Apple says it has never found malicious chips in its servers, calls Bloomberg reporters' claims unsubstantiated and untrue, says it is not under a gag order
Separating Legit Cryptocurrency Ideas From the Ponzi Schemes William White / InvestorPlace : Friday Apple Rumors: UK Backs Up Apple's Claim About China Hack Bloomberg : How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate Amazon and Apple Makena Kelly / The Verge : British spy agency casts more doubt on spy chip report Edward McKinley / CNBC : Why Chinese cyber-spying is the ‘latest chapter’ in a book that keeps tech CEOs awake at night BBC : Apple and Amazon deny China hack claims Zheping Huang / South China Morning Post : All you need to know about Supermicro, the US computer firm allegedly compromised by Chinese spies Tom Fogden / TechCo : Did Chinese Spies Use Microchips to Hack Servers Around the World? James / cloudcomputing-news.net : A look beyond 2019: AI, blockchain and quantum - and what this means for the cloud behemoths Cory Doctorow / Boing Boing : Some important technical (and skeptical) notes about the Chinese-backdoored-servers story MacDailyNews : UK cyber security agency backs Apple, Amazon China hack denials Mohul Ghosh / Trak.in : Chinese Govt. Hacked Apple, Amazon Servers Using Tiny Chips? Espionage Turns Nasty! Stephen E. Arnold / Beyond Search : Sensational Development from Real Publishers ServeTheHome : Bloomberg Reports China Infiltrated the Supermicro Supply Chain We Investigate Dylan McGrath / EE Times : Apple, Amazon Refute China Chip Hacking Story Nicholas Weaver / Lawfare : The China SuperMicro Hack: About That Bloomberg Report Sean Keane / CNET : Apple, Amazon deny report that Chinese spy chips infiltrated their hardware Jennifer Elias / Silicon Valley Business Journal : Super Micro stock falls by half, issues denial of bombshell hack John Voorhees / MacStories : Apple Strongly Refutes Bloomberg Report That Its Servers Were Compromised by Malicious Chips Michael Kalodrich / Super Micro Computer, Inc. : Supermicro Refutes Claims in Bloomberg Article Tweets: Zack Whittaker / @zackwhittaker : New: Today's bombshell Bloomberg “spy chip” story quickly became a “he said, she said” after Apple, Amazon, and Supermicro denied the claims. But it's possible that the story and the affected companies can both be right and wrong at the same time. http://techcrunch.com/... Kenn White / @kennwhite : Apple's general counsel said he personally contacted FBI's GC about the Supermicro story. “He said, 'I've never heard of this, but give me 24 hours to make sure.' He called me back 24 hours later and said ‘Nobody here knows what this story is about.’” http://www.reuters.com/... Matthew Braga / @mattbraga : New: I asked Canada's cyber spy agency CSE about this Reuters story. Here's what I just got back: “We are aware of the Bloomberg report. Like our partners at GCHQ, we have no reason to question the analysis done by the companies in question.” @cbcnews http://www.reuters.com/... Charlie Warzel / @cwarzel : We spoke to multiple Apple sources — three of them very senior executives who work on the security and legal teams — who were at a loss to explain the allegations in the big Bloomberg hack story. Super. Aggressive. Denials. http://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... http://twitter.com/... Rene Ritchie / @reneritchie : Interesting: Bruce Sewell, Apple's recently retired general counsel, says he asked then-FBI general counsel James Baker if there was a SuperMicro investigation, and was told there was none.http://mobile.reuters.com/ ... http://twitter.com/... Joseph Menn / @josephmenn : New: #Apple ex-general counsel tells me he asked FBI general counsel last year about alleged probe of tainted chips. FBI's top lawyer said: ‘Nobody here knows what this story is about.’ http://www.reuters.com/... David O'Brien / @d_obrien : It's unusual to see statements like these from foreign intelligence agencies, adding further to the mystery of the Bloomberg report. But, worth noting GCHQ only backs the companies' denials, and does not opine about the existence of the chips. http://www.reuters.com/... @benlovejoy : The ‘Apple is lying’ theory doesn't appear plausible here ... http://twitter.com/... John Huber / @johnhuber72 : This is a pretty remarkable response from a company that doesn't typically comment on such reports. They refute every aspect of the Bloomberg piece. AWS had a similar pointed rebuttal. The allure of the “China is spying” narrative is so strong. http://www.apple.com/... @tubetimeus : decided to examine my motherboard and OH SHIT! pic.twitter.com/i2FX1nz7gK John Paczkowski / @johnpaczkowski : yow What Businessweek got wrong about Apple https://www.apple.com/... pic.twitter.com/dzfcplepLE Natasha / @riptari : Interesting switch. Contractor? pic.twitter.com/lVPxiZccuy Stephen Shankland / @stshank : Apple's long, unequivocal denial that the Apple part of Bloomberg's secret-chips-from-China story today is wrong. (I'm not passing judgment on either Apple or Bloomberg, but this kind of response is pretty rare for Apple.) http://www.apple.com/... John Paczkowski / @johnpaczkowski : the statements from Apple & Amazon in here are pointed and ferocious. can't recall the last time i saw something like them. https://twitter.com/... Nilay Patel / @reckless : To be clear, I think Bloomberg does excellent and rigorous journalism to the highest standards. But the risk of these statements being false in that context is staggering. Jessica Powell / @themoko : I'm inclined to believe Apple. But I also remember a time when all the tech companies screamed about not knowing about an NSA program called Prism. Turned out they didn't know the name of it, but they did have backdoors. Thomas Rid / @ridt : New Apple statement, again a no-nonsense denial. As things currently stand I am putting more trust in a statement from Apple than in another Bloomberg story with questionable sourcing http://www.apple.com/... Werner Vogels / @werner : “As we shared with Bloomberg BusinessWeek multiple times over the last couple months, this is untrue.” - Setting the Record Straight on Bloomberg BusinessWeek's Erroneous Article /by Steve Schmidt AWS' Chief Information Security Officer http://aws.amazon.com/... Zack Whittaker / @zackwhittaker : Wow.. Apple just dialed up the denial-o-meter up to a Spinal Tap 11. http://www.apple.com/... Melanie Ensign / @imeluny : Companies with highly skilled & experienced legal teams (like Apple & Amazon) do not make these types of definitive, absolute statements without full confidence that any government investigations following the publication of this report would prove them right. James Ball / @jamesrbuk : Government cannot mandate speech: you can't make anyone say they're not subject to a court order. I do not believe Bloomberg is flat out wrong here, but I do suspect the story isn't what they thought it was. https://twitter.com/... Rene Ritchie / @reneritchie : That Apple, Amazon, etc. responses don't just refute Bloomberg's story but all the foundational facts up to and including the existence of an FBI investigation is horrifically fascinating. Can't think of any circumstances where all this reconciles?http://www.bloomberg.com/ ... Kara Swisher / @karaswisher : Well this is pretty definitive that Apple is saying it is all wrong and actionable if they're lying: What Businessweek got wrong about Apple - Apple http://www.apple.com/... Dylan Byers / @dylanbyers : Apple isn't having that Bloomberg report about the malicious Chinese chips >> https://www.apple.com/... Steve Kopack / @stevekopack : APPLE: “Bloomberg has contacted us multiple times with claims, sometimes vague & sometimes elaborate, of an alleged security incident...Each time, we have conducted rigorous internal investigations...and each time we have found absolutely no evidence” http://www.apple.com/... Dan Seifert / @dcseifert : apple pr is heckin mad https://www.apple.com/... Ben Bajarin / @benbajarin : And now a hard hitting response from Apple on the Bloomberg report. “We have repeatedly and consistently offered factual responses, on the record, refuting virtually every aspect of Bloomberg's story relating to Apple."http://www.apple.com/ ... James Wang / @jwangark : And just to complicate things, Amazon's Chief Information Security Officer totally futures the Bloomberg story point by point. http://aws.amazon.com/... Corey Quinn / @quinnypig : Either @awscloud is suddenly engaging in outright lies (something that would destroy their business if proven), or Bloomberg got it wrong. http://aws.amazon.com/... Andreas Proschofsky / @suka_hiroaki : “Harshly worded” would be a pretty serious understatement for Amazon's refutal of Bloomberg's report on supposed China hacking story: https://aws.amazon.com/... Matthew Zeitlin / @mattzeitlin : i am living for this bloomberg vs tech company drama. someone is either lying through their teeth or totally wrong about a very important thing! juicy! Ben Bajarin / @benbajarin : Hard hitting response from Amazon about the Bloomberg article. “There are so many inaccuracies in this article as it relates to Amazon that they're hard to count.” http://aws.amazon.com/... Matthew Green / @matthew_d_green : This Ars piece seems to have one denial from Apple, followed by a different claim from SM, followed by an admission by Apple. It's confusing. And definitely seems dodgy on Apple's part. https://arstechnica.com/... @thegrugq : Is Bloomberg's supply chain attack article mistaken? Who knows. Are IPMI and BMCs the spawn of Satan that will keep cyber security a mirage always on the horizon? Definitely. http://medium.com/... Jon Russell / @jonrussell : The responses are next-level, too. This from “We are deeply disappointed that in their dealings with us, Bloomberg's reporters have not been open to the possibility that they or their sources might be wrong or misinformed...” https://www.bloomberg.com/...