This week on the AppleInsider Podcast, Victor and William talk about Super Micro moving manufacturing out of China, Foxconn's adventures in Wisconsin, and Victor interviews Geert Bevin of Moog about interface design.
A report claiming Chinese spy chips were secretly implanted into Super Micro servers used by Apple and other tech firms has been dealt another blow, with a delve into how secure servers work criticizing the report's lack of detail for the hack and insisting the claimed technique would have been implausible to pull off.
Super Micro will be reviewing its products for any signs of chips or other malicious hardware added during its production, in a bid to clear itself following a report claiming Chinese spies had implanted the components to perform espionage on Apple and other western companies.
The U.S. Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, claims that the government has seen "no evidence" so far that Chinese spy chips were planted onto motherboards that then made their way into servers at companies like Apple.
The senior advisor for Cybersecurity Strategy to the director of the National Security Agency has advised there is a lack of evidence relating to both of Bloomberg's recent espionage-related stories, and has openly requested for people with knowledge of the situation to provide assistance.
A pair of senators have written to Supermicro requesting more information about events detailed in the recent Bloomberg investigation alleging the company's servers were compromised, in an attempt to find out if it is a risk to the national security of the United States.
Bloomberg is doubling down on its investigative report claiming servers belonging to Apple, Amazon, and other major organizations were tampered by China, by citing documents and analysis from a security expert working for a major telecommunications firm.
Apple hasn't detected unusual transmissions or other evidence servers were infiltrated with Chinese spy chips, the company's VP of Information Security insisted in a letter to Congress on Sunday.
A Bloomberg report claims Apple, Amazon, and almost 30 other companies were the subject of hacking by Chinese spies embedding chips in hardware for surveillance purposes, a story that Apple has now twice refuted as "wrong and misinformed."
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Victor Marks
Malcolm Owen
Roger Fingas
