-news as it doesn't affect the US.

Re: New Evidence of Hacked Supermicro Hardware Found in U.S. Telecom

#379

Post by _Codemonkeyism » Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 1:07 PM UTC

lenkite wrote: post #378

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main difference between the US and China, the Chinese have no mission to convert every country to their thinking. Not that they influence countries through their investments, see Greece as an example.

You need to be a citizen of a nation neighbouring China to know the severe pressure that China exerts on borders, trade and geo-politics. You just don't hear about it much in the world-news as it doesn't affect the US.

China is not pushing countries to become 'communist' states.