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Comment by simias | Hacker News Reader

Only tangentially related but do we have any recent update on the situation with Bloomberg's "backdoored motherboard" story? Last I heard Apple was vehemently asking for them to retract the story but I haven't heard anything after that. Have there been new developments?

Seems crazy that such an important and far reaching news story ends up... basically just nowhere.

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At this point, I'd bet that the story will just fade away. Bloomberg's editors obviously think that they have credible sources for the story but they can't reveal who they are. The various hardware vendors are obviously equally convinced that the story isn't true. It seems unlikely that either group are going to change their minds.

Most recent news I'm aware of (8 days ago): "Super Micro says review found no malicious chips in motherboards" [0].

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18654998

I don't know why I should trust Super Micro investigating Super Micro.

I understand that Apple is bullish about there not being any evidence of their current hardware being compromised but it seems to me like it doesn't prove it never ever happened anywhere.

The onus isn't on Apple or Super Micro to prove anything (though it may make business sense to do so). The onus is on the ones making the astounding claim. So far they have produced no motherboard showing evidence of this type of tampering. All it would take is one motherboard that shows the issue. Until then, there's no reason to believe the story.

> I don't know why I should trust Super Micro investigating Super Micro.

You don't have to.

From the very first sentence of that article: "... an outside investigations firm had found no evidence of any malicious hardware in its current or older-model motherboards."

Company hired by company finds finding that will make company hire it again in the future. Not news. Not saying the story is true ofc.

They're doing their own investigation, IIRC another reporter is attempting to replicate the findings.

I think it's reporter misinterpreting what sources said.

Cause if there was indeed "backdoored motherboard", it'd be very easy to produce the said device and say "Look!".

No update as far as I know. One would hope Bloomberg has re-checked what they have, but without them or their source revealing more details impossible to verify.

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