If you actually read the article then you must realize its not possible to do what they are claiming,
On what basis? Because you say so? You've not addressed any specific claims that you feel are not achievable nor the reasons.
You've also consistently misquoted the article. For example stating that it involved only one contract manufacturer, when the article clearly states it was several, and even went into the methods that were used to coerce management at multiple companies.
Based on my 45+ years of experience as a software engineer, including some hardware design including some circuit design and board layout, and considerable firmware work, working with digital and analog hardware engineers to debug new designs (e.g. wrote the test routines to enable hardware test, etc.), working with the I2C protocol, what they are claiming seems easily achievable. Not just achievable with some exotic technology, but easily achievable.
These boards were NOT designed by Apple or Amazon, they chose from available features. They had no reason to finely inspect boards at the physical level to insure that they corresponded to designs that they themselves did not create. The article makes it clear that this is a general unexpected weakness in our supply chain that has now been exposed.
This is not going to wrack up a billion in fines, if they were ordered to shush. The appropriate agencies would get the word to the SEC if it ever came up. Any anyway, there is likely nothing here that would require disclosure by Apple or Amazon. It's quite possible no actual damage ever occurred. It's also possible/likely there was little or no financial damage to either company, as it's likely payment was either never made or refunded, or made up by - ahem - some third party.
The fact that SuperMicro is bleeding and unable to offer an explanation to the point where they would let their NASDAQ listing lapse corroborates that they likely were never paid for these servers or had to return payments. They could well be between a rock and a hard place, having to choose between breaking securities laws and breaking national security laws. For now, their NASDAQ listing has lapsed. If they continue to not produce the required filings, they will likely face federal prosecution. (But, given the special circumstances, I'll bet it will just be somehow "forgotten about").
Whether or not the position they've been put in is extralegal is not my call. IMO it happens.
If you were the security agencies, who would you throw under the bus? Apple and Amazon, or SuperMicro?
Apple and Amazon are "too big to fail" and "too important to fail". It is IMO a matter of national security that they not be damaged to the point of failure. (Not that this would be likely to do that.)
I'll leave you with another juicy quote from the article:
"Today, Supermicro sells more server motherboards than almost anyone else. It also dominates the $1 billion market for boards used in special-purpose computers, from MRI machines to weapons systems. Its motherboards can be found in made-to-order server setups at banks, hedge funds, cloud computing providers, and web-hosting services, among other places. Supermicro has assembly facilities in California, the Netherlands, and Taiwan, but its motherboards—its core product—are nearly all manufactured by contractors in China.
The company’s pitch to customers hinges on unmatched customization, made possible by hundreds of full-time engineers and a catalog encompassing more than 600 designs. The majority of its workforce in San Jose is Taiwanese or Chinese, and Mandarin is the preferred language, with hanzi filling the whiteboards, according to six former employees. Chinese pastries are delivered every week, and many routine calls are done twice, once for English-only workers and again in Mandarin. The latter are more productive, according to people who’ve been on both. These overseas ties, especially the widespread use of Mandarin, would have made it easier for China to gain an understanding of Supermicro’s operations and potentially to infiltrate the company. (A U.S. official says the government’s probe is still examining whether spies were planted inside Supermicro or other American companies to aid the attack.)"
BTW, it would not be easy to short a delisted company. Those with shorts in place prior to the delisting, though, are probably in the cat-bird's seat. They can likely ride it to zero.
