I’m of the opinion that this story was designed and planted through a Machiavellian scheme to cause panic and to generate more suspicion on China (specifically)

I’m of the opinion that this story was designed and planted through a Machiavellian scheme to cause panic and to generate more suspicion on China (specifically) and any other country (generally). The denials by the companies and the government arms are quite strong, suggesting that this is a highly secretive disinformation campaign. If the Bloomberg story is indeed true and the denials by the others false, I don’t expect to find out about it for at least another 30 years or longer, when this probably gets declassified or revealed in detail by some other source. Whatever the truth, it’s undeniable that the report has planted giant seeds of doubt on electronic hardware, and many countries can only continue to worry while not being able to handle this kind of threat at scale in the coming years. We humans want and desire for closure, but I suspect we won’t get it on this matter anytime soon.