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What is the likelihood of a brand new iMac having been compromised in China?

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Brawdy14

Brawdy14

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Feb 1, 2018
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22
Devon, England
Hello

Have there been any reports of this happening?

Indeed, how would the average purchaser know that a brand new machine HAD been compromised?!!

A fiend of mine had a brand new 27 inch iMac delivered earlier this year. It didn't have the up-to-date operating system installed and it failed to behave quite as we had expected. The outcome was that it was returned to Apple for a full refund.

Just wondering if there have been other cases mentioned anywhere. Anyone?
 
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Anything is possible but I doubt the Chinese care about what people have on their Apple products. Besides, all the data mining other countries may/may not care about is already being sold to the highest bidder through internet, email, software, etc so hardware isn't the money maker. Additionally, often times hardware is subject to inspection or x-ray tech when it comes to importing/exporting items such as this.

If folks took off the tinfoil hat for a second and realized their reddit accounts aren't a subject any country or person cares about then the world might be a little less intense.
 
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Brawdy14 said:
Hello

Have there been any reports of this happening?

Indeed, how would the average purchaser know that a brand new machine HAD been compromised?!!

A fiend of mine had a brand new 27 inch iMac delivered earlier this year. It didn't have the up-to-date operating system installed and it failed to behave quite as we had expected. The outcome was that it was returned to Apple for a full refund.

Just wondering if there have been other cases mentioned anywhere. Anyone?
Click to expand...

So if the OS is not the most up to date version and your experience does not match your expectations your logical conclusion is: It must be compromised in China.

More obvious reasons could be:
- Almost never an OS is fully up to date on a brand new machine, because the machine spends time in storage and in transit. This goes for all brand new Windows and Apple computers I have bought in my lifetime regardless from the country they where coming from.
- Your expectations where too high, too low or just different compared to reality.

Ever heard of Occam's Razor?
 
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Brawdy14 said:
Have there been any reports of this happening?
Click to expand...
No, because it's not possible.
Brawdy14 said:
Indeed, how would the average purchaser know that a brand new machine HAD been compromised?!!
Click to expand...
Since it's not possible, the average purchaser knows that a brand new machine is not compromised.

If the iMac didn't behave as expected, it's either broken or you had the wrong expectation. The former happens every now and then as with any technology, the latter happens a lot with everything.
 
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Your main question (in the header of this thread) is:

"What is the likelihood of a brand new iMac having been compromised in China?"

You also wrote in your OP:

"A friend of mine had a brand new 27 inch iMac delivered earlier this year. It didn't have the up-to-date operating system installed and it failed to behave quite as we had expected. The outcome was that it was returned to Apple for a full refund."

The quote above seemed to be your (in my opinion flawed) logic/foundation leading to your main question and your 2 other questions and I reacted to that. Also I gave you 2 valid points why your main question and said redenation in your quote above is very unlikely.

But I am not going to put any more energy in discussing some highly improbable and unfounded conspiracy theories about China compromising new Mac computers. If this all sounds confrontational to you so be it.

As I have said: Occam's Razor.

Have a nice day.

Edit: I was responding to a remark from the OP why I was not answering his question, but the OP's remark was removed by the mods.
 
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This Just In !! it's been rumored that a world wide conspiracy is taking place right under our noses. The Chinese have found a way to literally shrink their computer technicians, place them inside of apple computers prior to shipping. Once the computer arrives at your home, a world wide signal will be sent out to all apple computers, and this signal will open up a hidden compartment on the side of the device, and the tiny Chinese technicians will emerge, and with a few minutes they will then be returned to full size. their goal is to invade the USA from the inside out. Quick, check to see if the hidden door on the side of your device is open !!!!
 
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drdudj said:
This Just In !! it's been rumored that a world wide conspiracy is taking place right under our noses. The Chinese have found a way to literally shrink their computer technicians, place them inside of apple computers prior to shipping. Once the computer arrives at your home, a world wide signal will be sent out to all apple computers, and this signal will open up a hidden compartment on the side of the device, and the tiny Chinese technicians will emerge, and with a few minutes they will then be returned to full size. their goal is to invade the USA from the inside out. Quick, check to see if the hidden door on the side of your device is open !!!!
Click to expand...
It's much worse than that! They've stolen the technology from US scientists who did it back in 1987!
Here's a part of the shrinking process...
tumblr_pi77gnxgnS1x6m6njo1_500.gifv

It's really odd, that scientist looks like Dennis Quaid... maybe they've cloned him too!
 
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T'hain Esh Kelch said:
It is also possible that unicorns exist.
Click to expand...
Of course unicorns exist. The question is are these tiny unicorns living inside iMacs? Or it could be those damn lizard people living inside the hollow earth.
Fishrrman said:
This is one of those threads I browse through, the put on "ignore".
Click to expand...
Your loss, these threads are always fun… by making fun of conspiracy theorists. :p
 
Brawdy14 said:
Hello

Have there been any reports of this happening?

Indeed, how would the average purchaser know that a brand new machine HAD been compromised?!!

A fiend of mine had a brand new 27 inch iMac delivered earlier this year. It didn't have the up-to-date operating system installed and it failed to behave quite as we had expected. The outcome was that it was returned to Apple for a full refund.

Just wondering if there have been other cases mentioned anywhere. Anyone?
Click to expand...
What were the ways it failed to behave as expected?
 
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I have never heard of machines being "compromised" -- as in intentionally not functioning to specification (like sabotage) out of the factory. This is probably not really possible because Apple would surely know about it almost immediately.

If you talking about "compromised" as being something a little bit more nefarious -- as long as Apple is not using factories owned by Huawei, it is probably safe to assume (until informed otherwise) that the devices are not compromised -- as in being used as espionage machines -- but I suppose one will really never know ex ante. :)
 
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This issue has already been discussed elsewhere.

How did 3rd party apps not available on The Apple Store get on my brand new 2021 Mac?

A couple of months ago I ordered a new (not refurbed) 2021 24-inch M-chip Mac online directly from Apple. It arrived about a month later via FedEx. When it arrived, it had ClamXAV and a related disk cleaner installed on the Desktop. It also crashed a lot! I have never seen a Mac do this. The...
www.mac-forums.com

I’m not aware the OP’s “friend” has posted any explanation Apple may have given him/her, especially as the conversation has been closed by the moderator - I wonder why ?
 
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Madhatter32 said:
If you talking about "compromised" as being something a little bit more nefarious -- as long as Apple is not using factories owned by Huawei, it is probably safe to assume (until informed otherwise) that the devices are not compromised -- as in being used as espionage machines -- but I suppose one will really never know ex ante. :)
Click to expand...
The fact that there’s no reports of this happening is JUST the kind of thing I’d expect if the people doing the compromising were really good. I’d also expect that the average purchaser would have no way to know if it had been compromised. Given those two thoughts, I can’t help but come to the conclusion they’re all compromised in a very clever way that no one will ever be able to prove.
 
Let me jump in here.

Obviously, there have not been publicly reported cases. Couple of months ago, there has been some turmoil about "tapped hardware" (Servers, Mainboards etc.) that finally turned out to be non-proven. Major companies like Compaq, Dell, Apple etc. investigated despite of this (or at least said doing so) and found nothing.

The average user would at least be alarmed by a background check that macOS periodically does where the hash and contents of the current firmware is checked and compared with a known-good list that Apple keeps.
This works quite well, as we can see on "unsupported machines" or even "Hackintoshes". The message pops up there in certain intervals. This covers firmware, not modified hardware. Software and macOS could be taken care of by the paranoid average user by fresh installs from verified sources with verified content.
 
Unregistered 4U said:
The fact that there’s no reports of this happening is JUST the kind of thing I’d expect if the people doing the compromising were really good. I’d also expect that the average purchaser would have no way to know if it had been compromised. Given those two thoughts, I can’t help but come to the conclusion they’re all compromised in a very clever way that no one will ever be able to prove.
Click to expand...
LOL -- very interesting logic. In fact, I use the same logic in assuming the existence of UFOs operated by aliens.
 
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Those OS imaging systems can be wonky sometimes. It's always a good idea to reinstall the OS on a new Mac if you want to be sure its good to go. I don't know if its just a bad copy randomy or if the validation image leaves something behind sometimes....it's been a thing since the OS 9 days lol
 
From my understanding there are many zero click exploits that can take over your whole OS. It's more likely you would suffer from one of those. It's hard to comment because your post is so vague in exactly what happened.
 
Sheepish-Lord said:
Anything is possible but I doubt the Chinese care about what people have on their Apple products. Besides, all the data mining other countries may/may not care about is already being sold to the highest bidder through internet, email, software, etc so hardware isn't the money maker. Additionally, often times hardware is subject to inspection or x-ray tech when it comes to importing/exporting items such as this.

If folks took off the tinfoil hat for a second and realized their reddit accounts aren't a subject any country or person cares about then the world might be a little less intense.
Click to expand...
Amen!
 
Brawdy14 said:
Hello

Have there been any reports of this happening?

Indeed, how would the average purchaser know that a brand new machine HAD been compromised?!!

A fiend of mine had a brand new 27 inch iMac delivered earlier this year. It didn't have the up-to-date operating system installed and it failed to behave quite as we had expected. The outcome was that it was returned to Apple for a full refund.

Just wondering if there have been other cases mentioned anywhere. Anyone?
Click to expand...

There have been reports of governments infiltrating tech manufacturing facilities and compromising the hardware, but I haven't heard any examples of the Chinese government compromising Apple hardware. All the examples I have seen were related to the US government compromising cellular equipment.

Without further information it is hard to say what might have been off with your new iMac, but again my first guess wouldn't be that the system was hacked in the factory. I would say the odds of that are pretty low.

As for anyway to tell - no there isn't. You can always erase the SSD and install a new version of macOS before using the computer (I do that, although mainly out of habit from the old days with Windows). That might help, but if any espionage program had half a brain they would install the bad code on some non-erasable part of the system.

It is also worth noting that being "Made in China" doesn't make it more of a danger. That is the Chinese government could infiltrate a manufacturing facility in Thailand or the US or whereever as well.

Probably the best peace of mind you can have is that there are a lot of people who dig pretty deep into the hardware/software of their Macs. If there was some hidden data collection system or something, it would likely be discovered eventually. And again, I haven't come across any reports of Mac being compromised from the manufacturing facility.
 
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