
Chinese spy chip: Four more reasons to believe Apple's denial - devy
https://9to5mac.com/2018/10/08/chinese-spy-chip-2/
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rasz
9to5mac also believed Apple on the whole 3rd party screen replaced iPhone 7/8
being bricked by OS upgrade was just a "bug and Apple is on top of fixing the
situation". You know, after almost half a year of Apple playing stupid and
ignoring angry customers.

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natch
The four reasons listed are just three assertions:

1) From Apple, which has already made their position clear, so it's just
repeating that essentially, although the forum is different.

2) & 3) From government agencies that are specifically tasked with deception
when needed.

plus a report about what Brian Krebs said, which highlighted him saying that
nobody should draw conclusions about the merit of the story based on the fact
that he found nothing. Here's the quote: "I heard similar allegations earlier
this year about Supermicro and tried mightily to verify them but could not.
That in itself should be zero gauge of the story’s potential merit."

So four "reasons" that really aren't.

Although I do tend to believe Apple on this, the four reasons listed in the
fine article do not add much. I'm surprised the author gave this such a
breathless tone. His earlier opinion piece
([https://9to5mac.com/2018/10/05/chinese-spy-
chip/](https://9to5mac.com/2018/10/05/chinese-spy-chip/)) gives better reasons
to believe Apple.

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bigmonads
Maybe:

1\. There really was a supply chain attack, but Apple and AWS did not detect
it.

2\. Trump Administration staff worked with Bloomberg reporters on an domestic
propaganda piece to expose the attack in a public way amid China-US trade war.

3\. They blundered coordination of their strategic communications, not
expecting companies to question the story.

This allows us to consistently believe that:

a. There was a supply chain attack.

b. The companies mentioned were not those who detected it.

c. Intelligence and Tech have different perspectives/stories.

d. All actors/parties are acting in a way consistent with their missions,
objectives, and incentives.

~~~
hprotagonist
Given the people involved, #2 is a weak assertion.

~~~
bigmonads
Thanks, fixed.

