4 ms·

It's an intriguing story. Not to be too conspiratorial but one simple answer is that the US Feds asked Bloomberg to give the story legs, as a public signal to

It's an intriguing story. Not to be too conspiratorial but one simple answer is that the US Feds asked Bloomberg to give the story legs, as a public signal to China. Either to raise the issue of China planting spyware chips on goods, or for some other political reason. The CIA et. al. definitely have relationships with the big press outlets and stories are placed for reasons of national security. Not quite 'propaganda' but definitely for 'national cause'. The press is used as a way to communicate, as if to say 'we know this, and now the world knows, hint, hint' ...

qubax 8y ago
It's not conspiracy. It's standard M.O. and it most definitely is propaganda. The chinese do the same thing. When the chinese authorities want to send a signal to another country, their news coverage of the targeted country turns negative. One of the most recent examples is chinese media coverage of south korea after the THAAD deployment. We've done the same thing here. When relations with the US and China were bad, the news coverage of china is very anti-china. When relations are good, the news coverage turns good ( like the generous, almost fawning, Deng news coverage in the 70s ). Of course it's the most noticeable or obvious during war time, but propaganda is ever present during peace, it's just more subtle.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  Sending a signal by releasing information, which is by the way truthful, isn't really propaganda in the classical sense at all. It's just a diplomatic way of communicating. Having a story 'encouraged' in the press about hacking of supply chains for espionage is a pretty decent way of singling to all involved that the jig is up. Ginning up anti-Chinese news over many cycles is more like propaganda, but what does that accomplish? Nothing really, unless nations are really at war and then the 'truth is the first casualty' of course. I think the reason the press is softer on China lately is purely economic, businesses are linked, they pay ad dollars, and they can demand stuff be snuffed just like Harvey Weinstein could get stories canned via backroom arm twisting. Witness specifically the disappearance of all things Dalai Lama and Tibet, which was all the rage in Cali a decade ago and now nobody talks about it. Can't risk upsetting those Chinese dollars flowing into big projects.
  - mikekchar 8y ago
    > Ginning up anti-Chinese news over many cycles is more like propaganda, but what does that accomplish? The biggest difficulty in a democracy is that public opinion matters. If you do something that is widely unpopular, it means that it may cause problems for you. If you want to do something, for example put harsh trade barriers up against a country, then you want people to think, "They deserved it because they did X which is far worse". So here's a completely fictional idea. I don't propose that this will actually happen, just that it's an example of why you might want to do this. Let's imagine that you don't like the fact that the Chinese are able to take a lot of electrical manufacturing away from the US. You know that the US can't compete because wages and working conditions have to be higher. Also, the Chinese have more control over their industry because they run a totalitarian regime. So, you get this idea, "Let's say that we have to inspect all electrical parts outsourced to China because it is a threat to our security. We can add on a 30% tariff to cover the job." This does many things. It makes outsourcing to China very expensive and allows US manufacturers to compete. Even if companies continue to choose Chinese outsourcing, it allows you to hire a whole bunch of unskilled workers as "inspectors". Finally it creates a precedent that electronic outsourcing is "dangerous" and must be controlled by government inspections -- allowing you some sort of control over how US companies can choose to outsource. This is especially compelling if you, personally, think that you can use this to your advantage after you leave office and return to business. So, you leak a whole bunch of information about how the Chinese suppliers are implanting spying devices into servers built by the largest and most successful US companies. And the sweet thing about it is that they probably are doing it occasionally, so all you have to do is to find a single example of it and then convince some reporters (who are journalists, not engineers) that it's happening more often and that the big businesses are engaging in a huge cover up. And because you are the government, you can round up some pretty impressive credentials (off the record, of course!) to back up your story. Like I said, I don't think that's what's going on (and I'll fall off my chair laughing if the US government decides to do what I said), but it's a completely plausible idea. There is considerable value in manipulating public opinion in this manner (or, more likely, something a lot more subtle).
    - sonnyblarney 8y ago
WillPostForFood 8y ago
IF you were doing this, why sabotage three American companies. Apple, Amazon, and SuperMicro. The stories about Huawei would make sense as propaganda. This is terrible propaganda, and is going to end up being bad reporting. We now have senior NSA officials disputing the story. https://www.macrumors.com/2018/10/10/nsa-senior-advisor-questions-businessweek-story/ https://www.macrumors.com/2018/10/10/nsa-senior-advisor-ques...
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  Of course the government would deny. But I agree, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, just an idea. It might very well be true however and it would raise flags for a lot of companies, not just Apple and Amazon, and it could very well be a 'reality check' for corporate America. I happen to know a little bit about how the US does some of these things, moreover, a lot of it is public information, and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if this story were essentially true and that there's a lot of lying involved. But who knows, it's a really weird one.
  - WillPostForFood 8y ago
    Of course the government would deny. It doesn't make sense for them to proactively deny it. If it was government propaganda, why would they attack the Bloomberg story. They could just say we can't confirm it, which would leave the door open to it being true. Denying it is counterproductive if it was a planted propaganda piece. It is a fascinating story, anything is still possible, but the momentum is starting to swing against Bloomberg.
    - village-idiot 8y ago
      Beyond that, a denial is actually quite rare. The 3 letter agencies usually stick with the Glomar Response, we can neither confirm nor deny, to prevent people from determining the truth by process of elimination.
      - rangibaby 8y ago
askmike 8y ago
> Not quite 'propaganda' How is this not propoganda?
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  Because it's just an exposition of a fact (assuming it's factual). It's not propaganda to inform the world that someone is infiltrating supply chain networks for the purposes of espionage. As if they are not aware already, it's a wake-up call. If the story were utterly untrue, or it was a pernicious fabrication of information or misdirection, then it would be propaganda. For example, some US military maneuvers in E. Asia are especially made public via mainstream media channels (even though they might be public anyhow, there's extra emphasis to make sure there's coverage) to make sure a message is sent. The popularization of a straight forward story in that case I don't think would really be propaganda.
jiveturkey 8y ago
> simple i don't think that word means what you think it means

qubax 8y ago

It's not conspiracy. It's standard M.O. and it most definitely is propaganda. The chinese do the same thing. When the chinese authorities want to send a signal to another country, their news coverage of the targeted country turns negative. One of the most recent examples is chinese media coverage of south korea after the THAAD deployment. We've done the same thing here. When relations with the US and China were bad, the news coverage of china is very anti-china. When relations are good, the news coverage turns good ( like the generous, almost fawning, Deng news coverage in the 70s ). Of course it's the most noticeable or obvious during war time, but propaganda is ever present during peace, it's just more subtle.

sonnyblarney 8y ago
Sending a signal by releasing information, which is by the way truthful, isn't really propaganda in the classical sense at all. It's just a diplomatic way of communicating. Having a story 'encouraged' in the press about hacking of supply chains for espionage is a pretty decent way of singling to all involved that the jig is up. Ginning up anti-Chinese news over many cycles is more like propaganda, but what does that accomplish? Nothing really, unless nations are really at war and then the 'truth is the first casualty' of course. I think the reason the press is softer on China lately is purely economic, businesses are linked, they pay ad dollars, and they can demand stuff be snuffed just like Harvey Weinstein could get stories canned via backroom arm twisting. Witness specifically the disappearance of all things Dalai Lama and Tibet, which was all the rage in Cali a decade ago and now nobody talks about it. Can't risk upsetting those Chinese dollars flowing into big projects.
- mikekchar 8y ago
  > Ginning up anti-Chinese news over many cycles is more like propaganda, but what does that accomplish? The biggest difficulty in a democracy is that public opinion matters. If you do something that is widely unpopular, it means that it may cause problems for you. If you want to do something, for example put harsh trade barriers up against a country, then you want people to think, "They deserved it because they did X which is far worse". So here's a completely fictional idea. I don't propose that this will actually happen, just that it's an example of why you might want to do this. Let's imagine that you don't like the fact that the Chinese are able to take a lot of electrical manufacturing away from the US. You know that the US can't compete because wages and working conditions have to be higher. Also, the Chinese have more control over their industry because they run a totalitarian regime. So, you get this idea, "Let's say that we have to inspect all electrical parts outsourced to China because it is a threat to our security. We can add on a 30% tariff to cover the job." This does many things. It makes outsourcing to China very expensive and allows US manufacturers to compete. Even if companies continue to choose Chinese outsourcing, it allows you to hire a whole bunch of unskilled workers as "inspectors". Finally it creates a precedent that electronic outsourcing is "dangerous" and must be controlled by government inspections -- allowing you some sort of control over how US companies can choose to outsource. This is especially compelling if you, personally, think that you can use this to your advantage after you leave office and return to business. So, you leak a whole bunch of information about how the Chinese suppliers are implanting spying devices into servers built by the largest and most successful US companies. And the sweet thing about it is that they probably are doing it occasionally, so all you have to do is to find a single example of it and then convince some reporters (who are journalists, not engineers) that it's happening more often and that the big businesses are engaging in a huge cover up. And because you are the government, you can round up some pretty impressive credentials (off the record, of course!) to back up your story. Like I said, I don't think that's what's going on (and I'll fall off my chair laughing if the US government decides to do what I said), but it's a completely plausible idea. There is considerable value in manipulating public opinion in this manner (or, more likely, something a lot more subtle).
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago

WillPostForFood 8y ago

IF you were doing this, why sabotage three American companies. Apple, Amazon, and SuperMicro. The stories about Huawei would make sense as propaganda. This is terrible propaganda, and is going to end up being bad reporting. We now have senior NSA officials disputing the story. https://www.macrumors.com/2018/10/10/nsa-senior-advisor-questions-businessweek-story/ https://www.macrumors.com/2018/10/10/nsa-senior-advisor-ques...

sonnyblarney 8y ago
Of course the government would deny. But I agree, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, just an idea. It might very well be true however and it would raise flags for a lot of companies, not just Apple and Amazon, and it could very well be a 'reality check' for corporate America. I happen to know a little bit about how the US does some of these things, moreover, a lot of it is public information, and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if this story were essentially true and that there's a lot of lying involved. But who knows, it's a really weird one.
- WillPostForFood 8y ago
  Of course the government would deny. It doesn't make sense for them to proactively deny it. If it was government propaganda, why would they attack the Bloomberg story. They could just say we can't confirm it, which would leave the door open to it being true. Denying it is counterproductive if it was a planted propaganda piece. It is a fascinating story, anything is still possible, but the momentum is starting to swing against Bloomberg.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    Beyond that, a denial is actually quite rare. The 3 letter agencies usually stick with the Glomar Response, we can neither confirm nor deny, to prevent people from determining the truth by process of elimination.
    - rangibaby 8y ago

askmike 8y ago

> Not quite 'propaganda' How is this not propoganda?

sonnyblarney 8y ago
Because it's just an exposition of a fact (assuming it's factual). It's not propaganda to inform the world that someone is infiltrating supply chain networks for the purposes of espionage. As if they are not aware already, it's a wake-up call. If the story were utterly untrue, or it was a pernicious fabrication of information or misdirection, then it would be propaganda. For example, some US military maneuvers in E. Asia are especially made public via mainstream media channels (even though they might be public anyhow, there's extra emphasis to make sure there's coverage) to make sure a message is sent. The popularization of a straight forward story in that case I don't think would really be propaganda.

jiveturkey 8y ago

> simple i don't think that word means what you think it means