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AWS CEO Andy Jassy Follows Apple In Calling For Retraction of Chinese Spy Chip Story (cnbc.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon Web Services, followed Apple's lead in calling the for the retraction of Bloomberg's story about spy chips being embedded in servers. "They offered no proof, story kept changing, and showed no interest in our answers unless we could validate their theories," Jassy wrote in a tweet on Monday. "Reporters got played or took liberties. Bloomberg should retract."
Apple CEO Tim Cook told Buzzfeed on Friday that the scenario Bloomberg reported never happened and that the October story in Bloomberg Businessweek should be retracted. Bloomberg alleged data center hardware used by Apple and AWS, and provided by server company Super Micro, was under surveillance by the Chinese government, even though almost all the companies named in the report denied Bloomberg's claim. Bloomberg published a denial from AWS alongside its own report, and AWS refuted the report in a more strongly worded six-paragraph blog post entitled "Setting the Record Straight on Bloomberg Businessweek's Erroneous Article." Further reading is available via The Washington Post.
"Sources tell the Erik Wemple Blog that the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and The Post have each sunk resources into confirming the story, only to come up empty-handed," the Washington Post reports. "(The Post did run a story summarizing Bloomberg's findings, along with various denials and official skepticism.) It behooves such outlets to dispatch entire teams to search for corroboration: If, indeed, it's true that China has embarked on this sort of attack, there will be a long tail of implications. No self-respecting news organization will want to be left out of those stories. 'Unlike software, hardware leaves behind a good trail of evidence. If somebody decides to go down that path, it means that they don't care about the consequences,' Stathakopoulos says.'"
Apple CEO Tim Cook told Buzzfeed on Friday that the scenario Bloomberg reported never happened and that the October story in Bloomberg Businessweek should be retracted. Bloomberg alleged data center hardware used by Apple and AWS, and provided by server company Super Micro, was under surveillance by the Chinese government, even though almost all the companies named in the report denied Bloomberg's claim. Bloomberg published a denial from AWS alongside its own report, and AWS refuted the report in a more strongly worded six-paragraph blog post entitled "Setting the Record Straight on Bloomberg Businessweek's Erroneous Article." Further reading is available via The Washington Post.
"Sources tell the Erik Wemple Blog that the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and The Post have each sunk resources into confirming the story, only to come up empty-handed," the Washington Post reports. "(The Post did run a story summarizing Bloomberg's findings, along with various denials and official skepticism.) It behooves such outlets to dispatch entire teams to search for corroboration: If, indeed, it's true that China has embarked on this sort of attack, there will be a long tail of implications. No self-respecting news organization will want to be left out of those stories. 'Unlike software, hardware leaves behind a good trail of evidence. If somebody decides to go down that path, it means that they don't care about the consequences,' Stathakopoulos says.'"
The very mention of SuperMicro in the story means it's crap. Damned company can barely get their legit mobo components running, let alone some astoundingly sophisticated spy chip.
(/me gets his coat...)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
If it were just Apple, or Amazon claiming the story was false I'd be dubious.
But it's both companies. And the NSA, and every other news organization that has gone looking. All are coming up blank on this.
At some point you have to go with the "simplest answer is correct", which means that Bloomberg is wrong in this case. The real question to my mind is, how did they go so badly wrong.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Bloomberg violated the first principal of good journalism: if it bleeds, it leads. Motherboards don't bleed.
They offered no proof, story kept changing, and showed no interest in our answers unless we could validate their theories," Jassy wrote in a tweet on Monday.
Wait, that sounds familiar.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
They denied it, then denied it more fully, then followed up with a more clear and forceful denial. If it turns out to be true, the SEC will decide which executives they want to put in prison for material false statements.
The amount and type of denials aren't necessary and wouldn't be appropriate if the story was actually true. The executives have no reason put themselves at risk denying it in the *manner* that they have. If it were true, they'd very much want to use more Clintonian statements like "we have no knowledge of China installing a surveillance chip". That statement is technically true if they know *someone* installed a surveillance chip, but don't know that China did it. That denial would be true if they know that China installed a rogue chip, but don't know that it's necessarily a surveillance chip.
If it were true, I'd expect a detail like ""we have no knowledge of China installing a surveillance chip", something that is technically true so they'd at least have some negotiating room when the SEC comes after them for material false statements.
So Amazon is chipping in.
Table-ized A.I.
There will inevitably be a bit of a Streisand effect.
Using would require both discovery and proving damages. These companies really don't want the defense digging through their records and datacenters for reasons that should be obvious, and proving damages would be difficult if not impossible.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
I don't really know if the Bloomberg article is true, but if you believe that guys like Jeff Bezos or Tim Cook will EVER see the inside of a jail cell, I have a bridge to see you.