The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies

Bloomberg | October 4, 2018, 4:00 AM CDT | Jordan Robertson and Michael Riley

[Zhang Fei]

Bloomberg link only.

[Taxman]

Collisions at sea, perhaps?

[daniel1212]

Very good and well-written article about a very bad thing. And the article after it: A Former Obama Operative Built a New Anti-Republican Attack Machine

[arrogantsob]

China has been antagonistic since Mao and the boys took over prior to that we had good relations.

[arrogantsob]

China has been antagonistic since Mao and the boys took over prior to that we had good relations.

[arrogantsob]

Do you mean Monopolistic-Government Trade don’t you? We have no free trade.

[confederatecarpetbag]

If you’re on FR, you’re using the cloud. Just sayin’

[Gen-X-Dad]

Back in the 90s, every globalist free trader insisted that having China take over the manufacturing of electronics would not compromise national security. They insisted that people who were concerned about national security and strategic economic control vs. profit is the only thing that matters were stupid and wrong. Trump is destroying the economic strip mining of America by globalists which is why they despise him and want to remove him.

[DakotaGator]

True. Though there was animosity left over from the last Empress when the Great White Fleet diverted part of its formation to Japan from its scheduled China visit.

Still, our relations with China were very good during its period as a republic.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

FOLLOW THE MONEY TRAIL TO HER HUSBAND AND THEIR BUSINESSES/FRONTS. The Feinsteins are as “dirty” as hell and they dirty laundry needs to be aired-out by American cleaners, not Democrat whores.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

#23. Speaking about “action-adventure” movies with the Chicoms in it, has anyone checked the heads of Bill and Hillary, Diane and her husband whatsoitsface, Al Gore, and Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA) for microchips?

You know that the truth is stranger than fiction.

Besides, a well aimed electrical charge could take out America’s top traitors.

Gee, isn’t Science Fiction great?

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

TO EVERYONE. READ THE LINK DANIELL1212 has provided on a very dangerous Obama operative named Butler. “A Former Obama Operative Built a New Anti-Republican Attack Machine”.

This is what we are facing, now and in the future, and it’s going to get nasty as leftwing subversives do what Butler has done successfully.

“We have been warned”.

Thanks daniel121 for the link!

[SunkenCiv]

Gosh, the Chinese? They've never exhibited the least interest in espionage and invasion of personal privacy before this. /sarc

[Swordmaker]

Apple was going to use the hardware in their iTunes Streaming video/movie service they were installing back in 2015-2016 order 30,000 rack mounted servers from Elemental Systems who had their servers made by Supermicro. However, even Bloomberg BusinessNews states that Apple cancelled the order when their engineers discovered the malicious IC chip on the motherboard of test units they received.

The more I think about this the less sense it makes for several very good reasons.

1. Both Amazon and Apple supposedly discovered this malicious IC chip in 2015, three years ago.
2. Nothing was said about it in any security bulletin to the industry warning about security problems with servers made in China.
3. IN THREE YEARS! Seriously?
4. Software could have been developed to disable or block transmission of the stolen data back to China since it was known. Really? The URL of the target server had to be available.
5. The revelation about this malicious chip comes from a single main stream media news source which cites only anonymous sources both in the impacted government and the two major companies, Amazon and Apple, the two largest companies in the world by market cap. Yet we hear crickets.
6. Other companies are vaguely mentioned but not by name.
7. Amazon, Apple, and Supermicro vigorously deny any such chip exists and that any such events happened.
8. Amazon acquired Elemental Systems in late 2015 and continued ordering Supermicro servers for use in their Amazon Web Service (AWS) cloud and for Amazon Prime streaming video / movie service
9. AWS CEO independently said there were no spurious hardware installed in or on the Supermicro motherboards.
10. Apple did not break off doing business with Supermicro until sometime in 2016, selecting another supplier, perhaps due to the increased demand Amazon was placing on Supermicro due to growth of Amazon Prime.
11. Altering the design of a motherboard to add another chip is not an easy thing to due and must be done from engineering on. . . especially on a multilayered board.
12. None of the articles have shown this IC chip in situ on a motherboard, instead they show a photo of a generic miniature grain of wheat chip perched on a finger tip. Why not show one in situ?
13. No one has described how this tiny chip accomplishes what it accomplishes with the various scenarios a server environments that might be encountered. It just is.
14. The denial by both Apple management and Amazon management is backed by the fact that they face penalties if they are lying imposed by the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 which imposes PERSONAL fines of from $10 million to $20 million and imprisonment in a Federal institution for ten to twenty years. What incentive do these managers and officers have to lie. In Apple's case, they never even USED the products involved, cancelling the order.
15. Bloomberg has published FAKE NEWS before.

Given all that, something here doesn't smell right. . . my BS o'meter is almost pegged at 100%!

[mewzilla]

Awesomely good questions. Dang. Now I’m really confused. What in the bloody blue blazes is going on?! Who is trying to what to whom and why??

[daniel1212]

TO EVERYONE. READ THE LINK DANIELL1212 has provided on a very dangerous Obama operative named Butler. “A Former Obama Operative Built a New Anti-Republican Attack Machine”. This is what we are facing, now and in the future, and it’s going to get nasty as leftwing subversives do what Butler has done successfully. “We have been warned”. Thanks daniel121 for the link!

I tried to post the article, A Former Obama Operative Built a New Anti-Republican Attack Machine , but FR says nothing from bloomberg can be posted.

I do not know why even one sentence cannot be posted as an article, since there are some articles like "The Big Hack" and this one that are of interest to us conservatives, but at least we can post links in replies to outlawed sites.

With efforts as the Anti-Republican Attack Machine FR is even more viable. Thanks Jim and John.

[daniel1212]

TO EVERYONE. READ THE LINK DANIELL1212 has provided on a very dangerous Obama operative named Butler. “A Former Obama Operative Built a New Anti-Republican Attack Machine ”.

Burton has amassed an army of 16,000 amateur sleuths who, with professional guidance, have spent months ferreting out damaging material on scores of vulnerable Republicans in Congress and state legislatures.

Using SurveyMonkey, Citizen Strong sends volunteers targeted assignments, prompting them to pull court records, for instance, or translate Russian articles, only bumping the material up the chain of command when three volunteers produce the same result.

Burton has snapped up 203 domains of incumbent Republicans that will soon bear the fruit of his researchers’ efforts.

Burton laughs as he shares more highlights of what his researchers turned up, tidbits he’s not yet willing to put on the record. Sometimes, it’s best to spring the trap at the last moment.

[Elsie]

Back in the early days; when the ONLY access a mere peon had to a COMPUTER! was a dumb terminal on a factory floor; I taught myself BASIC and wrote a fake login program that spoofed the REAL one and stole passwords from users.

It simulated an intermittent wiring problem that crashed the link after a login try.

When it came back up; the REAL login screen was there to use.

Just a prank; as passwords were pretty useless in that situation. I guess it gave an, “OOoooh!” factor when trying to impress the ladies...

…”You can use a COMPUTER??!!??”

[Elsie]

Bottom line- I am going with the assumption (fact?) that EVERYTHING I type or access thru my ISP is being recorded: somewhere...

[rdcbn]

Any of you tech wizards know of a utility to sniff one’s pc for spy crap like this ?
Specifically for Asus mobos

———————k

Onboard chip malware hard wired circuit art is very difficult to detect via conventional diagnostics, you have to actually look at the layout on the wafer.

[rdcbn]

Any of you tech wizards know of a utility to sniff one’s pc for spy crap like this ?
Specifically for Asus mobos

———————k

Onboard chip malware hard wired circuit art is very difficult to detect via conventional diagnostics, you have to actually look at the layout on the wafer.