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Apple tells Congress that it has found no sign of microchip tampering
- mehrdadn 8y agoI'm probably wrong, but for the life of me I can't help but wonder if there's weasel-wording going on. Bloomberg: > Three senior insiders at Apple say that in the summer of 2015, it, too, found malicious chips on Supermicro motherboards. Apple: > Apple has never found malicious chips, “hardware manipulations” or vulnerabilities purposely planted in any server. Why did they say "purposely planted" here? Were they trying to exclude the possibility of malicious chips being accidentally planted in any server? Is that even a thing? If so, why? If not, then why include those qualifiers if they are unnecessary?
- asperous 8y agoSaying "vulnerabilities purposely planted" just means that their servers may have had bugs like heartbleed in the past.
- mehrdadn 8y agoThanks, that makes sense for vulnerabilities. But what about "malicious chips"? I have such a hard time ignoring the fact that it modifies that phrase too. Should I be?
- marissandria 8y agoIt "modifies that phrase too", in what sense? Ostensibly the only way an unknown chip could be introduced into a data-center in such a way, and of all of them Apple's, would be with malicious intent, surely?
- Senderman 8y agoI don't think "malicious chips" was a quote from Apple - Apple's letter mentioned "the existence of malware or other malicious activity." adding "Nothing was ever found." - which is pretty broad. Every webstory is quoting that same excerpt - if the entire letter was printed somewhere, I can't find it.
- toast0 8y agoSupermicro BMCs had security vulnerabilities in the past as well -- which were presumably not purposefully planted.
- adamlett 8y agoPeople are – I think – getting too hung up on possible "weasel words" in Apple's and Amazon's denials. Think about it for a moment: What good would it do Apple if it turned out that Bloomberg was essentially correct in their reporting, that Apple knew this, but that Apple had worded their denial carefully such that it could be argued that it was not technically untrue by some very narrow and literal reading of it? Would shareholders and the public forgive Apple if that were the case? Would trust in Apple stay intact? Would a judge rule in favour of Apple in case of a law suit? If the answer to all of these questions is no, the consequences for Apple would be the same as if they had lied.
- King-Aaron 8y agoI can definitely entertain the possibility that Bloomberg was lying in their reporting, as like all media reports what's written should be taken with a reasonable grain of salt. But to intentionally publish such an inflammatory article, knowing to be false, which implicates two of America's most influential corporates just seems like absolute professional suicide to me.
- neonate 8y agoThe story can be false or misleading without the reporters lying. They may simply have believed their sources and chosen not to question them too closely. That's more common than reporters making things up.
- r00fus 8y agoThere's the story about how Bloomberg pays its reporters if they "move markets". Would that create the appropriate incentive to explain this behavior?
- wyattpeak 8y agoPeople are having a bit of a field day with that, but how is it any different from any other paper which gives bonuses for stories which move subscriptions? Or simply the fact that a journalist's career progress is basically pegged to the importance of their stories? It's a niche-specific metric for rewarding the same thing every publication does - reader interest. If a reader is interested in a financial article, pretty much by definition it will alter their market behaviour. I actually agree, as with all journalism, that there is some incentive to write exaggerated articles. But it rarely causes respectable journalists to fabricate stories, and I can't see how this would be any different.
- raws 8y agoAlso the ones calling no fouls are the primary targets and would be most affected by this as one of their selling points is their security levels. Independent 3rd party review is needed.
- Paraesthetic 8y ago"it' found no signs of hardware tampering. What about an outside party, or someone who isn't covered as being 'it'. Sounds like some weasel wording to me, and of course they can't admit it because of their huge push to be seen as a 'secure' company to store your data with.
- behringer 8y agoI wouldn't want to be the lawyer at apple found guilty of contempt of congress. Weasel wording is what a bad salesman does. It doesn't fly in court or in congress.
- 9db2nPZp 8y agoWhat flies in any court is claiming ignorance while having any possible evidence of the contrary destroyed or not documented at all in the first place. I think this was a warning to some companies to return their fab processes to the USA or at least vouch to better the anti-tampering verification methods to protect from foreign state actors. If the breaches are confirmed there will be a lot more damage to the stock market, but it all depends on how that would happen. I really hope they don't throw the baby out along with the bathwater.
- Paraesthetic 8y agoIf they are found to have lied to congress (Or to have feign ignorance at the matter) there will probably be stock implication, but very little in the way of punishment from the government.
- behringer 8y agoIf a lawyer knowingly lies to congress it's grounds for disbarment. I wouldn't risk it for any company, tho IANAL
- Paraesthetic 8y agoAs a lawyer I can say that companies use weasel wording all the time, to everyone, even for stupidly small reasons.
- jumelles 8y agoThis entire situation is really bizarre.
- obtino 8y agoIt appears that Bloomberg News pays reporters more if their stories move markets: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18162440 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18162440 One can only wonder if this story is due to the other.
- timlod 8y agoA commenter there said that Bloomberg abolished this practice several years ago.
- jakeogh 8y agoOct 4th 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYAHPPXmcts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYAHPPXmcts Not sure what to make of the current hardware backdoor story, anon sources are practically useless, but I study this stuff and the VP is being charitable on the real subjects.
- svilen_dobrev 8y ago"before the congress"... pff how that is any kind of truth-detector? Not that long time ago the bosses of tobacco industry sweared that smoking have nothing todo with cancer.. words come and go.. and noone listens. or remembers. btw there's no bad advertisement, only a missing one..