If Forbes writes(by:Mr. Gordon or Mr. Spencer) such story, I wouldn't
believe it as religiously they have been writing against Apple and its
products for a long time and looks like paid by competitors. On the
other hand, not sure about why Bloomberg would manufacture such story as
they say, "if there is a smoke, there is a fire". Such incident
might have happened sometime in past and Apple,Amazon,Supermicro must
have taken care of it quietly. so there is no proof now to prove other
than few people having knowledge who were involved. Wouldn't harm now to deny it because it is way in past and all good now. No need to initiate congressional hearings and alienating Chinese.
Just my 2 cents: Although it is almost impossible to prove, the editorial body Bloomberg acted with malice, even if it was only by naming Apple and Amazon. If that's not clickbait, I don't know what it is. But now we have it from the horse's mouth. The author specifically picked Fitzpatrick's brains on specific—and apparently uncorrelated—details with the intent of building a narrative to a story already fleshed out in its outcome.
That's not just Fake News (ugh... I need to clean this keyboard after typing this jargon), it is reverse engineering journalism, although I feel journalism isn't the proper name to be used here.
Also, Apple would never sue over libel, such as this is. They're too politically correct to do this! And, at least partially, that's a shame.
I'm totally with Mr Fitzpatrick on this one. The Bloomberg article is sensationalism fueled by a confluence of hypotheticals, many of which have been talking points between security researchers for years. It's fine to speculate about things that are theoretically possible, regardless of their practicality, scalability, ease of deployment, etc. These make for great discussion and brainstorming between people immersed in the field. These experts clearly know when they are using speculation, what-ifs, and conjecture to tease out possibilities and potential scenarios that may play out in the future. These experts also know where the current boundaries and limitations exist between potential scenarios and actual live scenarios and how this could change over time.
The Bloomberg authors are clearly not experts in this field and are out of their league.
I think the problem we have here is that Bloomberg pushed beyond the boundaries of speculation and conjecture and came to a conclusion that is lacking in logic and credibility. They force-fit speculative information with unrelated but incidentally time correlated incidents involving vendors like Apple and Amazon to flesh out a sensational story that they became obsessed with telling, even if it meant glossing over some pretty big holes and gaps in provability. This is simply bad journalism coupled with bad science, all broadcast at extreme volumes and in the brightest light so the whole world can watch them make a fool of themselves. This is not propaganda, it's not politics, it's not a smear campaign against Apple or Amazon ... it's simply stupidity that got out of hand and buried them in a pit of self delusion that they seem unwilling or unable to extricate themselves from at this time. This will pass, just like every other wave of stupidity that splashes over us on at least a weekly basis.
This will pass, just like every other wave of stupidity that splashes over us on at least a weekly basis.
Exactly. Apple and Amazon get the headlines because they are the biggest and most successful. If you can bring them into your story in a negative way you will get the clicks.
I'm not sure why people are assuming that this article was incorrect. Push back does not equal rebuttal. It's a common error.
Essentially, what Bloomberg reported has been floating around for a decade: Avoiding Chinese hardware because it may / probably / does contain spy devices to interrupt our systems. And, in this case, these motherboards were designed and produced by a Chinese company -- the only difference being they moved the Chinese over onto U.S. soil to pose as a U.S. company.
I suspect that there is more going on here than any of us know.
I think you are pointing at the right direction. There has been efforts to smear China for decades. This time they accidentally dragged Apple into the smearing campaign.
these motherboards were designed and produced by a Chinese company -- the only difference being they moved the Chinese over onto U.S. soil to pose as a U.S. company.
Supermicro is an American company started by a Taiwanese-American. The Taiwanese are more anti-China than anybody. The story makes no sense.
I'm not sure why people are assuming that this article was incorrect. Push back does not equal rebuttal. It's a common error.
Essentially, what Bloomberg reported has been floating around for a decade: Avoiding Chinese hardware because it may / probably / does contain spy devices to interrupt our systems. And, in this case, these motherboards were designed and produced by a Chinese company -- the only difference being they moved the Chinese over onto U.S. soil to pose as a U.S. company.
I suspect that there is more going on here than any of us know.
You seem to be confusing ideas about possible things with actual things that happened. Apple isn’t saying the idea is not possible, they’re saying it didn’t happen.
I predict that we'll eventually see a link between the Bloomberg story and the Trump administration.
Messrs. Trump and Bloomberg (yes, there is such a person behind the company), hate each other's guts. To think that they would collaborate on anything is 'not a reasonable conjecture', to say the least.
If Forbes writes(by:Mr. Gordon or Mr. Spencer) such story, I wouldn't
believe it as religiously they have been writing against Apple and its
products for a long time and looks like paid by competitors. On the
other hand, not sure about why Bloomberg would manufacture such story as
they say, "if there is a smoke, there is a fire". Such incident
might have happened sometime in past and Apple,Amazon,Supermicro must
have taken care of it quietly. so there is no proof now to prove other
than few people having knowledge who were involved. Wouldn't harm now to deny it because it is way in past and all good now. No need to initiate congressional hearings and alienating Chinese.
Yes and maybe Roswell really happened. Please. You’re just spinning a yarn. Apple says it never happened, ever, and if it came out that it did and they’re lying about it they’d be sued and people would be fired and their careers ruined.
I am with Apple and the researcher on this one. Apple has made plenty of security errors over the years but this is not one of them. Totally made up story. The real mystery is how it got published in the first place?
It certainly sounds like the Robertson took a hypothetical but possible case developed by Fitzpatrick and turned it into an actual event. Whether it was simply shoddy reporting and misunderstanding by Robertson or done with malicious intent is open to debate.
For me, the bigger part of this story is the potential security risk that Fitzpatrick devised and exposed in the first place. It is undoubtedly feasible from a technical standpoint, and could be extraordinarily difficult to prevent or even detect.
dewme said: it's simply stupidity that got out of hand and buried them in a pit of self delusion that they seem unwilling or unable to extricate themselves from at this time.
Hard to believe a worldwide publishing, news and financial reporting empire would release a story with no verification. They've got to be smarter than that. How could this happen?
I hope Apple finally sues Bloomberg for libel over this.
Apple was not a target of the article. Just part of the crowd.
Hard to argue that when there were only two alleged victims named — Amazon and Apple. The “crowd” was not named.
This is kind of key. Only two companies out of 30 were named. Either they grabbed the first two names of the list by alphabetical order (I guess the Acme Corporation of North America wasn't on it), or they picked out two specific companies for some other reason. Who else was on the list? Is my two-bit ISP affected? The server farm that hosts the message boards I use regularly? Twitter or Facebook, even? I don't know because they won't tell me, so I'm afraid and suspicious. And I definitely know not to trust Apple or Amazon. (Hypothetically, of course. I don't believe a word of this, and it's been getting less and less credible with each new report.)
After this revelation, I'm more inclined to believe two burly Russian men were just interested in the height of the spire at Salisbury Cathedral than anything Bloomberg has reported.
Comments
Such incident might have happened sometime in past and Apple,Amazon,Supermicro must have taken care of it quietly. so there is no proof now to prove other than few people having knowledge who were involved. Wouldn't harm now to deny it because it is way in past and all good now. No need to initiate congressional hearings and alienating Chinese.
The Bloomberg authors are clearly not experts in this field and are out of their league.
I think the problem we have here is that Bloomberg pushed beyond the boundaries of speculation and conjecture and came to a conclusion that is lacking in logic and credibility. They force-fit speculative information with unrelated but incidentally time correlated incidents involving vendors like Apple and Amazon to flesh out a sensational story that they became obsessed with telling, even if it meant glossing over some pretty big holes and gaps in provability. This is simply bad journalism coupled with bad science, all broadcast at extreme volumes and in the brightest light so the whole world can watch them make a fool of themselves. This is not propaganda, it's not politics, it's not a smear campaign against Apple or Amazon ... it's simply stupidity that got out of hand and buried them in a pit of self delusion that they seem unwilling or unable to extricate themselves from at this time. This will pass, just like every other wave of stupidity that splashes over us on at least a weekly basis.
You watch too much television.
For me, the bigger part of this story is the potential security risk that Fitzpatrick devised and exposed in the first place. It is undoubtedly feasible from a technical standpoint, and could be extraordinarily difficult to prevent or even detect.
This is kind of key. Only two companies out of 30 were named. Either they grabbed the first two names of the list by alphabetical order (I guess the Acme Corporation of North America wasn't on it), or they picked out two specific companies for some other reason. Who else was on the list? Is my two-bit ISP affected? The server farm that hosts the message boards I use regularly? Twitter or Facebook, even? I don't know because they won't tell me, so I'm afraid and suspicious. And I definitely know not to trust Apple or Amazon. (Hypothetically, of course. I don't believe a word of this, and it's been getting less and less credible with each new report.)
After this revelation, I'm more inclined to believe two burly Russian men were just interested in the height of the spire at Salisbury Cathedral than anything Bloomberg has reported.