5 ms·

My take on this is that it's been fairly obvious for a long time that these kinds of attacks are possible (if not easy) with today's technology. One could desi

My take on this is that it's been fairly obvious for a long time that these kinds of attacks are possible (if not easy) with today's technology. One could design a microcontroller, for example, that was disguised as an 0805 capacitor and functioned like an 0805 capacitor, but also had other functionality. So why is this suddenly breaking news? It bears resemblance to most of the propaganda stories we have seen in recent years: - it is based on truth. Supply chain attacks are known to exist - the US government has a goal of escalating with China over trade and IP practices. - national security threats justify nearly any form of government action in today's world. - the story turns out to have been leaked through foreign sources. This is typically the pattern we see because of concerns about propaganda coming directly from US government officials to US news outlets. There is typically a middle layer that is outside of the US where the allegations can originate from until they are broadly accepted as fact. So Apple and Google are not really lying. Chances are there has not been any sort of major security breach in either of those companies due to supply chain attacks. It is possible that they have been barred from revealing information about it for national security reasons (in this case propaganda reasons). So I think we can expect the following next steps: - The story will continue to hover in this slow reveal format until enough laypeople come to understand the key concepts -- circuit assembly, components, trojan horse components, QC processes, subcontractors, etc. Once the stage has been set there will be more revelations and leaks from major companies that corroborate the story. The goal is to make China the crisis in the buildup to the 2020 election. It's not a coincidence that this strategy is getting underway right after the midterm elections in the US. Our president has already been attacking China with rhetoric and trade sanctions, and this story is meant to turn public opinion broadly against China. The supply chain attacks do not have to have been significant (or successful) to make this happen. The very idea that "sneaky" Chinese intelligence agencies and firms would be able to slip this by US firms' quality control measures is enough to inflict paranoia on Americans and help them start to view China as a terrifying adversary that must be stopped. China's military outnumbers the US military by 20:1 in terms of the number of active duty fighters, and China's economy is approaching first world standards in major cities far faster than the US had ever expected. China dominates scientific publications in the hard sciences, and its top universities are 10x more competitive (or more) than top US universities. So hawks in the US realize that this may be the last opportunity for some sort of power projection or military driven containment of China's ambitions. This is foolhardy, because China is led by a group of highly rational people whose policy responses to the administration's trade threats have been masterful and precise, and have conveyed with no uncertainty that China will not be bullied. So what we're seeing is a short time horizon strategy by the US which is meant to have electoral consequences in 2020 and pave the way for some degree of hostile escalation with China. US weapons systems are still significantly more advanced, but China has likely weaponized many aspects of US infrastructure via these sorts of supply chain attacks. My guess is that the US Government is not aware of many of these, and will panic when they are discovered. Fortunately for us all, China's leadership is calm and not prone to knee-jerk responses. China is rising to world prominence faster than expected, and the US will not take that lying down. However it is probably too late at this point, as China has a tremendous amount of soft power stemming from its importance to the US supply chain. Because of this there is still much hope for a peaceful, trade-driven equilibrium to emerge.

Chlorus 8y ago
> Our president has already been attacking China with rhetoric and trade sanctions, and this story is meant to turn public opinion broadly against China. Ah yes, Bloomberg, well-known for protectionist rhetoric and support for Trump. > top universities are 10x more competitive (or more) than top US universities. A citation would be very helpful here. And no, number of paper's published isn > This is foolhardy, because China is led by a group of highly rational people whose policy responses to the administration's trade threats have been masterful and precise, and have conveyed with no uncertainty that China will not be bullied. Citation also needed. They're so rational, they just detained the president of Interpol, have committed mass internment of Muslim citizens, and can't go six months without trying to ram NATO ships in international waters. > but China has likely weaponized many aspects of US infrastructure via these sorts of supply chain attacks Wait, what? So doesn't that mean the hawks were right to be suspicious? And that this really should be a national security concern? "This is all just a pretense to make people afraid of the PRC! By the way, you should be afraid of the PRC."
- alehul 8y ago
  > Ah yes, Bloomberg, well-known for protectionist rhetoric and support for Trump. To be fair, many of Bloomberg's sources were government, so the government could easily have said "we'll leak this to Bloomberg." It doesn't require Bloomberg to have a protectionist agenda more than being a pawn. I agree with you on the rest though; "masterful and precise" in particular seems pretty farfetched and ridiculous, and many parts of China's economy look like a house of cards.
- cmurf 8y ago
  You're conflating rationality with propriety. China wanted Meng Hongwei to make it easier to use Interpol to track down Chinese dissidents, directly in conflict with the Interpol charter; and merely two years later they kidnap, disappear him, and charge him with disloyalty to the Chinese Communist Party. He was supposed to be their stooge pigeon, but was clearly ineffective. Again from their point of view, entirely rational to have him removed because he wasn't doing what was expected. And that's what's so conspicuous, they openly admit China was his master, not Interpol. China, Xi, and the Party are in a sense all one in the same thing. There is nothing more important than loyalty to the one Party, and the concept of one Party rule. And Uighurs are a threat to that, so they're labeled terrorists. If you accept the idea that one party rule is necessary, it's entirely rational to aggressively, perhaps even violently, ban all possible opposition. That's the nature of any autocracy.

Chlorus 8y ago

> Our president has already been attacking China with rhetoric and trade sanctions, and this story is meant to turn public opinion broadly against China. Ah yes, Bloomberg, well-known for protectionist rhetoric and support for Trump. > top universities are 10x more competitive (or more) than top US universities. A citation would be very helpful here. And no, number of paper's published isn > This is foolhardy, because China is led by a group of highly rational people whose policy responses to the administration's trade threats have been masterful and precise, and have conveyed with no uncertainty that China will not be bullied. Citation also needed. They're so rational, they just detained the president of Interpol, have committed mass internment of Muslim citizens, and can't go six months without trying to ram NATO ships in international waters. > but China has likely weaponized many aspects of US infrastructure via these sorts of supply chain attacks Wait, what? So doesn't that mean the hawks were right to be suspicious? And that this really should be a national security concern? "This is all just a pretense to make people afraid of the PRC! By the way, you should be afraid of the PRC."

alehul 8y ago
> Ah yes, Bloomberg, well-known for protectionist rhetoric and support for Trump. To be fair, many of Bloomberg's sources were government, so the government could easily have said "we'll leak this to Bloomberg." It doesn't require Bloomberg to have a protectionist agenda more than being a pawn. I agree with you on the rest though; "masterful and precise" in particular seems pretty farfetched and ridiculous, and many parts of China's economy look like a house of cards.
cmurf 8y ago
You're conflating rationality with propriety. China wanted Meng Hongwei to make it easier to use Interpol to track down Chinese dissidents, directly in conflict with the Interpol charter; and merely two years later they kidnap, disappear him, and charge him with disloyalty to the Chinese Communist Party. He was supposed to be their stooge pigeon, but was clearly ineffective. Again from their point of view, entirely rational to have him removed because he wasn't doing what was expected. And that's what's so conspicuous, they openly admit China was his master, not Interpol. China, Xi, and the Party are in a sense all one in the same thing. There is nothing more important than loyalty to the one Party, and the concept of one Party rule. And Uighurs are a threat to that, so they're labeled terrorists. If you accept the idea that one party rule is necessary, it's entirely rational to aggressively, perhaps even violently, ban all possible opposition. That's the nature of any autocracy.