Trade War with China

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Both Apple and Amazon are vehemently denying claims that their servers were compromised by Chinese spies following an explosive report from Bloomberg on Thursday. The report claims that spies were able to infiltrate some of the country’s biggest tech companies by inserting microchips the size of "a grain of rice" into Chinese-manufactured servers, part of the tech giants’ infrastructure. The report alleges that the companies discovered the chips on their own and notified US authorities, but both Apple and Amazon are refuting that any of the claims cited in the story are actually founded in reality.

The responses are heavily detailed, denying the Bloomberg report point-by-point. It’s something these companies rarely, if ever, do

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UK's GCHQ, U S officials cast doubt on iCloud server spy chip report

A report claiming Apple and almost 30 other companies were targeted by Chinese spies embedding chips in hardware has faced more scrutiny over the last 24 hours, with government officials and security agencies sharing doubts over the story's accuracy.

While many of the companies involved have spoken out against the report, individuals and government agencies are also commenting on the story, with the general consensus being that it is unlikely to be true.

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Mainstream American media is a mouthpiece of the US regime. We have seen many examples of their propaganda serving as pretexts for attacks to "defend themselves (or some other group)". Examples include the Gulf of Tonkin incident, Nayirah testimony, claims of WMD in Iraq, Gudaffi rape army, etc. The regime's tentacles reaches far. In Europe, the CIA buys journalists. See the book

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.

Every claim from the Western "free press" must be evaluated against the lengthy and persistent undisputed history of malicious American propaganda.

 

[Deleted member 13312]

That doesn't include communication unit. When you include CMOS analog wireless and antenna , no way can that small. The US article says it's a spy chip that would include communication unit.

Also 1.9 MMX 2.2mm is not pencil tip sized.

And would you take every single article piece literally ? The pencil tip size is more likely hyperbole, but if you insist on it there are super small microchips that are capable of communication between machines like this one that is used to open electronical locks. Moreover, what actually qualifies a a "pencil tip" can differ significantly according to person to person, for some only the foremost pointy tip that touches the paper counts, for others it might include a significant extension of the exposed graphite. Obviously which definition counts depends on which one is more convenient for the person at the time (which in this case of yours would be 0.5mm the smallest size available). And let's not even bring into account the varying sizes of pencils in the market, with lead at 2mm diameters in size existing as well.

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or this

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With the referred chip being the sized of a pencil dot.

And that is just a civilian version, military grad versions will be undoubtedly much more advance. And microchips can also hack and utilized the mainframe system's communication routes as well, so a separate antenna is not required.

And again, it is like nobody actually cares to read the entire conversation before they actually reply. My ORIGINAL Contention to the OP was that super micro sized chips capable of significant processing is possible and are actually in use. Whether there was actually a spy chip that was used to hack the supposed US mainframe is beyond the point.

 

[Deleted member 13312]

Great, as on the Bloomberg homepage, the denials are still embedded as a sub-headline to that allegation rather than the other way around.

That is Bloomberg's issue, not mine to address.

 

[AndrewS]

I'm leaning towards the Bloomberg story being fake news now. That is based on:

1. The Apple/FBI conversation below.
2. The statement from GCHQ in the UK below.
3. The general non-comment from the US government. If it was true, more verification would have come out by now.

Note that the NSA can't conduct domestic surveillance in the USA. So the NSA have an agreement which allows GCHQ to conduct those operations, as per the Snowden documents. GCHQ also recently blacklisted ZTE and Huawei equipment this summer.

But given that Bloomberg couldn't have made up this stuff by themselves, can you imagine what kind of disinformation campaign must have been orchestrated?

We're talking about 17 (so far anonymous) insiders from inside Apple/Amazon/US Gov

UK cyber security agency backs Apple, Amazon China hack denials

LONDON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Britain’s national cyber security agency said on Friday it had no reason to doubt the assessments made by Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc challenging a Bloomberg report that their systems contained malicious computer chips inserted by Chinese intelligence services.

Bloomberg Businessweek on Thursday cited 17 unnamed intelligence and company sources as saying that Chinese spies had placed computer chips inside equipment used by around 30 companies, as well as multiple U.S. government agencies, which would give Beijing secret access to internal networks.

“We are aware of the media reports but at this stage have no reason to doubt the detailed assessments made by AWS and Apple,” said the National Cyber Security Centre, a unit of Britain’s eavesdropping agency, GCHQ. AWS refers to Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud-computing unit.
...
Apple’s recently retired general counsel, Bruce Sewell, told Reuters he called the FBI’s then-general counsel James Baker last year after being told by Bloomberg of an open investigation into Super Micro Computer Inc , a hardware maker whose products Bloomberg said were implanted with malicious Chinese chips.

“I got on the phone with him personally and said, ‘Do you know anything about this?,” Sewell said of his conversation with Baker. “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.’”

Read More

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[plawolf]

I find this whole claim highly dubious on practically grounds alone.

A hardware hack would leave physical evidence, which you would have to assume will be discovered sooner or later.

Generally you would only use a hardware hack for a short period, and where you could extract the hardware afterwards to keep the risk of detection to a minimum.

So if a government agency has planted spychips in the servers of the likes of Amazon and Apple in the US, it’s far more likely that it was an US agency that was behind the hack rather than Chinese.

It would be highly ironic and amusing if in an attempt that find evidence to support their scaremongering protectionist crusade against Chinese telecoms manufacturers, US investigators stumbled upon the exact same kind of systematic state spying being done by the US.

Amazon and Apple have no reason to lie to protect the Chinese government. But they might to protect the US government. Especially if there was high level collusion from both companies with US intelligence agencies to facilitate state spying to being with.

 

[tidalwave]

And would you take every single article piece literally ? The pencil tip size is more likely hyperbole, but if you insist on it there are super small microchips that are capable of communication between machines like this one that is used to open electronical locks. Moreover, what actually qualifies a a "pencil tip" can differ significantly according to person to person, for some only the foremost pointy tip that touches the paper counts, for others it might include a significant extension of the exposed graphite. Obviously which definition counts depends on which one is more convenient for the person at the time (which in this case of yours would be 0.5mm the smallest size available). And let's not even bring into account the varying sizes of pencils in the market, with lead at 2mm diameters in size existing as well.

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or this

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With the referred chip being the sized of a pencil dot.

And that is just a civilian version, military grad versions will be undoubtedly much more advance. And microchips can also hack and utilized the mainframe system's communication routes as well, so a separate antenna is not required.

And again, it is like nobody actually cares to read the entire conversation before they actually reply. My ORIGINAL Contention to the OP was that super micro sized chips capable of significant processing is possible and are actually in use. Whether there was actually a spy chip that was used to hack the supposed US mainframe is beyond the point.

How does it go about attach itself to the motherboard?

How the spy chip knows about each wire or signal trace of motherboard is for?

 

[AssassinsMace]

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My bet is Trump is planning something where it doesn't just affect China using national security as an excuse. Trump has to setup his actions now since his unilateral actions on trade have people lining up against him. Just look at how since Trump was accusing China of election meddling to get rid of him, people including some personalities in the media are cheering China on. That's something you would've never seen before Trump.

 

[Anlsvrthng]

How does it go about attach itself to the motherboard?

How the spy chip knows about each wire or signal trace of motherboard is for?

It is not on the motherboard, but in one (or more) ICs.

Example on the Nintendo WII (2006 design) they called it as "Starlet" , it is integrated into to GPU/north bridge, supervising the complete memory communication, and acting as a hypervisor (validating software hashes with public keys)

IT is really small ,few square mm or smaller.

In the recent (I think 2014 or newer ) intel/AMD cpus it is integrated into the CPU, with independent MAC address, and with the capability to debug/test/do whatever want with the CPU. It can start in low power mode, and read everything/communicate with anything. It has a big RSA key, so only the manufacturer + CIA can activate it.

It needs to be in the CPU or in a part of the computer that has unrestricted DMA .

This is the main reason why Russia/China started to manufacture its own CPUs.
It is the reason why the Russian ministries using Elbrus : P

 

[tidalwave]

It is not on the motherboard, but in one (or more) ICs.

That's not what the article says!!

It says the tiny discrete spy chip attached to the motherboard. It never says the spy chip was embedded in another IC during chip manufacturing at fab such as TSMC! You made stuffs up now!

Also how can IC not on the motherboard???

It's in the air??

 

[Anlsvrthng]

That's not what the article says!!

It says the tiny discrete spy chip attached to the motherboard. It never says the spy chip was embedded in another IC during chip manufacturing at fab such as TSMC! You made stuffs up now!

Also how can IC not on the motherboard???

It's in the air??

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It gives a quite good summary about Starlet in the Nintendo wii Broadway IC.

Either the writer of the article made a mistake, or they just simply try to broaden/simplify the message to reach wider masses .

Either the IC can be in the semiconductor , or they can insert during the packaging of the IC (the IC is on a small PCB , with many resistor / other component, it is visible on the old Intel /AMD CPUs without taking them apart)

It is possible to attach an IC to the JTAG port of the motherboard.

IF the attacker know the JTAG hierarchy/registers and so on then with four wire he can get out any information from any machine.
That can be a small IC with only four wires.

However example the JTAG of the Intel CPUs is a black hole, no one know anything about them ( apart from the two JTAG legs on the CPU) outside of the intel.