7 ms·

Can anyone show us any code? Or an actual chip? Cool infographics don't cut it for me after the first time around with this.

• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• pfundstein 6y ago
  No. As with the previous article I am yet to see a single shred of hard evidence. I would take this series with a healthy dose of skepticism. Speculation: I read last time that Bloomberg rewards the authors of stories that cause stock swings and the last time this came up there was a sizeable swing which had almost returned to normal when this story was released.
  • shalmanese 6y ago
    > I read last time that Bloomberg rewards the authors of stories that cause stock swings They ended that practice well before the previous story was published.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • Lammy 6y ago
    > As with the previous article I am yet to see a single shred of hard evidence. I would take this series with a healthy dose of skepticism. "As long as knowledge has not been attained, the skeptics aim not to affirm anything." I would ask HN readers if they believe the Snowden leaks about NSA's TAO unit? If so, why so much doubt that other superpowers practice similar operations?
    • PixyMisa 6y ago
      This particular story should be verifiable if it is true. Nobody has been able to verify it, including the journalists who wrote the story. Nobody doubts that China engages in a broad range of hacking attempts. It's just that this story is entirely unsupported by evidence.
      • Lammy 6y ago
        Has anyone been able to credibly verify a TAO implant like the ones we have photos of them installing? https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade-factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa... People seem to be reading way too far into looking for a "custom chip" when the actual hack is probably just backdoor-implanted BMC firmware on a generic SPI flash chip.
        • rincebrain 6y ago
          They do explicitly distinguish between compromised firmware and distinct hardware implants in these systems, in this article, and claim examples of both.
  • jorblumesea 6y ago
    Why would you expect hard evidence from a national security concern like this? Seems like the very nature of this makes it unverifiable.
  • rincebrain 6y ago
    FWIW, of the claims made in the article, there are two relatively independently true facts one can find. One is the cited testimony of someone regarding a (large?) batch of Lenovo laptops found to be phoning home in secret, from public court testimony. The other is the incident with Intel reporting that a modified update package was downloaded from Supermicro's update site and infected a system, causing it to phone home, and both Intel and Supermicro admitted (assuming you believe the journalists aren't making things up out of whole cloth) that something happened resulting in Intel contacting Supermicro to report the incident.
    • est 6y ago
      > batch of Lenovo laptops found to be phoning home in secret Every software or hardware phone their place of origin naturally. Only authoritarian countries like China would require vendors to host services inside sovereign territory.
      • nitrogen 6y ago
        Every software or hardware phone their place of origin naturally. No, this is a negative trend. Software and hardware vendors don't need to spy on their users, and many don't.
        • est 6y ago
          Tell that to ${US_COMPANY_NAME} telemetry.
• peach45 6y ago
  //They showed an actual chip last time[1] but it seemed to me that it couldn't possibly house the logic necessary for data exfiltration. It looked like some sort of voltage conditioner. I am not an electrical engineer though. //https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-hack-how-china-used-a-tiny-chip-to-infiltrate-america-s-top-companies https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-h... Edit: now it is obvious to me that these were artistic renditions and not photos of any chip. Disregard the above.
• cheph 6y ago
  > Can anyone show us any code? Or an actual chip? Cool infographics don't cut it for me after the first time around with this. Amazing how the level of evidence required for this is completely different and significantly higher from almost everything else that dominated the news since 2016.
  • draw_down 6y ago
    Misdirect, misdirect, misdirect