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Apple Insiders Say Nobody Internally Knows What's Going On With Bloomberg's China Hack Story (buzzfeednews.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BuzzFeed News: Multiple senior Apple executives, speaking with BuzzFeed News on the condition of anonymity so that they could speak freely all denied and expressed confusion with a report earlier this week that the company's servers had been compromised by a Chinese intelligence operation. On Thursday morning, Bloomberg Businessweek published a bombshell investigation. The report -- the result of more than a year of reporting and over 100 interviews with intelligence and company sources -- alleged that Chinese spies compromised and infiltrated almost 30 U.S. companies including Apple and Amazon by embedding a tiny microchip inside company servers. Both Amazon and Apple issued uncharacteristically strong and detailed denials of Bloomberg's claims.
Reached by BuzzFeed News multiple Apple sources -- three of them very senior executives who work on the security and legal teams -- said that they are at a loss as to how to explain the allegations. These people described a massive, granular, and siloed investigation into not just the claims made in the story, but into unrelated incidents that might have inspired them. A senior security engineer directly involved in Apple's internal investigation described it as "endoscopic," noting they had never seen a chip like the one described in the story, let alone found one. "I don't know if something like this even exists," this person said, noting that Apple was not provided with a malicious chip or motherboard to examine. "We were given nothing. No hardware. No chips. No emails." Equally puzzling to Apple execs is the assertion that it was party to an FBI investigation -- Bloomberg wrote that Apple "reported the incident to the FBI." A senior Apple legal official told BuzzFeed News the company had not contacted the FBI, nor had it been contacted by the FBI, the CIA, the NSA or any government agency in regards to the incidents described in the Bloomberg report. This person's purview and responsibilities are of such a high level that it's unlikely they would not have been aware of government outreach.
Reached by BuzzFeed News multiple Apple sources -- three of them very senior executives who work on the security and legal teams -- said that they are at a loss as to how to explain the allegations. These people described a massive, granular, and siloed investigation into not just the claims made in the story, but into unrelated incidents that might have inspired them. A senior security engineer directly involved in Apple's internal investigation described it as "endoscopic," noting they had never seen a chip like the one described in the story, let alone found one. "I don't know if something like this even exists," this person said, noting that Apple was not provided with a malicious chip or motherboard to examine. "We were given nothing. No hardware. No chips. No emails." Equally puzzling to Apple execs is the assertion that it was party to an FBI investigation -- Bloomberg wrote that Apple "reported the incident to the FBI." A senior Apple legal official told BuzzFeed News the company had not contacted the FBI, nor had it been contacted by the FBI, the CIA, the NSA or any government agency in regards to the incidents described in the Bloomberg report. This person's purview and responsibilities are of such a high level that it's unlikely they would not have been aware of government outreach.
Remember when people used to answer "I cannot confirm on deny that such action has taken place"?
Nowadays they just flat out deny it. And then months later the truth comes up, heads roll, stock prices drop, investors buy the stock for pennies. Then people forget about it, stock prices go up, investors sell the stock, and make a lot of money.
Everyone's happy. The head that rolled? Got his golden parachute. The investors? They got a lot of money. Everyone else? Don't remember a thing.
I'm not sure what to believe here.
In support of the story, China does have a long history of industrial espionage and other spying. Many believe that their economic rise was boosted by stolen IP.
On the other hand, the current administration is clearly using allegations against China to balance the revelations that continue to come out about Russian interference. Many of the allegations from this administration towards China appear to be completely fabricated.
But this allegation is much more detailed than anything the administration has been imagining, but the sources are all anonymous.
Please, take a sample of those servers, open them and let a bunch of experts to investigate.
Is it that difficult?
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Oh, well, thank god then you've linked to such quality blogs proving the "Fake News" from Bloomberg whose "opposition to president Trump knows know bounds". I know blogspot and "godsavethepoints" are where I go when I'm looking for cutting edge investigative journalism and not a fart sniffing boomer echo chamber about muh fake news.
Why is Apple trying so hard to deny a story that Bloomberg insists is accurate and very well sourced?
Because the Bloomberg story is bollocks?
No idea, but the stuff they wrote about Germanies renewable energy was usually all the time I bothered to read it: bollocks.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
PRISM showed what the tech companies would say and how they would say it.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"