The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies (Apple, Amazon)

[clapclapclap 9000]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-hack-how-china-used-a-tiny-chip-to-infiltrate-america-s-top-companies

The attack by Chinese spies reached almost 30 U.S. companies, including Amazon and Apple, by compromising America’s technology supply chain, according to extensive interviews with government and corporate sources....

iPPcoke XS Mini

[Parliament 14562]

Well that’s scary.

Two of Elemental’s biggest early clients were the Mormon church, which used the technology to beam sermons to congregations around the world, and the adult film industry, which did not.

And that’s funny.

[Victorious1 181]

I worked on our Dept of State account for about five years (2007-12) and State IT was always asking for schematics of our products they purchased through the Tempest contractors.  I presumed they were auditing units to compare designed product versus finished product.  But when you get right down to it, all of the components that went into our product(s) were sourced from any number if different manufacturers, most of them located in Asia.

[tbone_ 14413]

One of these days someone in China is going to flip a switch and all of our shit will just go dark. The good news is they probably won’t do it while they still own so much of our debt.

 

[NeverMarryAStripper 22242]

We should just go ahead and start teaching Mandarin in elementary school 

Edited October 5, 2018 by NeverMarryAStripper

[tbone_ 14413]

Not sure if that’s a joke but mandarin is taught in some elementary schools in our district including my daughters. She had a year of it.

 

[El Diablo 4232]

Remember when we let Soviet contractors build our embassy and the whole thing had to be torn down because it was full of spy gear/bugs/listening devices? I member.

Don't trust your sensitive shit with foreign powers.

[hornbri 1504]

Apple with a pretty strong statement - https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/10/what-businessweek-got-wrong-about-apple/

[Armybrat 41325]

Well, if the FBI investigates Dell servers built in Round Rock, Texas between 2013 &2015, they might find a half-eaten PBJ sandwich or empty Fritos bag n some of them.

Don't ask me how I know this.

[Kyle 207]

12 hours ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

We should just go ahead and start teaching Mandarin in elementary school 

I get the PC element, but I have always wondered why we spend so much money teaching our kids Spanish while the rest of the world is learning English and Mandarin. #noracist

[Kyle 207]

2 hours ago, El Diablo said:

Remember when we let Soviet contractors build our embassy and the whole thing had to be torn down because it was full of spy gear/bugs/listening devices? I member.

Don't trust your sensitive shit with foreign powers.

No shit. Capt. Obvious, but this never has made sense to me. Hey Marcus, let's outsource our key technology to a country that wants to destroy us. Kind of important to have a manufacturing infrastructure whether technology or equipment.

[Armybrat 41325]

No shit - then let foeign nationals work in sensitive technology facilities here in the US.

It seems the US science community is clueless about national security, or they really believe in the globalist nonsense.

Edited October 5, 2018 by Armybrat

[F250 29177]

There seems to be a big cloud of skepticism growing around the Bloomberg article. Apple and Amazon the victims in the Bloomberg report are denying the claims Bloomberg is making. So far, no one has been able to confirm any evidence of actual tampering occurred. Bloomberg has yet to provide any technical details on this alleged hack.

China would be shooting themselves in the foot if they did mess with the supply chain as Bloomberg claims. They could potentially lose billions of dollars in manufacturing business. Supermicro's stock dropped by 50% today.

Now I am wondering if Bloomberg fucked up bigly or something else is at play here.

 

Here is a good summary of the events that have taken place.

https://medium.com/@thegrugq/supply-chain-security-speculation-b7b6357a5d05

[F250 29177]

Forgot to mention that Krebs, the gold standard in infosec reporting passed on this story before Bloomberg ran with it.

 

 

[Schulz2.0 29243]

3 minutes ago, F250 said:

There seems to be a big cloud of skepticism growing around the Bloomberg article. Apple and Amazon the victims in the Bloomberg report are denying the claims Bloomberg is making. So far, no one has been able to confirm any evidence of actual tampering occurred. Bloomberg has yet to provide any technical details on this alleged hack.

China would be shooting themselves in the foot if they did mess with the supply chain as Bloomberg claims. They could potentially lose billions of dollars in manufacturing business. Supermicro's stock dropped by 50% today.

Now I am wondering if Bloomberg fucked up bigly or something else is at play here.

 

Here is a good summary of the events that have taken place.

https://medium.com/@thegrugq/supply-chain-security-speculation-b7b6357a5d05

Apple and Amazon have plenty of reasons to deny the story.

[Bullneck 19454]

1 hour ago, Kyle said:

No shit. Capt. Obvious, but this never has made sense to me. Hey Marcus, let's outsource our key technology to a country that wants to destroy us. Kind of important to have a manufacturing infrastructure whether technology or equipment.

Quote

Donald Trump’s senior national security officials said they were speaking for the president when they stood together in the White House Thursday and vowed to combat ongoing Russian cyber meddling.

But Trump himself remained silent.

In an unusual appearance in the White House briefing room, several top security and intelligence chiefs accused Moscow of ongoing influence operations, ranging from social media disinformation campaigns to attempts to hack political targets and infiltrate the country’s electoral infrastructure.

“We continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by Russia to try to weaken and divide the United States,” Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told reporters at the White House. "We're throwing everything at it.”

 

[Bullneck 19454]

1 hour ago, Kyle said:

I get the PC element, but I have always wondered why we spend so much money teaching our kids Spanish while the rest of the world is learning English and Mandarin. #noracist

There is no "PC element."  People want to learn Mandarin if they think it will benefit them (or their children) financially in the future.  No other reason.

[Kyle 207]

36 minutes ago, Bullneck said:

 

NSIS.

My PC point is that schools waste way too many resources IMHO teaching Spanish vs. a useful language like Mandarin.

[Sbbruin 22082]

14 hours ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

We should just go ahead and start teaching Mandarin in elementary school 

There are quite a few Mandarin immersion schools around us.  Of course, there are a lot of chinamen around us too.

[F250 29177]

35 minutes ago, Schulz2.0 said:

Apple and Amazon have plenty of reasons to deny the story.

They do. But the denials by Apple and Amazon are pretty specific rather than the usual vague denials. I am not sure who to believe at the moment.

An interesting update on this is Brittain's  GCHQ is backing up the denials being made by Apple and Amazon.

https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN1MF1DN

[Bullneck 19454]

5 minutes ago, Kyle said:

NSIS.

My PC point is that schools waste way too many resources IMHO teaching Spanish vs. a useful language like Mandarin.

There's more than one definition of "useful." I hear Spanish every day.  Not so much an Chinese.  Could be Cantonese.  Or Mandarin.  Or Szechuan.  

[TwiceHorn 31993]

Languages were taught in high school not so much for the purpose of actually learning that language, but for general education purposes and for the insight it gives a student on the English language.  Which is why Latin was taught (still may be) for so many years.

Spanish, French, and German were added just as a nod to modernity, not because they are more practical than Latin.

Asian languages offer almost no insight whatsoever on the English language.  So it may be more practical, but I'm not sure that was ever the pedagogical point.

[Bullneck 19454]

2 hours ago, Kyle said:

I get the PC element, but I have always wondered why we spend so much money teaching our kids Spanish while the rest of the world is learning English and Mandarin. #noracist

Also, you might think US kids will grow up and be doing big business with the Chinese with their Mandarin speaking skilzz but they won't.  It will be the the 1st generation kids of Chinese immigrants who taught them at home.  Gringo kids don't have a chance . . .

Besides, who cares about Mandarin, anyway.  If you're doing business in China it's going to be with US rules and US contracts.  Would you sing a deal with a foreigner with a language you don't fully understand?  And one with no respect for intellectual property?  The whole Mandarin thing is wishful thinking.  

[TwiceHorn 31993]

3 minutes ago, Bullneck said:

Also, you might think US kids will grow up and be doing big business with the Chinese with their Mandarin speaking skilzz but they won't.  It will be the the 1st generation kids of Chinese immigrants who taught them at home.  Gringo kids don't have a chance . . .

Besides, who cares about Mandarin, anyway.  If you're doing business in China it's going to be with US rules and US contracts.  Would you sing a deal with a foreigner with a language you don't fully understand?  And one with no respect for intellectual property?  The whole Mandarin thing is wishful thinking.  

Well, they might be contracts in English with nominally American rules, but the azns gon azn and ignore all of it.

[F250 29177]

6 minutes ago, Kyle said:

NSIS.

My PC point is that schools waste way too many resources IMHO teaching Spanish vs. a useful language like Mandarin.

You statement implies Spanish isn't useful. Do you even NAFTA/USMCA, bro. Seriously, there is a lot of benefits to speaking Spanish if you do business in Mexico, Central America or South America.

[Bullneck 19454]

4 minutes ago, F250 said:

You statement implies Spanish isn't useful. Do you even NAFTA/USMCA, bro. Seriously, there is a lot of benefits to speaking Spanish if you do business in Mexico, Central America or South America.

Also: Latin women.  

Advantage: Espanol

[Kyle 207]

26 minutes ago, Bullneck said:

There's more than one definition of "useful." I hear Spanish every day.  Not so much an Chinese.  Could be Cantonese.  Or Mandarin.  Or Szechuan.  

I get it. I have nothing against Spanish; I wish more schools would offer Mandarin.

Fully agree on your last point - I married one of them there Messican senoritas.

Edited October 5, 2018 by Kyle

[F250 29177]

8 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Languages were taught in high school not so much for the purpose of actually learning that language, but for general education purposes and for the insight it gives a student on the English language.  Which is why Latin was taught (still may be) for so many years.

Spanish, French, and German were added just as a nod to modernity, not because they are more practical than Latin.

Asian languages offer almost no insight whatsoever on the English language.  So it may be more practical, but I'm not sure that was ever the pedagogical point.

Latin for the win!

Took 4 years of Latin in high school. Not only did it help with the SAT, it made learning Spanish pretty damn easy and really helped with picking up conversational Italian. Plus being familiar with Latin root words is the gift that keeps on giving when it comes to understanding new english words.

 

 

[Kyle 207]

8 minutes ago, F250 said:

You statement implies Spanish isn't useful. Do you even NAFTA/USMCA, bro. Seriously, there is a lot of benefits to speaking Spanish if you do business in Mexico, Central America or South America.

I get it. I may be wrong, but I suspect in 20 years most will be doing more business with China than Latin America, but I could be completely wrong - especially given proximity. I have no issue with any language, like I said earlier I wish more schools offered more options.

[Kyle 207]

2 minutes ago, F250 said:

Latin for the win!

Took 4 years of Latin in high school. Not only did it help with the SAT, it made learning Spanish pretty damn easy and really helped with picking up conversational Italian. Plus being familiar with Latin root words is the gift that keeps on giving when it comes to understanding new english words.

 

 

Three for me.

[Bullneck 19454]

25 minutes ago, Kyle said:

I get it. I have nothing against Spanish; I wish more schools would offer Mandarin.

Fully agree on your last point - I married one of them there Cuban senoritas.

 

[NeverMarryAStripper 22242]

There's more than one definition of "useful." I hear Spanish every day.  Not so much an Chinese.  Could be Cantonese.  Or Mandarin.  Or Szechuan.  

Yes, but I don’t think we’re in much danger of being completely taken over by any Spanish speaking country.

[TwiceHorn 31993]

4 minutes ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

Yes, but I don’t think we’re in much danger of being completely taken over by any Spanish speaking country.

[F250 29177]

41 minutes ago, Bullneck said:

Also: Latin women.  

Advantage: Espanol

Yep.

[El Diablo 4232]

1 hour ago, Bullneck said:

Also: Latin women.  

Advantage: Espanol

Vic will tell you they speak Tortillian.

[tbone_ 14413]

Yes, but I don’t think we’re in much danger of being completely taken over by any Spanish speaking country.

You haven’t been paying attention to demographics. /no cr

[HoustonHorn 1063]

Latin roots is the most useful class I took in high school. Was happy to see them teaching that in my daughter's school although not a dedicated class. Still great to have a general understanding of the latin roots to help with comprehension.

Asian is a food, not a language.

[El Diablo 4232]

1 hour ago, tbone_ said:

You haven’t been paying attention to demographics. /no cr

One of us probably needs to take their meter into the shop for a calibration check.

ETA: Everything I know about Asia I learned from watching Japanese porn. What more do we need to understand?

Edited October 5, 2018 by El Diablo

[NeverMarryAStripper 22242]

You haven’t been paying attention to demographics. /no cr

Even the Hispanics will have to learn mandarin after China takes over

[tbone_ 14413]

Good point

[William_Cannon 86]

One of these days someone in China is going to flip a switch and all of our shit will just go dark. The good news is they probably won’t do it while they still own so much of our debt.
 

Replace China with Russia and the reason for not flipping the switch is because we’re in their critical infrastructure too.

[ImissWallyPryor 9046]

There were a lot of posters on Shaggy who were dismissive of those who want to bring back America’s manufacturing base. This is what we get for farming out so much of that base to other countries, especially those that are not strong allies.

[Homercles 10206]

I was skeptical when I saw the graphics depicting that absolutely tiny chip...how does it capture internal and network I/O from that one location, how does it decide what to send back to home base,etc. it’d need some decent logic else youre forwarding so much traffic on that people are bound to notice.

[F250 29177]

On 10/5/2018 at 1:38 PM, F250 said:

They do. But the denials by Apple and Amazon are pretty specific rather than the usual vague denials. I am not sure who to believe at the moment.

An interesting update on this is Brittain's  GCHQ is backing up the denials being made by Apple and Amazon.

https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN1MF1DN

DHS also backing the denials by Apple and Amazon.

 

[BottleRocket 659]

[XYZ 2154]

It’s evident that protecting the big corporations by any means necessary is one of the federal government’s top priorities, probably #2, only slightly less important than protecting itself. Fuck the rule of law. And for sure fuck the people.

[hornbri 1504]

11 hours ago, XYZ said:

It’s evident that protecting the big corporations by any means necessary is one of the federal government’s top priorities, probably #2, only slightly less important than protecting itself. Fuck the rule of law. And for sure fuck the people.

Or the article is just wrong? That happens you know, not everything you read is true. 

[NeverMarryAStripper 22242]

Or the article is just wrong? That happens you know, not everything you read is true. 

I think I read that somewhere

[F250 29177]

 

Now, in a letter to Congress, Apple’s vice president of information security George Stathakopoulos sent the company’s strongest denial to date.

“Apple has never found malicious chips, ‘hardware manipulations’ or vulnerabilities purposely planted in any server,” he said. “We never alerted the FBI to any security concerns like those described in the article, nor has the FBI ever contacted us about such an investigation.”

It follows a statement by both the U.K. National Cyber Security Center and U.S. Homeland Security stating that they had “no reason to doubt” statements by Apple, Amazon and Supermicro denying the claims.

[F250 29177]

7 hours ago, hornbri said:

Or the article is just wrong? That happens you know, not everything you read is true. 

These articles are wrong a lot of the time. I've been involved in a number of security breaches that made the news and none of them were reported correctly. Usually its a case of the reporter not understanding what they are trying to explain in their article.

This Bloomberg article is a little weird though and the jury is still out on whether the reporter fucked up or was fed misinformation. This story appears to have some IC ties so who knows what to believe at the moment.