
U.S. government sides with Apple and Amazon, effectively denying Bloombergreport - evo_9
https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/07/homeland-security-denies-bloomberg-spy-chip-report/
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prolikewh0a
I highly recommend Noam Chomsky's 'Manufacturing Consent' for a good look at
the United States propaganda model and how big newspapers play a very large
role in forming the public's opinion on both domestic & foreign issues.

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atdt
How is Chomsky and Herman's propaganda model applicable here?

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prolikewh0a
It's been pointed out that the Bloomberg story was possibly a failed attempt
at propaganda during a trade war with China.

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newscracker
I’m of the opinion that this story was designed and planted through a
Machiavellian scheme to cause panic and to generate more suspicion on China
(specifically) and any other country (generally). The denials by the companies
and the government arms are quite strong, suggesting that this is a highly
secretive disinformation campaign.

If the Bloomberg story is indeed true and the denials by the others false, I
don’t expect to find out about it for at least another 30 years or longer,
when this probably gets declassified or revealed in detail by some other
source.

Whatever the truth, it’s undeniable that the report has planted giant seeds of
doubt on electronic hardware, and many countries can only continue to worry
while not being able to handle this kind of threat at scale in the coming
years.

We humans want and desire for closure, but I suspect we won’t get it on this
matter anytime soon.

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tristanj
Dupe/Not original source of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18158560](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18158560)

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lgleason
I'll bet you that behind the scenes a different story is being told.

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melanchroes
If there was a secret agreement, the quickness of responses from both
implicated parties here reads well. I could definitely see the NSA having
contractual language like "Upon suspicion by members of the media, the
communications department of Company X should fully deny any and all
implications of working with the NSA within 24 hours"

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Robelius
I think the simplest answer is probably the real answer here. An article had
inaccurate information, and all involved parties responded with the same story
because they were all responding with the truth.

The alternative is the Chinese government inserted a chip onto boards. Which
would have required a modification to the board as well as bypassing all of
Apple's own hardware security measures. This sounds like an interesting story,
but seems a lot less likely. Would the people planting an additional component
not expect a company to inspect their own boards when doing normal checks?

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bsder
> Would the people planting an additional component not expect a company to
> inspect their own boards when doing normal checks?

Absolutely.

I often miss assembly errors on boards that I, personally, design and debug.

Unless someone has an automated tester doing optical examination of every
single part, it's _really_ easy to miss.

Even moreso if it was just a small batch that had the change.

