Chinese govt. — they have a vested interest in Apple failing since they ‘own’ many of the competing phone companies and would love to see their own be the next trillion $ company. They make trademarks, patents, litigation, regulation so restrictive. Plus they have access to all communication in and out of country. Timing is critical since upcoming models are in full production.
Remember the Kirin 980 is also in mass fabrication at the same company.
Chinese govt. — they have a vested interest in Apple failing since they ‘own’ many of the competing phone companies and would love to see their own be the next trillion $ company. They make trademarks, patents, litigation, regulation so restrictive. Plus they have access to all communication in and out of country. Timing is critical since upcoming models are in full production.
Remember the Kirin 980 is also in mass fabrication at the same company.
Nobody cares.
No one asked if anybody cared.
Why would the Chinese government be involved if a Chinese SoC rollout could be impacted?
Chinese govt. — they have a vested interest in Apple failing since they ‘own’ many of the competing phone companies and would love to see their own be the next trillion $ company. They make trademarks, patents, litigation, regulation so restrictive. Plus they have access to all communication in and out of country. Timing is critical since upcoming models are in full production.
Remember the Kirin 980 is also in mass fabrication at the same company.
Nobody cares.
Well, yes. In this case, trying to blame China, this is important information.
Chinese govt. — they have a vested interest in Apple failing since they ‘own’ many of the competing phone companies and would love to see their own be the next trillion $ company. They make trademarks, patents, litigation, regulation so restrictive. Plus they have access to all communication in and out of country. Timing is critical since upcoming models are in full production.
Agree, but money is only one reason for the Chinese to have a large worldwide phone brand. The other is control.
Huawei- and ZTE phones were recently marked as huge security risks by FBI, CIA, and NSA. China is now price dumping Huawei phones and spreading them all over the world. (Just passed Apple in sold number of phones globally.)
You don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to see what this is all about. Imagine the consequences if they would successfully infiltrate a chip factory and implant secret functionality directly in the hardware. Such hacks could be extremely difficult to spot.
Chinese govt. — they have a vested interest in Apple failing since they ‘own’ many of the competing phone companies and would love to see their own be the next trillion $ company. They make trademarks, patents, litigation, regulation so restrictive. Plus they have access to all communication in and out of country. Timing is critical since upcoming models are in full production.
Agree, but money is only one reason for the Chinese to have a large worldwide phone brand. The other is control.
Huawei- and ZTE phones were recently marked as huge security risks by FBI, CIA, and NSA. China is now price dumping Huawei phones and spreading them all over the world. (Just passed Apple in sold number of phones globally.)
You don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to see what this is all about. Imagine the consequences if they would successfully infiltrate a chip factory and implant secret functionality directly in the hardware. Such hacks could be extremely difficult to spot.
Please be aware of issues here:
Are you talking about general security risks or security risks to the US?
If you are talking about general security risks then perhaps you should be equally anxious about a body like the NSA itself warning of security risks. You know the expression about the fox guarding the hen house?
Are you ruling out that the NSA could be to blame for an attempted hack going wrong? If so, why? The US wants the exact same 'control' you attribute to China. Huawei by the was, is far from dumping phones on the world. Its record numbers of sales were propolled by new flagships. Look for articles right here on AI for the links.
If general security is not an issue for you and you are simply worried about governments spying on the US, the I can at least understand why you think like you do but why settle on China?
As I mentioned, this virus issue or whatever it really was, has affected Huawei too. Why aren't you suspicious of Russia, Maduro or even Cuba (or those evil people in Europe who spend every day looking for ways to fine US companies? ;-) )
How do you interpret it? Should we worry or celebrate the fact that an independent government body is creating security reports and acting on the findings directly with the vendor?
Should the UK government have exactly the same setup for critical infrastructure hardware coming out of the US?
Or simply let it in because the US is an 'ally'?
Communications hardware, by definition, will interact with hardware from other countries and vendors. Processors are another area of interaction. It is one of the reasons the EU is now creating its own processors.
If you seek 'protection', nationlise the whole thing and use, and make your citizens use the government's choice. That's even scarier, right?
Banning vendors who have not even been proven guilty of anything will not 'protect' anyone from security issues, it will simply protect home companies from competition and you are guaranteed to lose services or pay more for them as a result.
"Apple chip manufacturer TSMC factories taken down by computer virus"
Didn't know they used Windows machines. Kinda ironic.
Most manufacturers do.
The A12 Bionics fabbed with Windows 98.
It can happen. Most industrial machine Software does not get updated for decades
That is my past experience with machine Software too. Remember Y2K and the work on PLCs.
True. But much of the machine level automation is air gapped and not connected to the outside world, sometimes by design and sometimes as a consequence of using non routable industrial control networks/busses and obscure communication technology. The greatest vulnerability is probably around supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems which are often built around Windows software and standard or near-standard Ethernet networking. The older technology was often never designed with security in mind, but over the past 10-15 years security has been a top concern for all manufacturers and physical security is still a very effective means of protecting machine level automation. It's always been about defense-in-depth and protecting your enterprise using all available means at your disposal. There is no excuse in 2018 for this type of takedown to have occurred.
Not going to get into conspiracy theories, but I will add that any piece of connected machinery or communication equipment that is shipped through standard shipping mechanisms (air, sea, rail, trucking, etc.) is at risk of "alteration" during the shipping process. This applies to anything moving in either direction, inbound and outbound, good guys and bad guys, and with and without the equipment manufacturer's implicit or explicit knowledge. Man in the middle attacks aren't limited to communication packets.
Chinese govt. — they have a vested interest in Apple failing since they ‘own’ many of the competing phone companies and would love to see their own be the next trillion $ company. They make trademarks, patents, litigation, regulation so restrictive. Plus they have access to all communication in and out of country. Timing is critical since upcoming models are in full production.
Remember the Kirin 980 is also in mass fabrication at the same company.
Nobody cares.
Moderator?
They block comments that are political because of the hostility that results but they don’t block comments that add nothing to the conversation and are deliberately rude to people?
Several of TSMC's factories have gone offline, following the infection of factory equipment. The timing may not be the best for the manufacturer, and Apple, as TSMC is currently ramping up production, and producing chips for launch of Apple’s latest iPhone models that are expected to debut in September.
Sounds like the perfect excuse for analysts to talk down the stock on Monday. Wait for it.
Is there some reason why it WOULDN'T be "talked down"?
TSMC just showed itself to be vulnerable to attack. That has ramifications. We need to get away from automatically excusing organizations who get attacked. Yes, some are taking adequate precautions and are truly innocent victims -- but many skimp on security but are still treated as 'innocent victims'.
Currently, we do not know which camp TSMC falls under. Could they have prevented this? We don't know. But I'm sure Apple is asking that question.
Chinese govt. — they have a vested interest in Apple failing since they ‘own’ many of the competing phone companies and would love to see their own be the next trillion $ company. They make trademarks, patents, litigation, regulation so restrictive. Plus they have access to all communication in and out of country. Timing is critical since upcoming models are in full production.
Remember the Kirin 980 is also in mass fabrication at the same company.
Nobody cares.
Moderator?
They block comments that are political because of the hostility that results but they don’t block comments that add nothing to the conversation and are deliberately rude to people?
Comments
Nobody cares.
Why would the Chinese government be involved if a Chinese SoC rollout could be impacted?
Huawei- and ZTE phones were recently marked as huge security risks by FBI, CIA, and NSA. China is now price dumping Huawei phones and spreading them all over the world. (Just passed Apple in sold number of phones globally.)
You don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to see what this is all about. Imagine the consequences if they would successfully infiltrate a chip factory and implant secret functionality directly in the hardware. Such hacks could be extremely difficult to spot.
Are you talking about general security risks or security risks to the US?
If you are talking about general security risks then perhaps you should be equally anxious about a body like the NSA itself warning of security risks. You know the expression about the fox guarding the hen house?
Are you ruling out that the NSA could be to blame for an attempted hack going wrong? If so, why? The US wants the exact same 'control' you attribute to China. Huawei by the was, is far from dumping phones on the world. Its record numbers of sales were propolled by new flagships. Look for articles right here on AI for the links.
If general security is not an issue for you and you are simply worried about governments spying on the US, the I can at least understand why you think like you do but why settle on China?
As I mentioned, this virus issue or whatever it really was, has affected Huawei too. Why aren't you suspicious of Russia, Maduro or even Cuba (or those evil people in Europe who spend every day looking for ways to fine US companies? ;-) )
Take a look at this article. What do you think?
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-huawei-security-britain-usa/huawei-in-british-spotlight-over-use-of-us-firms-software-idUSKBN1KQ001
How do you interpret it? Should we worry or celebrate the fact that an independent government body is creating security reports and acting on the findings directly with the vendor?
Should the UK government have exactly the same setup for critical infrastructure hardware coming out of the US?
Or simply let it in because the US is an 'ally'?
Communications hardware, by definition, will interact with hardware from other countries and vendors. Processors are another area of interaction. It is one of the reasons the EU is now creating its own processors.
If you seek 'protection', nationlise the whole thing and use, and make your citizens use the government's choice. That's even scarier, right?
Banning vendors who have not even been proven guilty of anything will not 'protect' anyone from security issues, it will simply protect home companies from competition and you are guaranteed to lose services or pay more for them as a result.
Not going to get into conspiracy theories, but I will add that any piece of connected machinery or communication equipment that is shipped through standard shipping mechanisms (air, sea, rail, trucking, etc.) is at risk of "alteration" during the shipping process. This applies to anything moving in either direction, inbound and outbound, good guys and bad guys, and with and without the equipment manufacturer's implicit or explicit knowledge. Man in the middle attacks aren't limited to communication packets.
This may delay them at most for a weekend to clean it up and be back on track.
They block comments that are political because of the hostility that results but they don’t block comments that add nothing to the conversation and are deliberately rude to people?
Ahh...
Ahhh...
TSMC!