Apple and DHS deny China chip hacking of servers

[onebyone]

Apple and DHS (Department of Homeland Security) have denied the Bloomberg report of China chip hacking the security of servers.

Here is the DHS statement:

The Department of Homeland Security is aware of the media reports of a technology supply chain compromise. Like our partners in the UK, the National Cyber Security Centre, at this time we have no reason to doubt the statements from the companies named in the story.

 

[onebyone]

Here is the Apple statement:

Over the course of the past year, Bloomberg has contacted us [Apple] multiple times with claims, sometimes vague and sometimes elaborate, of an alleged security incident at Apple. Each time, we have conducted rigorous internal investigations based on their inquiries and each time we have found absolutely no evidence to support any of them. We have repeatedly and consistently offered factual responses, on the record, refuting virtually every aspect of Bloomberg’s story relating to Apple.

On this we can be very clear: Apple has never found malicious chips, “hardware manipulations” or vulnerabilities purposely planted in any server. Apple never had any contact with the FBI or any other agency about such an incident. We are not aware of any investigation by the FBI, nor are our contacts in law enforcement.

In response to Bloomberg’s latest version of the narrative, we present the following facts: Siri and Topsy never shared servers; Siri has never been deployed on servers sold to us by Super Micro; and Topsy data was limited to approximately 2,000 Super Micro servers, not 7,000. None of those servers have ever been found to hold malicious chips.

As a matter of practice, before servers are put into production at Apple they are inspected for security vulnerabilities and we update all firmware and software with the latest protections. We did not uncover any unusual vulnerabilities in the servers we purchased from Super Micro when we updated the firmware and software according to our standard procedures.

We are deeply disappointed that in their dealings with us, Bloomberg’s reporters have not been open to the possibility that they or their sources might be wrong or misinformed. Our best guess is that they are confusing their story with a previously-reported 2016 incident in which we discovered an infected driver on a single Super Micro server in one of our labs. That one-time event was determined to be accidental and not a targeted attack against Apple.

While there has been no claim that customer data was involved, we take these allegations seriously and we want users to know that we do everything possible to safeguard the personal information they entrust to us. We also want them to know that what Bloomberg is reporting about Apple is inaccurate.
Apple has always believed in being transparent about the ways we handle and protect data. If there were ever such an event as Bloomberg News has claimed, we would be forthcoming about it and we would work closely with law enforcement. Apple engineers conduct regular and rigorous security screenings to ensure that our systems are safe. We know that security is an endless race and that’s why we constantly fortify our systems against increasingly sophisticated hackers and cybercriminals who want to steal our data.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/10/what-businessweek-got-wrong-about-apple/

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/10/apple-and-dhs-deny-china-chip-hacking-of-servers.html

 

[Kyle Sun]

Fk.
The US president won the election by slandering China.
Now the fake news win competition by the same trick. They will do whatever they can to get attention.

The most pathetic part is some America fools keep buying those shit after being conned so many time.

 

[Cybernetics]

Fk.
The US president won the election by slandering China.
Now the fake news win competition by the same trick. They will do whatever they can to get attention.

The most pathetic part is some America fools keep buying those shit after being conned so many time.

This highlights why hard power is important in great power relations. Soft power is the fluff that softens the edges of your hard power from the perspective of others to make them more comfortable with your hard power.

If the US wants to degrade the power of nation X, the US must first gauge the hard power of nation X. If nation X enjoys some soft power but is weak in hard power, an attack campaign can be initiated to erode its soft power even if it is lies because what can you do about it? Most at the time won't even have the time to react properly and can lead to paralysis. After that the US can use hard power tools such as a full military intervention. This was exemplified in the Gulf War campaign. Now we know the testimonies supporting the premise of the war was fabricated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony

On the other hand soft power can also be used to neutralize the hard power of peripheral nations (referring to 1v1 scenario) and borrow their hard power (Gulf War coalition). Soft power is a tool to hypnotize the masses and target the political coefficient. Some people or nations go with the narrative because they are reactive and other do so because it was in their interest to do so.

If nation X has strong hard power, regardless of its soft power status, the US's hard power toolbox becomes limited as retaliation would have greater consequences. Hard power is not just military but also economic/industrial power.

 

[S. Martin]

GREAT AMERICA! GREAT AMERICAN LIARS!
Once again China is successfully smeared as a devil in the American story. Bloomberg's report paves a way for Trump to escalate his crazy attack to China. This is just the same way that the USA adopted before they attack Iraq in Gulf War.
Why Apple and Amason don't take Boomlerg to court considering such signicant impact to their business?

 

[gambit]

Why Apple and Amason don't take Boomlerg to court considering such signicant impact to their business?

Because it was Amazon who was the first to be suspicious.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...ny-chip-to-infiltrate-america-s-top-companies

To help with due diligence, AWS, which was overseeing the prospective acquisition, hired a third-party company to scrutinize Elemental’s security, according to one person familiar with the process. The first pass uncovered troubling issues, prompting AWS to take a closer look at Elemental’s main product: the expensive servers that customers installed in their networks to handle the video compression.

AWS = Amazon Web Services.

These servers were assembled for Elemental by Super Micro Computer Inc., a San Jose-based company (commonly known as Supermicro) that’s also one of the world’s biggest suppliers of server motherboards

Elemental was the company hired by Amazon. Supermicro was the motherboard manufacturer who supplied the hardware to Elemental.

Nested on the servers’ motherboards, the testers found a tiny microchip, not much bigger than a grain of rice, that wasn’t part of the boards’ original design. Amazon reported the discovery to U.S. authorities, sending a shudder through the intelligence community.

The testers here belongs to a third party verification company hired by Amazon. It was they who found the component that is NOT listed on the board's original specs.

As the situation is, neither Apple nor Amazon can take Bloomberg to court precisely because Amazon was the first to report the unknown component. Apple and others who are Supermicro's clients also do not have a good case for legal actions because Bloomberg is essentially a reporter.

If Supermicro can prove to independent testers -- and there are many of them -- that Bloomberg erred in reporting, then it is Supermicro who may have a legal case. But if it is true that it was Amazon who reported the suspicious component, then the burden falls back on Supermicro to defend the existence of an unspec-ed component.

Clients do not like this kind of uncertainty. Officially, all Supermicro's clients will issue statements declaring the security of their hardware, but behind the scenes, have no doubt that as of now, potential contracts for Supermicro is at least under review if not outright suspended.

 

[AndrewJin]

GREAT AMERICA! GREAT AMERICAN LIARS!
Once again China is successfully smeared as a devil in the American story. Bloomberg's report paves a way for Trump to escalate his crazy attack to China. This is just the same way that the USA adopted before they attack Iraq in Gulf War.
Why Apple and Amason don't take Boomlerg to court considering such signicant impact to their business?

The low-IQ trend in Murica with their decreasing life-expectancy makes Murica the base of all fake news...

 

[S. Martin]

Because it was Amazon who was the first to be suspicious.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...ny-chip-to-infiltrate-america-s-top-companies

AWS = Amazon Web Services.


Elemental was the company hired by Amazon. Supermicro was the motherboard manufacturer who supplied the hardware to Elemental.


The testers here belongs to a third party verification company hired by Amazon. It was they who found the component that is NOT listed on the board's original specs.

As the situation is, neither Apple nor Amazon can take Bloomberg to court precisely because Amazon was the first to report the unknown component. Apple and others who are Supermicro's clients also do not have a good case for legal actions because Bloomberg is essentially a reporter.

If Supermicro can prove to independent testers -- and there are many of them -- that Bloomberg erred in reporting, then it is Supermicro who may have a legal case. But if it is true that it was Amazon who reported the suspicious component, then the burden falls back on Supermicro to defend the existence of an unspec-ed component.

Clients do not like this kind of uncertainty. Officially, all Supermicro's clients will issue statements declaring the security of their hardware, but behind the scenes, have no doubt that as of now, potential contracts for Supermicro is at least under review if not outright suspended.

Nice analysis! But the point is that Apple have refuted every aspect of Bloomberg’s story relating to Apple. That means Apple consider the report as fake news. So it seems to be logical and suitable that Apple take legal actions to protect itself.

The low-IQ trend in Murica with their decreasing life-expectancy makes Murica the base of all fake news...

Murica=Amercan? Sounds like a nick name.
So at this point Donald Trump is correct, the US media is stuffed with fake news.

 

[gambit]

Nice analysis! But the point is that Apple have refuted every aspect of Bloomberg’s story relating to Apple. That means Apple consider the report as fake news. So it seems to be logical and suitable that Apple take legal actions to protect itself.

Apple will not take any legal actions. For starter, the Bloomberg article merely report and Apple is free to deny any allegation contained within. Bloomberg did not do this out of malicious intent.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...ny-chip-to-infiltrate-america-s-top-companies

Three senior insiders at Apple say that in the summer of 2015, it, too, found malicious chips on Supermicro motherboards. Apple severed ties with Supermicro the following year, for what it described as unrelated reasons.

Interesting, eh?

https://arstechnica.com/information...m-datacenters-because-of-bad-firmware-update/

...Supermicro's senior vice-president of technology, Tau Leng, told The Information that Apple had ended its relationship with Supermicro because of the compromised systems in the App Store development environment. Leng also confirmed Apple returned equipment that it had recently purchased. An anonymous source was cited as the source of the information regarding infected Siri servers.

Now what?

 

[AndrewJin]

Nice analysis! But the point is that Apple have refuted every aspect of Bloomberg’s story relating to Apple. That means Apple consider the report as fake news. So it seems to be logical and suitable that Apple take legal actions to protect itself.


Murica=Amercan? Sounds like a nick name.
So at this point Donald Trump is correct, the US media is stuffed with fake news.

ALL murika media = fake news.
But then, the orange low-IQ fatty is a product of fake news too.
He talks like a patient with intellectual impairment.
But since most Murikans are stupid like that, it's natural for them to have that low life.

 

[serenity]

This would be a great strategy for China if it is real. Reports say that this is a stupid way to go about achieving the goals. More likely USA has these backdoors in China. That's why China banned Google, Facebook, Youtube a long time ago and suspicious of many things from US. The blackhawks imported a long time ago were found to have hidden components for spying. Everyone does it if they can. This is spread around now because trump wants to increase tension with China and already he has support of most Americans. Spread more things like this and Chinese eating dogs and get more people to hate Chinese people. Old strategy but very effective. Chinese people need to react to this.

 

[gambit]

This would be a great strategy for China if it is real.

Yes, it would be.

Reports say that this is a stupid way to go about achieving the goals.

Cite a few. The reality is that a hardware based 'backdoor' access is the best. It is akin to placing a hidden microphone in a meeting room and only you know the existence of that device.

That's why China banned Google, Facebook, Youtube a long time ago and suspicious of many things from US.

Please...

Google, Facebook, et al are banned because of information access by the Chinese citizenry, not because these companies have any access to Chinese government secrets.

 

[serenity]

Yes, it would be.


Cite a few. The reality is that a hardware based 'backdoor' access is the best. It is akin to placing a hidden microphone in a meeting room and only you know the existence of that device.


Please...

Google, Facebook, et al are banned because of information access by the Chinese citizenry, not because these companies have any access to Chinese government secrets.

I am not expert or know about this just what I read somewhere but here it is. Maybe it is not accurate.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/1...-investigation-casts-doubt-on-storys-veracity

"As Fitzpatrick notes, there are easier, more cost-effective methods of attaining backdoor access into a target computer network."

So that's why I said that. Sorry my English isn't the best but just from the article I wrote this.

I feel we must just simply disagree on the banning issue. Of course what you say is also true but I don't think even if that's the only reason, it can be a bad thing. Banning information access that is desgined to badmouth Chinese with all sorts of made up things isn't useful for China's internal stability. Some hidden things and banning some liberties is good. Like sometimes a parent needs to discipline a child or prevent them from being too free.

I don't know how to explain well. Just that I believe it was all banned for many reasons and what you say is definitely part of it and it is a good thing rather than a bad thing. But democratic western view differs strongly. Doesn't mean it is right. We all decide for ourselves what is right and how to conduct ourselves. This is a right of Chinese people and the Communist party who won the civil war. Taiwan can conduct itself as it pleases as long as they do not claim mainland or title of being China. I hope Taiwan can remain independent of Communist government. US does one way and it is right for them. We can determine our own fate and ban Google from spying on us. Edwward Snowden already review a little bit of what NSA is capable of. China already knew back then. Now even smart TV and phones are hacked. Data retention from Google would be very useful info if not banned. Many western articles can be written for targeting Chinese audience and make them question or hate the government for wrong reasons or made up reasons. It isn't always opening up their eyes. Believe me most Chnese people are not in love with government and quite opposite. But they do their job quite well and keep the country stable and wealthy now. No time in China's history is like this except more than thousand years ago. Most Chinese people know many parts of the government is dirty and do bad and wrong things. But we don't have the luxury of the west for being critical of a working system. All alternatives are much much much worse for both China and China's neighbours. A democratic Chinese government may have already waged war on all neighbours and attacked evryone. You can never know. A lot of Chinese are very nationalistic now and Communists actually hold them down. Imagine is redneck Chinese come to power of whole country. Asia will be ruined. USA will love it.

 

[gambit]

I feel we must just simply disagree on the banning issue. Of course what you say is also true but I don't think even if that's the only reason, it can be a bad thing. Banning information access that is desgined to badmouth Chinese with all sorts of made up things isn't useful for China's internal stability. Some hidden things and banning some liberties is good. Like sometimes a parent needs to discipline a child or prevent them from being too free. I don't know how to explain well. Just that I believe it was all banned for many reasons and what you say is definitely part of it and it is a good thing rather than a bad thing. But democratic western view differs strongly. Doesn't mean it is right. We all decide for ourselves what is right and how to conduct ourselves.

If your China feels that negative comments about the country is worth banning, then that is a reflection on the political maturity of your country. But that has nothing to do with Google or Facebook being agents of the US government. Your China is afraid of your citizenry having alternate opinions. That is all there is to it.

 

[serenity]

If your China feels that negative comments about the country is worth banning, then that is a reflection on the political maturity of your country. But that has nothing to do with Google or Facebook being agents of the US government. Your China is afraid of your citizenry having alternate opinions. That is all there is to it.

I know you hate China and most Chinese people because of personal reasons but please stop saying your China. It is unnecessary. I am here to discuss things politely and civilised. I do not insult you.

Chinese gov feels threatened by outside media brainwashing world and if they allow Chinese audience to access this, they can destabilise the country. You think it is simply negative comments but believe me it is much much more and more dangerous to the communist government. There are always negative comments about Chinese and China, if the same were for Vietnam you will cry everyday. We have thick skin and take it because that is life and it's okay because life ends which gives relief. So it is about feeding Chinese people false information about how bad government is and how evil they are. Maybe some info will be fair and accurate like government targeting some muslims in certain populations. But they will not tell whole story which is unforuntately this is necessary. Maybe those people are planning things. The google info will not say this whole story or be understanding or even provide opportunity for someone to understand more layers to this.

Its effect will be disastrous because then all Chinese muslims will be angry and start movements and then destabilise the whole country from one small thing. This is just one example of many ways USA can use this as weapon like they used in Arab spring and many other places in history. China government knows they need to do this for now until the country is rich and developed enough to offer better growth and development for all its citizens. Long road but hard road to take and many powerful enemies. One day it will be better though and those evil bastards will eventually all get what they deserve. USA has proven it is selfish empire and even can be described as evil. Therefore all her actions must be scrutinized. Anything they do is not for better of others. So if they want China to be more open, then definitely the right thing is the opposite. We can disagree on this because we will never agree and the conversation will become useless and personal.