The Big Hack

[ack]

You may have heard about this by now, and it's fascinating enough to repeat here

The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...ny-chip-to-infiltrate-america-s-top-companies

The forum downsizes pictures so the quality isn't as great, but the chip is still visible in the end

 

[jeff1225]

Thank you for posting this story, I've been looking for a more comprehensive article than the short blurb I read in the Economist. It shows what can happen when single party rule (China, Russia, etc) and state owned businesses collaborate to spy using the global supply chain and or the West's freedom of press rules.

China and Russia are playing chess, we're continuing to play a Pollyanna version of checkers.

 

[ack]

You are welcome Jeffrey. I really hate it that we are outsourcing our technologies to adversaries, but we as consumers also don't want to pay higher prices for electronics, so we have a hand in this.

 

[Ron Resnick]

The original Bloomberg story appeared to be well-researched. Yet Apple and Amazon are denying that any of their computers had the offending chip. What do you think is going on?

 

[BlueFox]

Chips don’t magically appear on circuit boards. Plus the board circuitry has to be designed to accommodate the chip. It’s easy enough to check if you have a product affected. Open it up. Is it there or not.

 

[ack]

The original Bloomberg story appeared to be well-researched. Yet Apple and Amazon are denying that any of their computers had the offending chip. What do you think is going on?

Chips have been implanted before; unlike past cases, this chip was so tiny as to not be noticed. My guess is that the liability of admission is huge, therefore the party line is to deny all allegations. Aka standard operating procedure.

 

[GSOphile]

A big trend in U.S. government computing these days is to outsource to the cloud, where Amazon in particular is a big player. I think this probably explains the public denials. Several years ago some government agencies stopped allowing procurement of Chinese sourced computing technology.... with good reason. The Chinese retaliated against U.S. manufactured equipment.

 

[jeff1225]

Chips have been implanted before; unlike past cases, this chip was so tiny as to not be noticed. My guess is that the liability of admission is huge, therefore the party line is to deny all allegations. Aka standard operating procedure.

+1. Look at the denials from Facebook regarding the extent of the hacking into their system. The Economist put it perfectly 'either way its troubling, Facebook is covering up the truth or their algorithms are so complicated, they don't know.'

Silicon Valley companies are so obsessed with growth, they are reckless plain and simple.