Question Report: Super Micro Dropping China-Made Components After Backdoor Reports

[Lucian Armasu]

After reports about Chinese backdoor chips being built into its motherboards, Super Micro will stop purchasing server components made in China.

Report: Super Micro Dropping China-Made Components After Backdoor Reports : Read more

 

[AllanGH]

Yeah....it was a matter of time.

This issue was raised a few years ago as a possibility, since China is so very friendly (not) with Western nations.

 

[Griffincash]

This is fake news and you know it. There was never any remote device inside of a supermicro server that wasn't meant to be there. Some dumbass didn't know what IPKVM was.

 

[littleleo]

China has stolen more tech then it has developed. If you don't know that then this is a surprise to you. however if you had to deal with China in business you know that it is true.

 

[AllanGH]

This is fake news and you know it.

It is a news story. Whether the claims are baseless or not, it is still what is relevant to our society. So, let's not go down the mentally challenged rabbit hole of screaming "FAKE NEWS!" at something that may be controversial to you.

After so many years of being subjected to that BS line, I am sick to my eyeballs of hearing and seeing "FAKE NEWS!" ignorantly thrown-around with total disregard to the subject matter of the story published.

Particularly by somebody who appears to have only signed up to make the claim.

 

[Griffincash]

It is a news story. Whether the claims are baseless or not, it is still what is relevant to our society. So, let's not go down the mentally challenged rabbit hole of screaming "FAKE NEWS!" at something that may be controversial to you.

After so many years of being subjected to that BS line, I am sick to my eyeballs of hearing and seeing "FAKE NEWS!" ignorantly thrown-around with total disregard to the subject matter of the story published.

Particularly by somebody who appears to have only signed up to make the claim.

I'm sick of bloggers acting like journalist. Make the headline something factual AND related to the article. They did not make these changes based on that reports; there is zero evidence of such. The news is "supermicro is dropping Chinese suppliers", the fake part is where they tied it to the backdoor bullcrap.

 

[AllanGH]

I'm sick of bloggers acting like journalist.

Um-hmmm....and, as a professional tech journalist, with direct contact with this segment of the industry, I'm sure that offends you greatly, doesn't it?

I offer you my sincerest sympathies.

Nonetheless, we have no evidence one way or the other, at the moment; so, we will have to content ourselves with the fact that a large corporation has announced that it is dropping contracts with Chinese suppliers (a major move), and have stated a reason for this action.....and you are calling it BS.

Время разъясняет правду.

 

[Griffincash]

Dude. I agree with almost everything you've said. My point is they didn't report all the new information available regarding that Bloomberg article. It was a click bait headline that didn't need to be. The real news in the article will be overshadowed by some shit that didn't happen.

 

[AllanGH]

Again, facts don't hide for very long.

I have dealt with China extensively and understand the politics, governance, and culture. The motivation and means do exist to have those kinds of external resources available to the Chinese.

It remains to be seen if the government of China has been wiling to take the steps to take advantage of many such opportunities.

 

[DalaiLamar]

There was an investigation into the allegations after denials from Apple and Supermicro and they found nothing to back them up. This is fake news.

 

[AllanGH]

Perhaps....but I am on the road, traveling between Los Angeles, and San Bernardino, and I'll research the issue myself....later. I am not persuaded by what appear to be specious arguments by somebody who gives the appearance of emotional investment in convincing me of his own point of view.

 

[bit_user]

This is fake news and you know it. There was never any remote device inside of a supermicro server that wasn't meant to be there. Some dumbass didn't know what IPKVM was.

Doesn't sound like you read the original Bloomberg piece. I found it pretty convincing.

Of course, all of the companies involved are going to deny it. There's nothing for them to gain by being honest about it. I wonder if they've even gone so far as to hire trolls and bots to decry it, in forums and message boards exactly like this one.

Anyway... welcome to the site, newcomer.

 

[AllanGH]

The reporting is credible, and touches upon corporate denial mechanisms that I have worked within and am very familiar with.

To call this...uh...flawed reporting is intellectually disingenuous, and quite in line with the expectations of those who hurl the epithet, "Fake News!" without researching the matter themselves.

I have zero respect for that kind of duplicitous rhetoric.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...ny-chip-to-infiltrate-america-s-top-companies

"The companies’ denials are countered by six current and former senior national security officials, who—in conversations that began during the Obama administration and continued under the Trump administration—detailed the discovery of the chips and the government’s investigation. One of those officials and two people inside AWS provided extensive information on how the attack played out at Elemental and Amazon; the official and one of the insiders also described Amazon’s cooperation with the government investigation. In addition to the three Apple insiders, four of the six U.S. officials confirmed that Apple was a victim. In all, 17 people confirmed the manipulation of Supermicro’s hardware and other elements of the attacks. The sources were granted anonymity because of the sensitive, and in some cases classified, nature of the information."

 

[jasonelmore]

Next, the US needs to prohibit Chinese nationals from working at American research Universities like MIT, Caltech, Princeton, Yale, etc.. The Chinese are robbing the US research complex blind. I do not suggest this lightly, but it's become clear that China has spies everywhere inside the United States. Week after week I read articles about the Chinese stealing research from American Universities. China has developed a poor reputation in this regard and it's finally catching up with them.

Yeah, Apple would never admit to such a breach. Security is fundamental to Apple's brand. Similarly, the Bloomberg article was sourced from multiple people throughout the supply chain. It's not like they wrote the piece based on a couple of government workers. Bloomberg has been vindicated.

 

[bit_user]

Next, the US needs to prohibit Chinese nationals from working at American research Universities like MIT, Caltech, Princeton, Yale, etc.

You know that most research is in the public domain, right? Academics' goal is to publish and present their findings at conferences, etc.

Where things get dicey is in sensitive, DoD-funded research. There, I would support the idea of having some security clearance requirement, and universities receiving such grants needs to secure the relevant information and materials.

Industrial espionage is another major concern. Speaking of which, remember when tons of electronics were failing due to bad capacitors? That was allegedly due to theft of secrets related to capacitor production, but was missing a vital, secret element. I think the fallout from that incident has been a boon for the Japanese capacitor industry, which has probably done much better than if the theft never occurred. I realize most IP theft doesn't have such a silver lining (for the victim, at least), but that case probably worked in their favor.

 

[ginthegit]

I am sick of seeing such crap as I am seeing above in this forum....

Lets be open about this....

Apple said no to the US government who wanted a BACK DOOR in all programs or processors for NATIONAL SECURITY... Most companies agreed to it but a few like Apple. America is openly spying on everyone in the intrest of National security and thinks that it has the right to the Black pot to call its counterpart kettle BLACK too as an insult.

China is probably trying to spy, but as a counter measure to the AMERICANS, who in the intrests of National security spy on all of us whether American or not.

Now Lets have a look at the track records of recent history.

Does China steal tech?
Apple out sources production to Global founderies et al meaning that all the Hardware must be given to China to produce the PCB and tech. We give it to them and they use it themselves.
So they take something that they shouldn't (illegal)
Americans; why do they use China? to exploit Cheap labour, so they use legit back doors to exploit human rights, but because they are using loop holes and no one cares, American companies comply by the letter of the law, but break laws that would be illegal in our country, but because they are not illegal in China it's OK.

Fake News, implies that the News is in Cahoots with the Established government that is in the pockets of Privateers (bankers) to exploint the people. This is one of those cases where their is no proof, but massive action is taken to undermine China that it has exploited for many years to the favor of the wester powers. The Press then Print the BS they are told, and not being tech savy, delibrerately spin it worse.

Lets have a look at a recent historical example of this behaviour... the war with Iraq. Mr Blair Lied to the British causing an illegal war. Mr Blair makes millions from it along with the warmongers and the American war machines. Truth comes out but no one in the west pays. Some people justify that it was for the best that Saddam was put down, and we leave Iraq after stealing their resources and leave their economy in tatters and the control of their country to corrupt werstern leaders (which is now being shown). Saddam ruled the middle east like an Iron first, only because he needed to to keep the terrorists subverted. We kill him (illegally) and the country goes to hell while the western nations pat each other on the back for a ruthless job well done.

Sorry AllanGH , but if you are an article editor, remind me NEVER to read your articles, you talk like a politician with the same mechanism the Politicians do. You rest all the evidence in what you are OFFICIALLY given, whether it is lies or not. So you are just another puppet of the industrial movement. If you think this is unfair, tell me where you did your research and where it is found.... Not useless articles that are also corporate controlled. Find me FAIR IMPARTIAL EVIDENCE, otherwise shut up and stop spewing crap on this forum.

You are like one of those people that say Crimea was illegally annexed, but being as I have friend that live by there who told me that they had a legit referendum where over 90% of the voters voted to be annexed, it completely changes the narrative and makes liars of all the news networks and journalists that use that anti FAKE NEWS crap that you speel here. I am happily an engineer that travels the world and Know that so much of the crap that is sold about the middle east is contrived in the west.

If you want to rant and cry AllanGH, show me using proper independant reseach that China is Definitively responsible.... Oh no you can't... It is all conjecture... just like your reasoning!

 

[80-watt Hamster]

Biased != fake.
Incorrect != fake.
Incomplete != fake.
And finally, false != fake.

A piece can be any or all of those things without intent of deception on the part of the author. Decrying a report or editorial that you disagree with as "fake news" can be just as intellectually lazy as accepting it at face value.

 

[dudmont]

Companies cutting ties with chicom manufacturers is fundementally a good thing. The chicoms seem to respond somewhat to economic incentives.
Editorializing by "news" story has been going on for decades and is reason #1 why the news has lost so much credibility.
Trying to morally equivilize the government's of the US and China is definitely not a hill I'd want to try and defend. One simple reason called checks and balances.

 

[digitalgriffin]

You know that most research is in the public domain, right? Academics' goal is to publish and present their findings at conferences, etc.

Where things get dicey is in sensitive, DoD-funded research. There, I would support the idea of having some security clearance requirement, and universities receiving such grants needs to secure the relevant information and materials.

Industrial espionage is another major concern. Speaking of which, remember when tons of electronics were failing due to bad capacitors? That was allegedly due to theft of secrets related to capacitor production, but was missing a vital, secret element. I think the fallout from that incident has been a boon for the Japanese capacitor industry, which has probably done much better than if the theft never occurred. I realize most IP theft doesn't have such a silver lining (for the victim, at least), but that case probably worked in their favor.

Yes and no. Universities claim all rights to works published by their professors. That means if some industrial process uses their innovation, they have a right collect royalties.

Professors have moved from teaching students to being pushed to publish research papers. It gives a potential avenue of revenue to the university, as well as brings the University "clout" and "recognition." This means more students applying and more grants from the business world to continue research. (Battery tech are a hot one that is being fought over.)

But to your point, not everything is public. MIT has discontinued work with Huawei in targeting problems with their 5G implementation. Why? Because they (Huawei) have not patched the vast majority of them. And if Huawei is indeed in bed with Chinese Gov't Espionage, then we are giving away what leaks we know about, which makes it harder to us to track attacks.

 

[bit_user]

Wow. I'm speechless. I guess your own words already say it so well:

I am sick of seeing such crap as I am seeing above in this forum....

Lets be open about this....

...

China is probably trying to spy, but as a counter measure to the AMERICANS,

...

Does China steal tech?
... We give it to them and they use it themselves.

Americans; why do they use China? to exploit Cheap labour, so they use legit back doors to exploit human rights,
...

... This is one of those cases where their is no proof, but ... Press then Print the BS they are told, and not being tech savy, delibrerately spin it worse.

... Saddam ruled the middle east like an Iron first, only because he needed to to keep the terrorists subverted.

...

Sorry AllanGH , ... you talk like a politician ... you are just another puppet of the industrial movement.

... shut up and stop spewing crap on this forum.

You are like one of those people that say Crimea was illegally annexed, ...

And, lastly:

... show me using proper independant reseach ... Oh no you can't... It is all conjecture... just like your reasoning!

I couldn't think of a better response, myself.

BTW, the part about Crimea was an interesting diversion, perhaps trying to confuse us into thinking you're a Russian troll. I'm not taking the bait, though. I think they're probably better than that.

 

[ginthegit]

I couldn't think of a better response, myself.

BTW, the part about Crimea was an interesting diversion, perhaps trying to confuse us into thinking you're a Russian troll. I'm not taking the bait, though. I think they're probably better than that.

Love the comment. You evasive answering shows how critical you are. Like a typical politician, you avoid the real questions and just pick holes in points calling troll where you cannot disagree. You have no knowledge that is worth anything in this sector. China is America, just cheaper and less ambiguous to its intentions.

The best part is, your reply is what I expected. And further more, you can brandish insults like Troll, but your response will show all that are following this thread just how weak your arguments are. Not only do you not really address any of my points, you mock without really making ME understand what you are mocking. It is almost like the Joke is only understood by you, and you are the only Geek in the corner laughing at your own joke.

Just like your original post, your response is also meaningless. I am glad that others will see it also.

Oh by the way Crimea was an example of poor FAKE NEWS which you have been accused of before in this thread, but you only mock it pointing out that it MUST MEAN that I am a Russian troll. REALLY! is that the extent of your journalistic and professional opinion?

It would appear to me that you are nothing more that an over opinionated person who hates when he is put to question. SO SO SAD!!!

 

[bit_user]

Love the comment. You evasive answering shows how critical you are. Like a typical politician, you avoid the real questions and just pick holes in points calling troll where you cannot disagree.

Oh, you'd better believe I can disagree with your blatant propaganda. I just not taking the bait.

China is America, just cheaper and less ambiguous to its intentions.

Interesting, but wrong. The US has a constitution that actually means something. Its citizens have actual rights. In China, you are at the whims of the party. You cannot get good legal representation, because they lock up and repress all of the lawyers who try to defend justice and hold the state to its own laws.

you mock without really making ME understand what you are mocking.

That's a pointless exercise, because you know exactly what you're doing. Moreover, you'll never accept my interpretation, so it just leads down a rathole that turns this whole thing into what seems like a subjective difference of opinion. However, I'm not about to put real facts on the same level as your propaganda, so as to lend it any legitimacy.

you only mock it pointing out that it MUST MEAN that I am a Russian troll.

I don't really know or care who you are or what's your intent. What I do know is that you're up to no good, trying to equivocate and spread propaganda. So long as that's understood, your purpose is irrelevant.

It would appear to me that you are nothing more that an over opinionated person who hates when he is put to question. SO SO SAD!!!

I'm happy to discuss and debate opinions, but not facts. And not with someone I deem utterly untrustworthy.

So, let's talk about you. I see you're essentially new to this site, with only 6 messages under your belt. What drew you here and what's you objective?

 

[AllanGH]

In the 1960's, China made a mistake in its nuclear programme, and allowed a high yield nuclear weapon go off prematurely, killing pretty-much all of its leading scientists and technologically-educated workers. It's not likely that any CHinese citizen would know this, since the government has a policy of continually "saving face"...which means that it lies to its citizens without any scrap of remorse, or any break in the stream of lies.

I know this because my father headed the VELA satellite programme, in the United States, which both detected the detonation, and determined the consequences of the blast. For a time, this was classified information, of which I became aware at the time--because I was a sneaky little snoop, and had a scientific upbringing which allowed me to understand the documents I was reading. Even now, it is little discussed, but we do know what happened, which forms the foundation of Chinas behaviour, now.

Since that time, China has been digging itself out of a self-imposed technological dark ages, and instituted policies of spying and stealing technology, so that it could repair the self-imposed destruction of its scientifically educated workforce.

China does not spy and steal technology because of the spying of other nations. It does so in attempt to regain the progress that China lost when it ineptly blew-up its own scientists--pretty-much all in the same disaster. Because it would lose face this is probably a closely guarded secret within China, and a plethora of propaganda exists to gloss-over the discovery of Chinas own mistake, by its own citizens--after all, you can't trust a government that would make such a huge mistake, and not admit it to its own population, could you?

Fact: China steals technological information from other nations, and exacts technological information from corporations which contract services from Chinese companies which are politically controlled by the Chinese government. (I have attempted to contract for device assembly services from Chinese corporations, and the requirement conveyed to me was the release of technological specifics of everything contained in the final device...not just the portions that were subject to the manufacturing process for which I sought contract services.)

Fact: China has wide and very prolific spying programmes, which remain active and expanding today.

Fact: China is VERY interested in controlling other nations to its own advantage, and will brook nothing less than total advantage over others, in what it assumes to be a coming global conflict. This policy does embrace the inclusion of both information gathering and dissemination methodologies, along with "kill switch" technologies in information transmission and processing equipment manufactured within its borders.

To deny this is both ignorant of the facts, and a willing consumer of lies.

I respect the Chinese culture, and its people, and value the friendships that I have formed with people therein. I regard many as personal friends, but I realize that they are as subject to the Chinese government, and its laws, as I am by the government and laws of the nation I inhabit.

I, do, however, absolutely disdain the system of government of the PRC, and see how damaging it is to its own people, and understand how very weak and frightened such a government is, when it hides behind a continual shield of lies.

Our governments are enemies to one another, but that does not mean that we cannot ignore the propaganda of both governments, and co-exist peacefully with each other.

OK...that's my humble contribution to the evolving discussion, and I am off to do my work.

 

[ginthegit]

Well AllanGH, an actual intellectual argument that I can take many points to heart. You have rational arguments and many points that I have not considered. And you have made points that i simply recognize as rational. This is somewhat different from your first approach, but though I see some of your points as Valid, others I will again point out below.

Unlike BitUSer, you actually are not trolling and coming out with weak conjecture without counterargument. There is something that I can respond to rather than BITUSERS tripe and personal opinion and stubborn attitude towards different opinions and based fact.

Now there are a Few points AllanGH that i need you to consider without trashing on China;

Does America Steal Technology? Of course it does, this is the reason why the companies have been suing each other for many years. Intellectual theft is exactly the same as what they are claiming what china does... But mega amounts of money makes the problem go away.
Lets have a look at Microsoft for example, a company that only crated an interactive Shell, that combines essentially stolen tech. In principle the courts of law should have shut down Microsoft on principle of the company stealing others tech to make money from it. But the courts seem to allow this theft with fines far less than the rewards. This convinced many that Microsoft was being used as a state actor by the NSA to allow them to infiltrate homes of all windows uses with a standard platform. NSA has also been trying to recently bully companies into allowing backdoors into programs and hardware that allow spying, not only domestically, but internationally. This is essentially proven and shown in the fact that hackers can easily hack windows easily. Spectre was a tool made by the NSA in the first place, also showing that Intel was also a state actor deliberately leaving a vulnerability to allow spying. Hence Russia now fabricates its own processors from the ground up.

America is a country (like UK, Israel and France) that has prolific spy agencies that are now being found out to have hands in the pies of many illigal operations working abroad, but also domestically. This is made Legal by the eyes of the congress with emergency powers, so that the constitution never has to be in question.... But in that argument, the whole point of AMENDMENTS was to destroy what the founding fathers placed as an almost perfect original set of rules. What is a constitution when it can be changed altered and constantly reinterpreted at any time????

You also talk of "Kill switches", and I imagine that you are unaware of the Level 0 access on Intel processors also has a kill switch.... this was LEGIT sold as a feature of anti theft (talk about evasion of the law), but essentially Intel could send out a bunch of signals (right now) over the internet and render ALL Intel chips useless. This is worrying considering Data theft seems so easy at the moment. One state actor only needs to access the information of these Keys, decrypt it and BANG Intel users are screwed. No doubt the governments chips don't have this feature in their processors.

Intel are a victim now of their own infamy, as people now jump over to the Red team for many reasons... but more and more we see their reasoning as security... but even gamers, with the revelation of Spectre patches seriously impacting performance, are switching to AMD too. Market shares Prove my point on this.... All because of the NSA that NO AMERICAN can defend.

Quote by Ronald Regan (on my NSA argument);

" Those that trade in security for Freedom, will gain neither, and lose both!"

and that while he was President... He understood it as did Kennedy (who lost his life for it).

You cannot smear China for what America does and has been proven to do on a grander scale.....

China " We steal your tech because you GIVE IT TO US..." ;

; examples

AMD gives its Ryzen 1 blue prints to china as a royalty based pay off. China now has legal access to Ryzen tech

Intel gave them both the Atom and On board Graphics tech when it wanted to flood the smart phone market with Intel based smart phones.

So in that case China did not need to steal ANYTHING!

Now about the router problems, China blamed for not fixing problems that American routers also have... Only difference, America closes one hole with a software patch and opens another only know to Government. And this later also gets found and the cycle starts again.

Be under no illusion on this fact. My country and America are two of the worst countries in the world for Human rights abuses, With questionable policies that disrupt life domestic and abroad. China has not started a war over lies... America and UK have.

WMD shows that information (pure lies) are believed when coming from a supposed trusted source, started an illegal War killing many innocents and FEW Guilty in the name of democracy and Freedom. then Screws up countries and regions for Many decades....

Look at Afghanistan, look at Iraq, look at Lybia. It is known that these regions were ruled by dictators, but they kept the peace, they put down gangs and other 3 party rulers.... Now their dictators are gone, their countries are fragmented, ruled by Gangs and 3 party rulers and the People now wish for the old regime (and yes I have worked recently in mid east for Oil companies so I know first hand).

Please don't toot to me about western values... I am a westerner and find it a joke!

The CIA MI5 MI6 NSA MOSSAD are all as bad... if not worse than any agency from China or Russia.

My point is, POT KETTLE BLACK.....

1 finger at them, 4 back at us.

Also, China does not need to steal tech info, we keep giving them last Gen tech and they sell it on with all the flaws we left in it. It is all legit, until the propaganda says it isn't... But Tomshardware itself has let us know the giving to china of Ryzen and Atom tech. So no stealing required.

This is why China makes the market like it does. SO WE THROW OUR LAST GEN TECH AT THEM FOR NEAR NOTHING.

then we accuse them of Bootlegging.

Russia also had its nuclear problems with Chernobyl... Made out to be a reactor issue, but actually all down to 1 Manager that decided to see if he could increase effciency of a reactor and the production of Steam, by removing ALL COOLANT to let the heat get high for this to happen. Problem was, manager did not understand that the heat builds up to fast and before the Flushed systems could be refilled BOOM! Nuclear is safe,,, Mans will to make money is not.

By the way, Like your friend, I am an engineer that was Employed by the British Government to deal with some of the issues above. Sadly, like your friend, we are signed up to Official Secrets policies. I would love to expose many things that I cannot.

 

[AllanGH]

Now there are a Few points AllanGH that i need you to consider without trashing on China;

We are fast approaching that point at which open discourse is not possible, because this is straying into the territory of politics, wherein my perspectives are highly offensive to those who support the current administration. I have already received warnings and reprimands for open speech on such matters, and I don't wish to repeat the infraction--mainly out of respect for the moderators who have to put up with the resultant chaos and umbrage.

It would be best if, at least on my part, I move my response into the private messaging or email environs.