Bloomberg should investigate its own sources. Either the story is true and they need to find the smoking gun as it would imply our data is still at great risk if companies like Apple cannot find the spy chips or it means that Bloomberg was played like a fiddle and published a disinformation story to harm US relations with China. Either way it would be the biggest story of the year.
I think the same way as expressed in the article. If you are going to publish stuff like this you really need something solid to support it.
On the face of it, it seems there is no evidence to back the claims up. The only thing I would accept as reasonable for the silence would be pressure from government for national security reasons but we would probably not get wind of that for a long time. That would pre-suppose the claims were more or less correct but admitting to them publicly would do more harm than good but that veers too wildly into conspiracy theory for me.
Which is why you just tried to plant the seed by making the comment.
Bloomberg will only climb down if they are facing a Multi-million dollar fine as a result of a court case.
Say sorry or you are in contempt of court? One Million dollars per hour should do it OR the CEO goes to jail for a year and is fined a few million. Take your choice Bloomberg.
Unless they come clean and show us the evidence they used to make the claim in the first place AND allow others to peer review it down to the last nand gate.
Disinformation is a daily occurrence, spouting 1/2 truths or blatant lies has no comeuppance. I am convinced part of the reasoning is simply to make money off of publicly traded stocks.
Yes, I agree. Something seems to have altered the entire concept of what constitutes truth these last couple of years.
Honestly, i think it has been growing since the 50s/60s in the USA - we've spent 50+ years building a society built on commercialism, where marketing is the first thought for everything from politics & trade to religion & wars.
Determine the path of least resistance and highest uptake to create a populace that cheers their manipulation-through-ignorance. And all for another dollar.
The baby boomers & Vietnam were the first to really experience it, and now we have the people born since the mid 90's being the first to be born into it.
Never assume that we are somehow different than our ancestors.
The term yellow journalism was invented in the late 1890s or early 1900s to described journalists making up stuff, Hearst et al, being propagandist and outright lying. It won’t be different going back further in time. You can probably find some Greek or Chinese philosopher with a pithy saying about how heralds talked a bunch of shit.
Perhaps what’s different today is that we can follow the deconstruction of a media story in real-time. The good comes with the bad though, as people will believe whatever bullshit story they want to believe regardless of how stupid it is.
the speed is the key element now. it took me weeks to hear from relatives behind the iron curtain, and there was no sales pitch for them - it was force-fed against their will.
Like Rome before the fall, we are begging for it now.
Disinformation is a daily occurrence, spouting 1/2 truths or blatant lies has no comeuppance. I am convinced part of the reasoning is simply to make money off of publicly traded stocks.
Yes, I agree. Something seems to have altered the entire concept of what constitutes truth these last couple of years.
Truth should be backed up by facts according to modern western civilization. However, during the cold war the coupling is weakened considerable due to the big iron curtain. Two generations of Americans have been educated by this distorted culture.
Nah! Sorry! But, objections and denials are not proof of anything.
At this point I have to give Bloomberg the benefit of the doubt since they have no reason to lie and every reason not to.
But, it makes me wonder why ai's head is exploding over this and why they refuse to let it go. Perhaps it is a lack of understanding of the story -- and that lack of understanding is shown when they say:
"And, that alleged chip one that Bloomberg claims is embedded secretly in machines in data centers owned by Apple and others."
"Is embedded": No, Bloomberg stated that this happened years ago. "owned by Apple": No, the examples sited by Bloomberg are that it happened primarily in Amazon's AWS -- which Apple was using at the time because they didn't have their own capacity to run their emerging iCloud at the time.
No, despite the objections and denials, I'll stick with Bloomberg -- partly because of independent substantiating evidence that was reported back when it was (reportedly) happening. Did it actually happen? U.S. intelligence thought that it might and did investigate. And, to best of my knowledge, never said that it didn't. But today we have the ramifications of Chinese companies being barred from selling their equipment in the U.S. -- even as they pass the U.S. by in technology.
What a load of nonsense. Nobody said Bloomberg is intentionally lying, it has been said time and again that they got the story wrong, were fooled, too eager to believe, etc. Even their own source, the ONLY named source, has gone on record that he thinks they gravely misunderstood him and that the story is likely bogus. Their only named source said that. And then every other person in the know at their companies, who are barred by the SEC from lying, said the same.
That you choose to believe they’re all lying just betrays your own agenda.
Nah! Sorry! But, objections and denials are not proof of anything.
At this point I have to give Bloomberg the benefit of the doubt since they have no reason to lie and every reason not to.
But, it makes me wonder why ai's head is exploding over this and why they refuse to let it go. Perhaps it is a lack of understanding of the story -- and that lack of understanding is shown when they say:
"And, that alleged chip one that Bloomberg claims is embedded secretly in machines in data centers owned by Apple and others."
"Is embedded": No, Bloomberg stated that this happened years ago. "owned by Apple": No, the examples sited by Bloomberg are that it happened primarily in Amazon's AWS -- which Apple was using at the time because they didn't have their own capacity to run their emerging iCloud at the time.
No, despite the objections and denials, I'll stick with Bloomberg -- partly because of independent substantiating evidence that was reported back when it was (reportedly) happening. Did it actually happen? U.S. intelligence thought that it might and did investigate. And, to best of my knowledge, never said that it didn't. But today we have the ramifications of Chinese companies being barred from selling their equipment in the U.S. -- even as they pass the U.S. by in technology.
Generally speaking I would agree, we have seen too many times something being reported and everyone denies and later we find out it is mostly true.
However, in this case this story did not pass the sniff test. If you know anything about how a computers are design and made you would know this would be virtual impossible to pull off without China having inside people in all the associated companies who were in design and manufacturing of the computer include someone who had access to software source code and could modify the code without drawing any attentions. When I first read this story and long before anyone had their doubts I publicly question on this forum whether this really happen the way they claimed. You would have to agree that If this happened and China did it without drawing suspicion, that means SM had a designer at a senior level who had complete control over the design and could do this without anyone knowing and this person would have to have hardware and software knowledge. SM is not a Chinese company, they are US companies with ties to Taiwan and we know Taiwan and China do not get along well.
The problem with society today is people are lazy and do not even use a second of brain power to critically think about whether a story makes sense or could be plausible in the first place. I'll give you, I have specific knowledge about the companies involved which gives me a leg up, but we see this all the time with stories which do not make sense and people running around taking it as complete fact. In this case I am willing to bet the authors of this story lack the knowledge or education to be able to assess what they claim actually happen. I am sorry I am less incline to believe a person who has a journalist background when they make claims about technology and how something happen. Keep in mind they never talked about how the Chinese were able to get this chip on the board and how it actually works. If they has source who had knowledge they would have this information, but they do not.
One last point, Tim Cook came out publicly and said he was one of the senior level people at Apple they spoke to and he told them before the story went to print none of their claim were valid. Since Cook spoke to them directly why not quote him, they hid behind anonymous source at Apple. I also suspect they took Cook denial as proof something happen they just did not ask the right question or their facts were not 100%. Apple is publicly traded company, they have far more to loose making a public statement it never happen than Bloomberg does making up a store. If all the companies can show they business were hurt by the story they could sue, by they have high hurtle to make their case and Bloomberg knows this.
On the face of it, it seems there is no evidence to back the claims up. The only thing I would accept as reasonable for the silence would be pressure from government for national security reasons but we would probably not get wind of that for a long time. That would pre-suppose the claims were more or less correct but admitting to them publicly would do more harm than good but that veers too wildly into conspiracy theory for me.
You’re insane if you believe a US newspaper is going to hush up because the Trump admin told them to.
you write that it would be damaging for bloomberg to do nothing, but is it? outside of this article i have read nothing about it in over a week. they are just going to let it be forgotten, and no real damage done to bloomberg over it. people will, however, be wondering if they should buy apple or others because of this.
Nah! Sorry! But, objections and denials are not proof of anything.
At this point I have to give Bloomberg the benefit of the doubt since they have no reason to lie and every reason not to.
But, it makes me wonder why ai's head is exploding over this and why they refuse to let it go. Perhaps it is a lack of understanding of the story -- and that lack of understanding is shown when they say:
"And, that alleged chip one that Bloomberg claims is embedded secretly in machines in data centers owned by Apple and others."
"Is embedded": No, Bloomberg stated that this happened years ago. "owned by Apple": No, the examples sited by Bloomberg are that it happened primarily in Amazon's AWS -- which Apple was using at the time because they didn't have their own capacity to run their emerging iCloud at the time.
No, despite the objections and denials, I'll stick with Bloomberg -- partly because of independent substantiating evidence that was reported back when it was (reportedly) happening. Did it actually happen? U.S. intelligence thought that it might and did investigate. And, to best of my knowledge, never said that it didn't. But today we have the ramifications of Chinese companies being barred from selling their equipment in the U.S. -- even as they pass the U.S. by in technology.
What a load of nonsense. Nobody said Bloomberg is intentionally lying, it has been said time and again that they got the story wrong, were fooled, too eager to believe, etc. Even their own source, the ONLY named source, has gone on record that he thinks they gravely misunderstood him and that the story is likely bogus. Their only named source said that. And then every other person in the know at their companies, who are barred by the SEC from lying, said the same.
That you choose to believe they’re all lying just betrays your own agenda.
I have no agenda -- other than truth.
When I see the story Bloomberg reported misrepresented & distorted and then knocked down with the resulting strawman argument. And, I also see that ancillary evidence supports what they reported -- as well as their reputation for factual reporting and the fact that they have no incentive to lie and every incentive to report honestly. Well, that destroys the argument that the article is wrong because Bloomberg reported it.
Essentially, not liking a report or the person who reported it does not make it "FakeNews"...
Nah! Sorry! But, objections and denials are not proof of anything.
At this point I have to give Bloomberg the benefit of the doubt since they have no reason to lie and every reason not to.
But, it makes me wonder why ai's head is exploding over this and why they refuse to let it go. Perhaps it is a lack of understanding of the story -- and that lack of understanding is shown when they say:
"And, that alleged chip one that Bloomberg claims is embedded secretly in machines in data centers owned by Apple and others."
"Is embedded": No, Bloomberg stated that this happened years ago. "owned by Apple": No, the examples sited by Bloomberg are that it happened primarily in Amazon's AWS -- which Apple was using at the time because they didn't have their own capacity to run their emerging iCloud at the time.
No, despite the objections and denials, I'll stick with Bloomberg -- partly because of independent substantiating evidence that was reported back when it was (reportedly) happening. Did it actually happen? U.S. intelligence thought that it might and did investigate. And, to best of my knowledge, never said that it didn't. But today we have the ramifications of Chinese companies being barred from selling their equipment in the U.S. -- even as they pass the U.S. by in technology.
What a load of nonsense. Nobody said Bloomberg is intentionally lying, it has been said time and again that they got the story wrong, were fooled, too eager to believe, etc. Even their own source, the ONLY named source, has gone on record that he thinks they gravely misunderstood him and that the story is likely bogus. Their only named source said that. And then every other person in the know at their companies, who are barred by the SEC from lying, said the same.
That you choose to believe they’re all lying just betrays your own agenda.
I have no agenda -- other than truth.
When I see the story Bloomberg reported misrepresented & distorted and then knocked down with the resulting strawman argument. And, I also see that ancillary evidence supports what they reported -- as well as their reputation for factual reporting and the fact that they have no incentive to lie and every incentive to report honestly. Well, that destroys the argument that the article is wrong because Bloomberg reported it.
Essentially, not liking a report or the person who reported it does not make it "FakeNews"...
1) Bloomberg's Apple reporting is terrible. Has been for years, lacking context, even after they added Gurman. 2) We aren't saying that Bloomberg is lying. That by definition makes it not "Fake News" at Bloomberg's hands as they did not fabricate the report from whole-cloth. However, it appears that they believed sources which fed them a line, and didn't really try to get to the bottom of it. This happens. For instance, Apple told us at the post-reveal hands-on demo area that the new MacBook Air was fan-less. Instead of doubling down on it, we corrected our reports when we found out that it wasn't. This is what you do, and you do it in a timely fashion. It's great that Bloomberg is looking into it now, as we've reported in this piece, but this is about two months too late.
Nah! Sorry! But, objections and denials are not proof of anything.
At this point I have to give Bloomberg the benefit of the doubt since they have no reason to lie and every reason not to.
But, it makes me wonder why ai's head is exploding over this and why they refuse to let it go. Perhaps it is a lack of understanding of the story -- and that lack of understanding is shown when they say:
"And, that alleged chip one that Bloomberg claims is embedded secretly in machines in data centers owned by Apple and others."
"Is embedded": No, Bloomberg stated that this happened years ago. "owned by Apple": No, the examples sited by Bloomberg are that it happened primarily in Amazon's AWS -- which Apple was using at the time because they didn't have their own capacity to run their emerging iCloud at the time.
No, despite the objections and denials, I'll stick with Bloomberg -- partly because of independent substantiating evidence that was reported back when it was (reportedly) happening. Did it actually happen? U.S. intelligence thought that it might and did investigate. And, to best of my knowledge, never said that it didn't. But today we have the ramifications of Chinese companies being barred from selling their equipment in the U.S. -- even as they pass the U.S. by in technology.
Generally speaking I would agree, we have seen too many times something being reported and everyone denies and later we find out it is mostly true.
However, in this case this story did not pass the sniff test. If you know anything about how a computers are design and made you would know this would be virtual impossible to pull off without China having inside people in all the associated companies who were in design and manufacturing of the computer include someone who had access to software source code and could modify the code without drawing any attentions. When I first read this story and long before anyone had their doubts I publicly question on this forum whether this really happen the way they claimed. You would have to agree that If this happened and China did it without drawing suspicion, that means SM had a designer at a senior level who had complete control over the design and could do this without anyone knowing and this person would have to have hardware and software knowledge. SM is not a Chinese company, they are US companies with ties to Taiwan and we know Taiwan and China do not get along well.
The problem with society today is people are lazy and do not even use a second of brain power to critically think about whether a story makes sense or could be plausible in the first place. I'll give you, I have specific knowledge about the companies involved which gives me a leg up, but we see this all the time with stories which do not make sense and people running around taking it as complete fact. In this case I am willing to bet the authors of this story lack the knowledge or education to be able to assess what they claim actually happen. I am sorry I am less incline to believe a person who has a journalist background when they make claims about technology and how something happen. Keep in mind they never talked about how the Chinese were able to get this chip on the board and how it actually works. If they has source who had knowledge they would have this information, but they do not.
One last point, Tim Cook came out publicly and said he was one of the senior level people at Apple they spoke to and he told them before the story went to print none of their claim were valid. Since Cook spoke to them directly why not quote him, they hid behind anonymous source at Apple. I also suspect they took Cook denial as proof something happen they just did not ask the right question or their facts were not 100%. Apple is publicly traded company, they have far more to loose making a public statement it never happen than Bloomberg does making up a store. If all the companies can show they business were hurt by the story they could sue, by they have high hurtle to make their case and Bloomberg knows this.
As I remember, Bloomberg explained how and, to an extent who, may have planted the chips: At times, the regular Chinese factories who produced the boards were over-booked and offloaded production to secondary factories. It was one of those secondary factories where it took place. And, yes, that manufacturing facility would have a detailed knowledge of the board and be able to modify it.
In addition, I find Tim's claims that this never happened to be less than credible -- for the mere fact that he would have not been in a position to know. Specifically, the report says that this all happened BEFORE Apple was running its own iCloud servers and instead was running iCloud on Amazon's AWS server farms ( as were a number of other organizations and agencies). I don't see how Tim can claim that AWS servers over which he had no control were not impacted.
But, I do see why he had an incentive to claim that: Apple is totally dependent on the "Chinese factories" (speaking generically) being accused in this report.
Did this happen? I remember that it was rumored to have happened and that it was investigated (Which is the basis of the Bloomberg report). I also know that suspicion and a lack of credibility of the integrity of Chinese companies remains in U.S. intelligence -- including all the way to a current day ban on certain companies selling equipment in the U.S. out of fear their equipment could be used to spy on us.
So, I am not overly quick to dismiss this story or to believe that Bloomberg had some nefarious purpose in fabricating a fairy tale out of thin air...
Nah! Sorry! But, objections and denials are not proof of anything.
At this point I have to give Bloomberg the benefit of the doubt since they have no reason to lie and every reason not to.
But, it makes me wonder why ai's head is exploding over this and why they refuse to let it go. Perhaps it is a lack of understanding of the story -- and that lack of understanding is shown when they say:
"And, that alleged chip one that Bloomberg claims is embedded secretly in machines in data centers owned by Apple and others."
"Is embedded": No, Bloomberg stated that this happened years ago. "owned by Apple": No, the examples sited by Bloomberg are that it happened primarily in Amazon's AWS -- which Apple was using at the time because they didn't have their own capacity to run their emerging iCloud at the time.
No, despite the objections and denials, I'll stick with Bloomberg -- partly because of independent substantiating evidence that was reported back when it was (reportedly) happening. Did it actually happen? U.S. intelligence thought that it might and did investigate. And, to best of my knowledge, never said that it didn't. But today we have the ramifications of Chinese companies being barred from selling their equipment in the U.S. -- even as they pass the U.S. by in technology.
What a load of nonsense. Nobody said Bloomberg is intentionally lying, it has been said time and again that they got the story wrong, were fooled, too eager to believe, etc. Even their own source, the ONLY named source, has gone on record that he thinks they gravely misunderstood him and that the story is likely bogus. Their only named source said that. And then every other person in the know at their companies, who are barred by the SEC from lying, said the same.
That you choose to believe they’re all lying just betrays your own agenda.
I have no agenda -- other than truth.
When I see the story Bloomberg reported misrepresented & distorted and then knocked down with the resulting strawman argument. And, I also see that ancillary evidence supports what they reported -- as well as their reputation for factual reporting and the fact that they have no incentive to lie and every incentive to report honestly. Well, that destroys the argument that the article is wrong because Bloomberg reported it.
Essentially, not liking a report or the person who reported it does not make it "FakeNews"...
1) Bloomberg's Apple reporting is terrible. Has been for years, lacking context, even after they added Gurman. 2) We aren't saying that Bloomberg is lying. That by definition makes it not "Fake News" at Bloomberg's hands as they did not fabricate the report from whole-cloth. However, it appears that they believed sources which fed them a line, and didn't really try to get to the bottom of it. This happens. For instance, Apple told us at the post-reveal hands-on demo area that the new MacBook Air was fan-less. Instead of doubling down on it, we corrected our reports when we found out that it wasn't. This is what you do, and you do it in a timely fashion. It's great that Bloomberg is looking into it now, as we've reported in this piece, but this is about two months too late.
I am glad to hear that you are not claiming that Bloomberg intentionally lied or are casting them into the pitt of hell called "Fake News". To be honest, it felt to me that ai was doing just that (certainly many of the comments have followed that line) and it frankly bothered me a great deal . But I am relieved to hear that you are not and simply believe that they did not do due diligence in investigating their sources -- because I have the greatest respect for BOTH ai and for Bloomberg as credible news sources with integrity.
Nah! Sorry! But, objections and denials are not proof of anything.
At this point I have to give Bloomberg the benefit of the doubt since they have no reason to lie and every reason not to.
But, it makes me wonder why ai's head is exploding over this and why they refuse to let it go. Perhaps it is a lack of understanding of the story -- and that lack of understanding is shown when they say:
"And, that alleged chip one that Bloomberg claims is embedded secretly in machines in data centers owned by Apple and others."
"Is embedded": No, Bloomberg stated that this happened years ago. "owned by Apple": No, the examples sited by Bloomberg are that it happened primarily in Amazon's AWS -- which Apple was using at the time because they didn't have their own capacity to run their emerging iCloud at the time.
No, despite the objections and denials, I'll stick with Bloomberg -- partly because of independent substantiating evidence that was reported back when it was (reportedly) happening. Did it actually happen? U.S. intelligence thought that it might and did investigate. And, to best of my knowledge, never said that it didn't. But today we have the ramifications of Chinese companies being barred from selling their equipment in the U.S. -- even as they pass the U.S. by in technology.
What a load of nonsense. Nobody said Bloomberg is intentionally lying, it has been said time and again that they got the story wrong, were fooled, too eager to believe, etc. Even their own source, the ONLY named source, has gone on record that he thinks they gravely misunderstood him and that the story is likely bogus. Their only named source said that. And then every other person in the know at their companies, who are barred by the SEC from lying, said the same.
That you choose to believe they’re all lying just betrays your own agenda.
I have no agenda -- other than truth.
When I see the story Bloomberg reported misrepresented & distorted and then knocked down with the resulting strawman argument. And, I also see that ancillary evidence supports what they reported -- as well as their reputation for factual reporting and the fact that they have no incentive to lie and every incentive to report honestly. Well, that destroys the argument that the article is wrong because Bloomberg reported it.
Essentially, not liking a report or the person who reported it does not make it "FakeNews"...
1) Bloomberg's Apple reporting is terrible. Has been for years, lacking context, even after they added Gurman. 2) We aren't saying that Bloomberg is lying. That by definition makes it not "Fake News" at Bloomberg's hands as they did not fabricate the report from whole-cloth. However, it appears that they believed sources which fed them a line, and didn't really try to get to the bottom of it. This happens. For instance, Apple told us at the post-reveal hands-on demo area that the new MacBook Air was fan-less. Instead of doubling down on it, we corrected our reports when we found out that it wasn't. This is what you do, and you do it in a timely fashion. It's great that Bloomberg is looking into it now, as we've reported in this piece, but this is about two months too late.
I am glad to hear that you are not claiming that Bloomberg intentionally lied or are casting them into the pitt of hell called "Fake News". To be honest, it felt to me that ai was doing just that (certainly many of the comments have followed that line) and it frankly bothered me a great deal . But I am relieved to hear that you are not and simply believe that they did not do due diligence in investigating their sources -- because I have the greatest respect for BOTH ai and for Bloomberg as credible news sources with integrity.
Bloomberg claimed spy chips everywhere on motherboards, but published a big "expose" article without finding even one. What level of respect does that deserve?
//the picture it uses to illustrate the size of the alleged chip appears to be a mundane directional gate.//
That's exactly what it is. One of the experts cited in the article (Fitzpatrick) explained in an interview that the Bloomberg journalist sent him an email asking what a directional gate would look like, so he sent back a link to one in an online catalog. It was exactly that photo from the online catalog that was used in the article, per Fitzpatrick.
When AI first published their critique of the story I was willing to give Bloomberg the benefit of the doubt that there may be national security implications in why Apple denied it. But given the whole Hauwei revelations, if this story were true it would have been confirmed or at least referenced by now by someone in the DOJ or similar. As this has not happened, I would agree that it is time for Bloomberg (and I read their site often) to put up evidence or retract the story.
Bloomberg seems to have the resources to have located at least ONE of these compromised boards/servers/whatever that they were so sure exist...and prevalent exist at that.
And Bloomberg will never walk this back until there is a financial reason to do so. When it impacts their business or their bottom line, then they will address it with a back-page subscript mea culpa. Until then, at least they have shut up about this fake spy chip stuff.
//the picture it uses to illustrate the size of the alleged chip appears to be a mundane directional gate.//
That's exactly what it is. One of the experts cited in the article (Fitzpatrick) explained in an interview that the Bloomberg journalist sent him an email asking what a directional gate would look like, so he sent back a link to one in an online catalog. It was exactly that photo from the online catalog that was used in the article, per Fitzpatrick.
This is what Fitzpatrick said
"Even sources used in the original story are confused about what’s going on. The cybersecurity podcast Risky Business interviewed one of the few named sources in the original Businessweek article, hardware security expert Joe Fitzpatrick, who expressed doubts about the article, and said he had never been contacted by any Bloomberg fact-checker. Fitzpatrick was used as an expert source to comment on the technical details of what Bloomberg described and does not have any firsthand knowledge of the actual alleged hack.
“I have the expertise to look at the technical details and I have the knowledge to look at the technical details and see that they’re jumbled. They’re not outright wrong, but they are theoretical.” Fitzpatrick, a well known hardware security trainer, told Risky Business founder and host Patrick Gray. “I see a lot of details that I gave out of context, so I’m not an expert judge on quality of journalism, but I definitely have my doubts on this one.”
Sources should be protected by news publications but not if they intentionally gave false information designed to mislead the public. In that case they should be outed and be the central focus of new stories that get to the bottom of their motivations and intended consequences. The only reason Boomberg should keep the sources secret at this point is that they are complicit in some way with the deception.
Comments
it took me weeks to hear from relatives behind the iron curtain, and there was no sales pitch for them - it was force-fed against their will.
Like Rome before the fall, we are begging for it now.
That you choose to believe they’re all lying just betrays your own agenda.
However, in this case this story did not pass the sniff test. If you know anything about how a computers are design and made you would know this would be virtual impossible to pull off without China having inside people in all the associated companies who were in design and manufacturing of the computer include someone who had access to software source code and could modify the code without drawing any attentions. When I first read this story and long before anyone had their doubts I publicly question on this forum whether this really happen the way they claimed. You would have to agree that If this happened and China did it without drawing suspicion, that means SM had a designer at a senior level who had complete control over the design and could do this without anyone knowing and this person would have to have hardware and software knowledge. SM is not a Chinese company, they are US companies with ties to Taiwan and we know Taiwan and China do not get along well.
The problem with society today is people are lazy and do not even use a second of brain power to critically think about whether a story makes sense or could be plausible in the first place. I'll give you, I have specific knowledge about the companies involved which gives me a leg up, but we see this all the time with stories which do not make sense and people running around taking it as complete fact. In this case I am willing to bet the authors of this story lack the knowledge or education to be able to assess what they claim actually happen. I am sorry I am less incline to believe a person who has a journalist background when they make claims about technology and how something happen. Keep in mind they never talked about how the Chinese were able to get this chip on the board and how it actually works. If they has source who had knowledge they would have this information, but they do not.
One last point, Tim Cook came out publicly and said he was one of the senior level people at Apple they spoke to and he told them before the story went to print none of their claim were valid. Since Cook spoke to them directly why not quote him, they hid behind anonymous source at Apple. I also suspect they took Cook denial as proof something happen they just did not ask the right question or their facts were not 100%. Apple is publicly traded company, they have far more to loose making a public statement it never happen than Bloomberg does making up a store. If all the companies can show they business were hurt by the story they could sue, by they have high hurtle to make their case and Bloomberg knows this.
You’re insane if you believe a US newspaper is going to hush up because the Trump admin told them to.
Essentially, not liking a report or the person who reported it does not make it "FakeNews"...
2) We aren't saying that Bloomberg is lying. That by definition makes it not "Fake News" at Bloomberg's hands as they did not fabricate the report from whole-cloth. However, it appears that they believed sources which fed them a line, and didn't really try to get to the bottom of it. This happens. For instance, Apple told us at the post-reveal hands-on demo area that the new MacBook Air was fan-less. Instead of doubling down on it, we corrected our reports when we found out that it wasn't. This is what you do, and you do it in a timely fashion. It's great that Bloomberg is looking into it now, as we've reported in this piece, but this is about two months too late.
In addition, I find Tim's claims that this never happened to be less than credible -- for the mere fact that he would have not been in a position to know. Specifically, the report says that this all happened BEFORE Apple was running its own iCloud servers and instead was running iCloud on Amazon's AWS server farms ( as were a number of other organizations and agencies). I don't see how Tim can claim that AWS servers over which he had no control were not impacted.
But, I do see why he had an incentive to claim that: Apple is totally dependent on the "Chinese factories" (speaking generically) being accused in this report.
Did this happen? I remember that it was rumored to have happened and that it was investigated (Which is the basis of the Bloomberg report). I also know that suspicion and a lack of credibility of the integrity of Chinese companies remains in U.S. intelligence -- including all the way to a current day ban on certain companies selling equipment in the U.S. out of fear their equipment could be used to spy on us.
So, I am not overly quick to dismiss this story or to believe that Bloomberg had some nefarious purpose in fabricating a fairy tale out of thin air...
That's exactly what it is. One of the experts cited in the article (Fitzpatrick) explained in an interview that the Bloomberg journalist sent him an email asking what a directional gate would look like, so he sent back a link to one in an online catalog. It was exactly that photo from the online catalog that was used in the article, per Fitzpatrick.
And Bloomberg will never walk this back until there is a financial reason to do so. When it impacts their business or their bottom line, then they will address it with a back-page subscript mea culpa. Until then, at least they have shut up about this fake spy chip stuff.
"Even sources used in the original story are confused about what’s going on. The cybersecurity podcast Risky Business interviewed one of the few named sources in the original Businessweek article, hardware security expert Joe Fitzpatrick, who expressed doubts about the article, and said he had never been contacted by any Bloomberg fact-checker. Fitzpatrick was used as an expert source to comment on the technical details of what Bloomberg described and does not have any firsthand knowledge of the actual alleged hack.
“I have the expertise to look at the technical details and I have the knowledge to look at the technical details and see that they’re jumbled. They’re not outright wrong, but they are theoretical.” Fitzpatrick, a well known hardware security trainer, told Risky Business founder and host Patrick Gray. “I see a lot of details that I gave out of context, so I’m not an expert judge on quality of journalism, but I definitely have my doubts on this one.”
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qv9npv/bloomberg-china-supermicro-apple-hack