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Apple CEO Tim Cook Calls on Bloomberg to Retract Supply Chain Hack Story: 'There's No Truth to This'
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I have a few problems with this theory. (1) Vague insinuations don't explain the extremely specific details and timelines that Bloomberg published. (2) Bloomberg and the administration are at odds with each other. (3) So far the National Security echelons in this administration (and in the UK too) are opposed to the story in no uncertain terms. (4) Bloomberg has in the past written articles about Apple that have been proven false or at the very least extremely overstated.
Can you elaborate on the specifics that Bloomberg provided? It’s been a while since I read the story but I remember feeling like it was extremely dumbed down on the technical details for the readership.
In addition, USA Today would have been a more likely news organization to push such a narrative. I wouldn’t have expected BB to get caught up in that.
He's not afraid. Do you REALLY think Apple needs money from them? LOL. What is a trillion dollar company going to make that amounts to anything to them via a lawsuit? Millions of dollars? That's not worth the time to them.
Why can’t the tantalizing story be that Bloomberg screwed up? Less fun to post about, I suppose.
Man we’re gonna be in for a fun ride 50 years from now when declassified documents point to the chips being real...but part of the US’s surveillance scheme.
Only half joking.
Only half joking.
Apple definitely have no problem suing people. Their legal team must be one of the biggest in the company...
In this day and age no proof is required. Just say it looks fishy without explaining why and it becomes fact instantly.
The rules are very, very different for journalists. To sue Bloomberg Apple would have to prove Bloomberg knew the story was false and published it with malice for the purpose of damaging Apple intentionally. That’s a pretty high bar. Apple knows it and so does Bloomberg. So don’t read anything into Apple not suing Bloomberg. It ain’t gonna happen.
Why don't they just have some tech guru do a tear down on one of the iPhones to see if he can truly find this "Mysterious" spying chip!? It seems if this is true, the "smoking gun" would be right there for someone to discover.
Yeah, I've seen enough procedural shows to get that. Something very wrong when you can hide behind a journalism shield whilst churning out virtually anything you like. If challenged you should have to validate your assertions.
Probably because the alleged chips were on Apple's own servers that are no longer in operation.
You're right, I take that back.
Joe Fitzpatrick is the technical expert named in the Bloomberg article. In an interview he pointed out that Bloomberg consulted with him about how this could be done and so he speculated how he would do it. Later when the article was published, he was surprised to see that "how it happened" was exactly how he said he would have done it, to the letter. Here is a partial transcript (emphasis is mine):
FITZPATRICK: But what really struck me is that like all the details that were even remotely technical, seemed like they had been lifted from from the conversations I had about theoretically how hardware implants work and how the devices I was making to show off at Black Hat two years ago worked.
GRAY: So I guess what you are saying here is, the report, I mean all of the technical details of the report, you’d covered that ground with that reporter.
FITZPATRICK: Yeah, I had conversations about all the technical details and various contexts. But there are a lot of filters that happen, you know? When I explain hardware things even to software people, I don’t expect people to get it the first time and I don’t expect people to be able to describe it accurately all the time. So there is definitely a lot of telephone exchange happening
GRAY: OK but why did that make you feel uneasy? Could it be the case that you know that the technical things you told him lined up perfectly with the technical things that some of these 17 of the anonymous sources told him?
FITZPATRICK: You know, I’m just Joe. I do this stuff solo. I am building hardware implants for phones to show off at conferences. I’m not a pro at building hardware implants. I don’t work for any nation or any state building and shipping these as products. I feel like I have a good grasp at what’s possible and what’s available and how to do it just from my practice. But it was surprising to me that in a scenario where I would describe these things and then he would go and confirm these and 100 percent of what I described was confirmed by sources.
GRAY: And that’s what he was telling you through this process?
FITZPATRICK: That’s what I read in the article.
GRAY: OK, right. You find that a bit strange? That every single thing you seem to tell him, or a large proportion of what you told him, was then confirmed by his other sources.
FITZPATRICK: Yeah, basically. Either I have excellent foresight or something else is going on.
GRAY: So I guess what you are saying here is, the report, I mean all of the technical details of the report, you’d covered that ground with that reporter.
FITZPATRICK: Yeah, I had conversations about all the technical details and various contexts. But there are a lot of filters that happen, you know? When I explain hardware things even to software people, I don’t expect people to get it the first time and I don’t expect people to be able to describe it accurately all the time. So there is definitely a lot of telephone exchange happening
GRAY: OK but why did that make you feel uneasy? Could it be the case that you know that the technical things you told him lined up perfectly with the technical things that some of these 17 of the anonymous sources told him?
FITZPATRICK: You know, I’m just Joe. I do this stuff solo. I am building hardware implants for phones to show off at conferences. I’m not a pro at building hardware implants. I don’t work for any nation or any state building and shipping these as products. I feel like I have a good grasp at what’s possible and what’s available and how to do it just from my practice. But it was surprising to me that in a scenario where I would describe these things and then he would go and confirm these and 100 percent of what I described was confirmed by sources.
GRAY: And that’s what he was telling you through this process?
FITZPATRICK: That’s what I read in the article.
GRAY: OK, right. You find that a bit strange? That every single thing you seem to tell him, or a large proportion of what you told him, was then confirmed by his other sources.
FITZPATRICK: Yeah, basically. Either I have excellent foresight or something else is going on.
Personally, I think that Bloomberg took these three things and conflated them together into a story:
- Apple replaced SuperMicro servers. Apple confirmed this but said it was due to driver problems.
- Apple found a single SuperMicro server that had been compromised, but this was in an isolated lab during their normal testing, and it was compromised in a different way. (Firmware if I recall correctly, not hardware.)
- Joe Fitzpatrick told how a hardware hack could be done in theory.
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Hats off to you for clearly having some critical media literacy abilities. Something lacking severely in this country in regards to tech and political "journalism".
I honestly feel that the journalists working on this story severely overestimated THEIR ability to understand the ins and outs of the technological arguments being made as they were interviewing people. Nodding politely as the the explanations Joe gave out went over their heads but somehow conflating a theoretical explanation with details given during the other interviews they conducted.
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Two scenarios here.
1) Bloomberg is right, Chinese are smart and Apple & FBI couldn't find the chip.
2) Bloomberg is wrong.
Can't prove conclusively at this point which option is correct.
This Bloomberg story seems to me like a hit job from the current administration to weaken its enemies (Apple, Amazon, and China) and Bloomberg fell for it.
I personally am in agreement with the speculation that the Administration wanted to generate "outrage" against China to support the sanctions they have instituted and certain sources within the National Security echelons were tasked with spreading vague insinuations about Chinese espionage against US companies.
There is no doubt that Chinese companies steal/copy technology from west, and Chinese government supports Chinese companies, US government doesn't need generate fake news to generate outrage.
There is no doubt that Chinese companies steal/copy technology from west, and Chinese government supports Chinese companies, US government doesn't need generate fake news to generate outrage.
Do they have a tech background? Are they someone who will know (not secondhand account) that it’s not just putting some random chip.. but something that requires power, clock and very likely a host of connections with this “chip”?
Another question is: why there is no real proof from Bloomberg? And explanation on how it works?
Sorry if this is the standard for professional joirnalism, then trump is right..
It has been suggested that this story might have been planted (by the current U.S. administration) as one tool to fight China's importance in the whole computing industry.
At first the exuberant denials felt a bit fishy...but now, I don't know.
I can't think of a good reason why Tim would go to this extent to blatantly lie about this. He has given himself absolutely no wiggle room....this isn't a carefully worded non-denial. He's flat out saying this did not happen, period. I believe that Tim is telling the truth as far as he knows.
The only question that remains is whether Bruce Sewell would have been gagged by a NSL and kept the CEO out of it for reasons that have already been previously explained.
If there was a NSL, Bruce would have to deny it unless the feds lifted the gag, which rarely happens.
But back to Tim's statements, I think it's noteworthy that Bloomberg apparently, according to Apple, failed to provide Apple with specific details about said malicious chips that were allegedly found and removed.
[doublepost=1539980926][/doublepost]
I'm starting to get a picture of how this might have gone down. Tell me if this makes sense:
I can't think of a good reason why Tim would go to this extent to blatantly lie about this. He has given himself absolutely no wiggle room....this isn't a carefully worded non-denial. He's flat out saying this did not happen, period. I believe that Tim is telling the truth as far as he knows.
The only question that remains is whether Bruce Sewell would have been gagged by a NSL and kept the CEO out of it for reasons that have already been previously explained.
If there was a NSL, Bruce would have to deny it unless the feds lifted the gag, which rarely happens.
But back to Tim's statements, I think it's noteworthy that Bloomberg apparently, according to Apple, failed to provide Apple with specific details about said malicious chips that were allegedly found and removed.
[doublepost=1539980926][/doublepost]
I'm starting to get a picture of how this might have gone down. Tell me if this makes sense:
- Some Feds approach Bloomberg with some vague claim that Apple supply chain was compromised. No details given.
- Bloomberg remembers story from last year where Apple cut ties with Super Micro in 2016
- Bloomberg needs technical details on how a hardware hack could have happened, enter Joe Fitzpatrick.
- Bloomberg takes Joe's theories back to Feds from step 1. They say "well we can neither confirm nor deny" wink wink, nudge nudge, head nod head nod.
- Bloomberg insists their story was properly vetted and stands behind it
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