And you know Union Station is actually really cool. Oh, yeah, I've been there on the on the Metro and it's great I mean, it's it's beautiful, but it's not close to anything and you'll see it in every movie Yeah, oh, no, I went right. Yeah Makes me see Mike L is like subway central Yeah, I I took that train right after drag me to hell came out which has a great scene in Union Station And I was very excited All right, you guys ready to start in about a minute here ready This is gonna be good. We're gonna have a beefy discussion So we'll move through the top stories a little quicker than usual probably but we get we got a lot We got a lot. This is one of those days when I Got I got some hot takes precedent setting news This is one of those where I say as I said earlier Almost as bad as it sounds if not exactly as bad as it's I think possibly worse than it sounds Yeah, possibly confirmation of some very alarmist thought before eight Seven six five fun. No, I sound like I'm speeding up, but here we go Thanks to everyone who supports Daily Tech news show directly to find out more head to Daily Tech news show comm slash support This is the Daily Tech news for Thursday October 4th 2018 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt and from studio feline. I'm Sarah Lane from Mansfield, Ohio I'm Justin Robert Young Whoa Changing it up on us. Yep Looking good Mansfields. Yeah. Oh city of lights Hello, my name is Roger and I'm on the show Somewhere in LA County I Yeah, so Justin are you on the campaign trail you're meeting the people of Ohio What's going on listen Tom to say that I'm not fully committed to the DTNS community would be a lie I'm just on a fact-finding mission to see what the great people of Ohio have to say All right. Well, we've got a big topic today We are gonna talk about that hardware hack that Bloomberg reported as coming from China But let's start with a few tech things you should know The 6.4 inch LG V40 think-you smartphone is available for pre-order now for $900 to Start goes up from there and has five cameras also runs Android 8.1 Oreo instead of the new Android 9 Pi Some people are hmm, you know a little lackluster about that LG's new watch W7 has mechanical hands so that the watch works even if the battery dies That's a difference between about two days of battery life and 100 days of battery life The W7 goes on sale in October 14th for four hundred forty nine dollars HMD global officially announced in the Nokia 7.1 will head to Europe and the United States It's five point eight four This is our five point eighty four inch LCD screen supports HDR 10 and HDR upscaling It will get Android 9 Pi by November and is an Android Enterprise recommended phone It's up for pre-order Friday shipping October 28th pricing starts at three hundred and forty nine dollars. That is three hundred and nineteen euros and Blizzard co-founder Mike Morheim has stepped down as president of Blizzard 27 years after he founded the company world of Warcraft executive producer Jay Allen Brack Who's been there a decade or so is the new president and more heim says he'll stick around as a strategic Advisor. All right, let's talk a little more about what's going on with Nintendo. We're Justin Nintendo's working on a new switch console to be released in 2019 sources tell the wise the Wall Street Journal the new console will have an updated screen But other details are thin at this time No word on the price for the updated switch will which reportedly could arrive as early as next summer Well, the whole idea right is that the screen probably should be updated But that would also bring the price up yeah, and I Don't know they do these as lost leaders mostly to sell the game So they might decide not to bring the price up It does feel like the switch could follow a Nintendo 3ds type model Where instead of like with the Wii U you had the Wii U and it was the Wii U until it was the Until it was the switch the switch could be more like the 3ds where it's like Oh, we we have one with a better screen or we have one of the smaller form factor and and have varying versions Of it and this so so this just being sources say we don't know for sure But I find it believable that they might pursue that This sounds realistic to me Nintendo the knock on Nintendo has always been that despite the fact that they can have game changing hardware Which they certainly have with the switch that after they get their first round of Original IP games Mario Zelda Mario Kart out to the people that sometimes there is a fall-off if they're not Selling their own systems with their own games that there's not quite certainly the third-party developer support Which has been better for the switch, but also Anything else that Nintendo can use to goose these sales. They have put a lot of effort into a new Super Smash Brothers that they're Certainly promoting the hell out of so I would like to see it I mean, I think that the switch is a great console now to offer a better version for around the same price Or maybe slightly more I think is a good deal for for Nintendo Dell announced the Alienware M 15 laptop which is 4.7 pounds has a slimmer top and side bezels than previous models around its 15-point inch total display narrow edges hugging the keyboard a new honeycomb speaker bar that sits right below the hinges among other Bells and whistles users can choose from an FHD or 4k display panel and the laptop will support up to core i5 or i7 processors Nvidia 1060 or 1070 Max Q graphics up to 30 poor 32 rather gigabytes of RAM and up to one terabyte solid-state drive or dual drives with PCIe and SSD Combinations Dell estimates that the devices 90 watt battery will also last 17 hours on a single charge Which is important for a gaming laptop October 25th availability starting at $1,099 I mean, this is just all around to me a solid announcement It's a good well-specced gaming laptop for a decent price. I agree Who was getting one for their loved one this holiday season?  It is Incredibly solid. I don't really have anything bad to say about it. It's the only thing laptop Trend being carried out by Alienware in in good fashion. So I think I think people are excited about this Andrea Stocco and colleagues at the University of Washington have developed the first brain to brain network That they're calling brain net An EEG is used to register the brain frequency in three participants and Something called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation or TMS So send that to Scott Johnson and Brian of it induces electrical activity in one of the three participants TMS The Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation is is something that is used to activate the brain In fact, one of the experiments they do is they can hold it over a certain part of your brain and make a Phosphine appear in your vision by stimulating your brain. So they're using that here the two senders of the three watch a Tetris like game and send a Signal to the third person to tell that person to rotate the block or not to get it to fit down in the bottom Now the way they do this is to move a cursor to the right hand side of the screen with their mind The cursor is moved by staring at a 15 Hertz LED Which causes the brain to emit a frequency along those lines There's also a 17 Hertz LED that they can sort of clear cleanse the brain palette with by looking at that to stop The cursor from moving the receiver can only see the top half of the toucher screen So he sees the block but not where it should go Doesn't know whether to rotate it or not the signals from the receivers are induced by TMS which causes a phosphine to appear in the recipients vision Which tells them to rotate if they see it or not to rotate if they don't see it It's for anybody who's like brainnet. Okay, let me wrap my head around this No pun intended I know But so this is not something that's going to at me as the third party I will do something without my knowledge of doing it like it's not taking over my brain It is merely suggesting. This is what you should do third-party brain Well, and and it also sounds like you are getting a signal for which you are making a conscious decision Right You are seeing a thing and then and then Understanding what that means by way of the instruction saying, okay, I am now going to take The effort to make this move. Yeah, this is very much a proof of concept It's not like you couldn't do everything they're doing here some other way You know, you could you could just send a have a light turn on and be like oh when the lights on I rotate the thing Right, the idea is not that they're doing something you couldn't do any other way yet But that they're doing it only using brain waves in other words I have to change my brain frequency by looking at the right LED and then my brain frequency Signals the TMS to induce a frequency in the recipient's brain to turn the phosphine on you could totally do it easier Right, but that's not the point the point is to make it work this way because then you can start building on that Well, and that's my next question, right? So it's like okay a game of Tetris whatever. I'm like, I don't need you to tell me how to rotate my shapes I know how to play Tetris, but how does this apply to something that would actually be valuable? Especially people with brain injuries or they're you know a way that One of us might be able to talk to the other person that that is actually Helpful for humanity and that's how science works. It doesn't it doesn't do that yet But this is the first step Well, that's what I'm saying This is the first step to getting to that point where they can figure out Oh, well if we can do this then maybe we can actually make not just one phosphine, but multiples maybe we could put a word in there Yeah, we don't know that's the point and we don't have to know all we know is if you can make this work you can start to make more complicated things work and then you get to the point where you're like and now we figured out how to Communicate with someone who can't communicate in any other way and vice versa, which would be amazing Yahoo has launched yahoo together the messaging app for friends and family previously codenamed squirrel Together can organize group chats by topic and send reminders about upcoming events The app is live today worldwide on Android and iOS Finally guys a group chat app Right, what you know that uses yahoo.com emails and hashtag channels IRC flash slack, I don't know. I mean, I don't want to make fun of this I know it's still in the yahoo universe, but Okay, I maybe there maybe there is a place for a personal slack, right? This is not meant to be used in business or gaming This is just for you your friends and family to chat but brings in some of that chat room oriented topicality I I do think I agree with you Tom. I think that there's a lot of Snickering that can be done We're in you know slack is like, oh, it's just IRC, but you know in a different fancy package Yes, but it was designed for small businesses and it was designed for tech-focused businesses and it has done tremendously well All of discord's basically just slack. Yes, but it was designed for gaming culture matters community matters Discord has a place for that. I do think that there is a place for something like this going forward group chats I've long thought are are the the social network that nobody really wants to talk about or acknowledge We've certainly seen chat apps have tremendous success But maybe something that has a little bit more rich functionality and and is designed for hey We all want to get together. There's there's a very easy way that we can all agree where we're going We can all get the same directions and we can all get reminded 30 minutes before That that seems like a step in the right direction whether this is the product remains to be seen I mean the problem is getting people to use it, right if WhatsApp added this Or or we chat or line. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's my My my my knee-jerk reaction is like group chatting is we we got that Yeah, we don't need yahoo together if a bunch of folks who happen to have and I assume I assume that they would Really prefer that you have some sort of a yahoo comm domain that you can you can set up or Flickr account or whatever If if if enough folks want to chat with each other and none of the other Solutions are Advantages great. Okay, you know that there's that yahoo brand name that I think a lot of folks would be like This actually makes more sense and you know one of those fancy WhatsApp type things because believe it or not I know none of us really feel that way But I I have aunts and uncles who are like, no, that's too techie for me. I don't know It's you know, it's a poor company I can't imagine that yahoo together is going to be the thing that makes them make the leak No, if they haven't made it to WhatsApp already Or mass Facebook messenger. I mean, I don't know. I don't either All right moving on to some Amazon news some Amazon employees have complained that despite the hourly wages being raised They're losing stock awards and also bonuses Amazon stock trades at near $20,000 a share and employees got two shares upon being hired and one option All year. Okay, sounds good, right? In addition to raising its lowest hourly wage to $15 per hour Amazon is replacing stock awards with a direct stock purchase plan Here's where it gets confusing Amazon is also ending its variable compensation pay program that added monthly bonuses based on performance the company told CNBC quote we can confirm that all hourly Operations and customer service employees will see an increase in their total compensation as a result of this announcement Let me just also correct The Amazon stock is at two thousand a share not twenty thousand a share. Oh, I'm sorry. Did I say twenty thousand? Yeah, so I'm related to somebody by marriage Twenty thousand would be real great, but no, yeah thousand two thousand And and this is just a follow-up because I Slammed Amazon for taking something they probably needed to do anyway because of a labor shortage and and spinning it as good-hearted It also I hadn't occurred to me that it could also be an accounting move Because a bonus plan and stock options are more complex to account for they're less reliable than knowing you're paying someone $15 an hour $16 an hour $18 an hour So that's another good reason for Amazon to switch It just makes things a little simpler to Expect what the costs are gonna be if you don't have these variable bonuses and stock prices that vary as well I do believe Amazon that overall Everybody will see an increase in their total compensation, but that doesn't help somebody who's kind of in their mindset They're like well, I know I can get a thousand dollar Christmas bonus Every year now realizing well that thousand dollars is now spread out over the year So I'm gonna get shafted in December basically in in part This is a no-win situation for Amazon because you have a lot of employees that do a lot of different things that think a lot of Different ways that you have to create a more uniform policy for I can say by way of my wife who does work for an Amazon Acquisition in Twitch that the stock options are a part of company culture They do that that is part of their their compensation to their employees that being said not only do add on top of everything That you said Tom this is a political issue There was political fire being levied toward Amazon specifically by Bernie Sanders who then took a victory lap after this $15 announcement was made This is a simpler way that Amazon can say look we are leading we are leading the way For the wage floor in America as one of a big company that will continue to face political scrutiny Folks you want to get all the tech headlines each day in about five minutes Be sure to subscribe to daily tech headlines.com now the general news out there speaking of political stories is alive with reports of the Russian GRU agents attempting to hack into the Organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons the OPCW in the Netherlands as they were about to report findings related to the nerve agent poisoning In the UK Dutch agents discovered the plot seized a 4g smartphone a transformer a battery bag a Wi-Fi pineapple a white rectangular Wi-Fi Antenna covered with a dark coat and took the people's trash, which they had taken from their hotel and $40,000 and euros 20,000 each dollars and euros that hack is Nothing compared to the story from Bloomberg about a Chinese hardware hack This is the difference between my high school band Roadkill and the Beatles as far as hacks go Sources telling Bloomberg this story is important because of the denials Bloomberg says they have 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. They have a total of 18 sources From various companies including Apple and Amazon. Let's go through the timeline We're gonna talk a little bit about the denials How difficult this kind of operation is and then we'll discuss it in general So in the first half of 2014 if intelligence officials in the United States Determined that China was targeting adding chips to the super micro boards They knew this was a plan, but they could not nail it down and you don't just shut down a major company like super micro If you don't know super micro is one of the top motherboard makers in the world their motherboards are in multiple Industrial applications all over the place now the first finding that helped the intelligence agencies along was Apple Apple found the chips in May 2015 after detecting a little bit of oddness with their firmware and networking activity in their data centers They reported it to the FDI, but they did not provide access to the data centers or to the tampered hardware. It wasn't till Amazon Was evaluating acquiring a company called elemental technologies later that year that they were able to get direct evidence elemental technologies Compresses video files and reformats them for various platforms Elemental has government contracts with the DoD CIA Navy NASA Congress the Department of Homeland Security and Elemental makes servers for their video compression technology that were assembled by San Jose based super micro So Amazon hired a third-party security tester to just doing due diligence make sure that elemental technologies is secure and Found a rice grain-sized microchip on the Sun micro boards That was not part of the original design. It resembled a signal conditioning coupler just a little thing on there that conditions the signal But was wired into the baseboard management controller and that gives you some admin access some route access And what they found after investigation was the chips enabled a backdoor into whatever network they were part of Allowing contact with remote servers and allowing code from those servers to be accepted So in other words if this is in the DoD, this is in the CIA if this is in Amazon This ship allowed a third-party server to inject code into a server on that network Which then could allow the propagation across the network that it was trusted as a part of now The chips were determined to have been added in factories run by subcontractors Super micro is based in San Jose But they have factories in Taiwan and one factory in Shanghai Those weren't the problematic factories when those factories are running a capacity They will subcontract out to other factories Sometimes in China those subcontractors were found to be the ones that were adding this little tiny chip Plant managers apparently were approached by people claiming to represent super micro or in some other cases the Chinese government and in either case bribes might have been offered or inspections threatened and The plant managers were convinced one way or another to make design changes to include this little Micro processor Now they found similar devices not only in Amazon and Apple but also 30 other companies banks government contractors They don't believe any consumer data was stolen in fact They're not even sure that any of these were used before they discovered them, but this is huge however Amazon says quote. It's untrue that AWS knew about a supply chain compromise an issue with malicious chips or hardware modifications when acquiring elemental period Flat denial Apple says unusually verbose for Apple on this we can be very clear Apple has never found malicious chips hardware manipulations or vulnerabilities purposely planted in any server Super micro says we remain unaware of any such investigation and the Chinese government of course says Supply chain safety and cyberspace is an issue of common concern and China is also a victim So we have two big issues here one is a lot of very Vetted sources though anonymous from a respectable enterprise in Bloomberg business week saying this happened and Not even non-denial flat denials from Amazon and Apple saying no nothing like this ever happened This is not an easy thing to believe did happen So you even if it did happen for sure don't expect it to be common product design understanding has to be Sophisticated to be able to figure out how to make this work in the first place Getting it into the factory system is not easy in a way that it won't just screw up the design And then making sure those devices get to the right place If you're targeting a few 30 companies and you don't want to be discovered by just blanketing everyone with them is another logistical nightmare so Justin, yeah who do we believe and And And if it did happen Wow, what do you do? I? Believe the story and and I am going to take the denials with a little bit of a grain of salt because oftentimes specifically when you are Talking about the charges that are or the issues that are levied here in this story when you're talking about defense contracting You're talking about government contracting. There are legal Requirements that businesses have to follow about disclosing how they work with certain government agencies They're not allowed to be Upfront about some of that stuff and anybody who followed the project prism a story will will see some of these Flat denials as as similar as what we got initially out of that This is Massive in fact, it might be the most consequential tech story that I've seen since the project prism Revelations a few years ago specifically for this reason. This is not a new allegation This is something that we have heard for years about Huawei and ZTE we have heard about the idea of the China Taking advantage of the fact that they have such an opportunity to place something in the supply chain that That the government has taken precautions against certain companies that they have their eye on the idea that they could Co-opt a company like super micro is to me something that is a quantum leap forward on How sophisticated the People's Liberation Army is in this specific in this specific area and number two a Upcoming moral if not business question for a lot of companies that do a lot of work in China Should you take this opportunity to source as much of your product as you possibly can? but also Have it not only proven but also known publicly that we're talking about Amazon and Apple two of the most profitable companies of all time Being had by a system like this like this is a supply chain Issue at this point that these are these are difficult hacks to to track You the best chance is to look at your network activity and try to find them. That's how Apple found it Huawei and ZTE however are under the microscope their hardware gets looked at very carefully My guess is a lot of the rhetoric about Huawei and ZTE was because the government knew about this and was trying to say We don't want anyone else doing this So we're gonna push back against the idea that you would Know and I'm with you Tom in that this is that the the rhetoric about Huawei and ZTE Possibly bordering on on hyperbole, but this does that no favors the idea that that now we're seeing oh No, it's more pervasive It's not just these companies that we believe have direct ties to the Chinese government now It's taking advantage of subcontractors Like look it just makes you wonder because also here's the other thing about this Yes, it is ingenious if you were the People's Liberation Army to go after data center motherboards Right like that that's the that is the sure most surefire way that you can send a Product out into the ecosystem and the and the Bloomberg story uses the the metaphor of trying to throw a stick in a river That feeds out into the ocean in China with the hope that it will wash a shore in in Seattle Like that that's how hard it is to make sure that this happens however, it seems like it did which also might insinuate that there are other Hands guiding this between that subcontractor in China and these server farms with Amazon and Apple And I do think it's fair to to to question why these flat denials These are not the denials of a company that's being gagged, right? This is this is a company that's not being coy and saying we have no comment on this They are saying no this didn't happen. So why is that are these companies cooperating with it? Or is it is there a misunderstanding here? Is there some kind of propaganda war? I I don't see an easy call on that but Bloomberg Business Week has done its due diligence here From from the looks of it and they have a trustworthy track record So it's not something where you can easily disbelieve.  Silicon is possible right now uh without a doubt and and The sourcing on this Comes from both the law enforcement side and the apple and amazon side. No, it is very well sourced all unnamed All unnamed but still that they are there from both sides of this to the point where I mean the the the the charges that are and I keep saying charges as if it's a legal thing It's not out of the claim that the claims made in this story are very specific and very pointed There are times dates and places to a lot of this It would it would shock me if if a story this wide ranging was out and out false Again india step up Well, unsurprisingly, this was a big story in our DTN has subreddit today Uh, you can submit stories and vote on them at daily tech news show dot reddit.com also on facebook at facebook.com Slash groups slash daily tech news show. Do we have anything in the mail back today? Uh, funny mask tom we do. Michael from texas chimes in our discussion yesterday about kindle use and the idea of like Do people use e-readers? Do they do they make sense anymore? Michael says I used to use my kindle until my boss wanted me to read something for work I knew was going to take me forever to read. So I bought the book on audible Haven't touched my kindle in months, but I've listened to a lot of audiobooks in the past year during my commute and road trips Like scott said though scott johnson on our show yesterday Michael says I found the kindle much easier on my eyes than a standard tablet or a phone or the like And it was much less distraction prone Hmm. So so the answer from michael is both like yes, I preferred the kindle, but now I actually prefer audiobooks When I had to read a long book I you know, I actually like to listen to it And you know, if you're if you're stuck in a car or commuting or Otherwise audio makes more sense. I I agree with him. I don't listen to as many audiobooks as as you do tom, but But but there is the they they have their time where it it actually makes Way more sense for me to do that because I'm just not going to be able to sit down and read a book Yep. No, that's it. I doubled my reading by doing audiobooks Justin Robert young. I know you probably do reading and uh audio reading. I don't know But when you're not doing either of those things till folks where they can keep up with your work Oh, I'm writing sarah I'm writing. How about that? So go ahead and check it out at the free political newsletter.com five stories Five days a week mostly gifts sometimes hot takes and by the way A lot of news this week. In fact, uh, get all The roundup of not only the cavanaugh's supplemental fbi report coming in but also all the reactions from the senators And where we are headed this week with a likely confirmation vote. Go ahead on over free political newsletter.com Right now you could be hanging out with mo jam with net guy with theater monkey and thrumwald and zoey brings bacon and ellie in our discord listening to the show as it's being recorded And that's right the best people chatting with the best people All you have to do is support us at patreon.com slash dts and link up your discord account That's patreon.com slash dts. We're also so happy for all the feedback that you give us every day Keep it coming feedback at daily tech news show dot com We're also live monday through friday at 4 30 p.m. Eastern 2030 utc find out more at daily tech news show dot com slash Live back tomorrow with patrick norton and len peralta here to illustrate talk to you then This show is part of the frog pants network. Get more at frog pants.com Time and club hopes you have enjoyed this program Oh Good one big news of the week. That was good That was good, uh You guys I wonder I wonder You know, I don't want to get too into the the political sphere But I was certainly watching twitter to see if we were going to see a presidential reaction to this story because This would seem to be a red meat opportunity to explain why china is not Always our friend Well, and the and the other thing now, you know not that our post show means we lower our standards But it's a little more informal. Yes Why the flat denial still still sticks with me like what what are the reasons? if unless they are Uh a combination of don't spook the stock people and We're not allowed to say so in other words with a gag order It's we're not allowed to say but we want to make it clear that we would otherwise This is one where they may say we don't want anyone to know this in the upper executive levels So we're gonna flat out lie All right Well, but but we have the backing of being able to lie because we're prevented from saying otherwise Is it a lie amazon says it's untrue that aws knew about a supply chain compromise knew about Right as applying came to an issue with malicious chips or hardware modifications when acquiring Elemental with that is a lie if this bloomberg story is right because aws Asked the third party to review elemental as part of the acquisition Yeah, elemental and the and the third party said Well, okay, hold on. I think I see a trapdoor. Yeah, and and the third party said there is a hardware piece here And then the government investigation began to try to figure out where it came from so that Knew about a supply chain compromise Could be you're out. Yes. Well, all right The acquisition we didn't know about a supply chain compromise. We just knew there was this weird processor We knew we knew we had some weird little I mean, we could have guessed it was a supply chain compromise, but we didn't know we didn't know, right? Okay, so then apples on this we can be very clear Apple has never found malicious chips hardware manipulations or vulnerabilities Purposely planted on any server that feels more like a lie because if the bloomberg story is right again It's said apple found These chips after noticing weird networking and got rid of them and and pulled pulled the motherboards I mean again, it's There's just wording in here that Like I mean never found malicious chips Is the one that you can't get out you they said we never found malicious chips And if they if the bloomberg story is right they definitely found malicious chips Purposely planted on any server, right? Because that's the bottom. Well, I mean, I guess maybe you have some wiggle room to say We did we found these chips, but we didn't know why they were there Exactly. Mm-hmm. Somebody does Yeah, exactly That one's harder because look because it's not impossible They just appeared because they are saying that they never found These things to be purposely planted They could have found weird anomalies. They also said we didn't find hardware manipulation though Which is the only reason they pulled the the motherboards is because of hardware manipulation. They could have found anomalies They could have reported anomalies to the fbi. They could have pulled things Uh before they knew what it was because they just like we know the anomalies are coming from these motherboards But we don't know why they're coming. Okay So this is what I'm saying is that never found Is that's that to me is like, okay. Well, we're putting all the weight on When you found these things Uh, I that one that one I feel like the bloomberg story is pretty clear that apple found The problem identified a problem and immediately reported it to the fbi And the fbi looked into it. Yeah, that's finding. That's the definition of finding isn't it? Well, that's uh, yes an anomaly Well, I mean it could it could very well be they don't want to spook their customers into oh, no I think that's that's I mean, I mean that's it's it's literally talking about whether this is actually a lie or not though Oh, well You know until until apple is definitively on the record and saying that they found it found it I mean, they can say they can say also spin it whatever they want. Yeah, also to be fair, uh both everybody In this list amazon apple super micro and china All responded to a summary of facts from bloomberg So like who knows exactly what that was let's assume it is literally just a bullet point of the story, but it's obviously on It's it's it's uh, not done in journalism to send a a company a full story that they can then I don't know apple's saying on this we can be very clear apple never found Vulnerabilities purposely planted in any server seems really hard to defend if the bloomberg story is correct I mean again, it's Yeah, this is where you pay lawyers you pay lawyers to word things So right right. Yeah, really untrue Uh to say that what they the thing that sticks the thing that sticks out to me is apple has never found But that that seems the easy the clearest one like the bloomberg story says they found the problem And then they remove the motherboards They I'm sure they remove motherboards all the time. No, no I know the bloomberg story is very clear that apple Detected firmware issues and network anomalies traced them to these motherboards and removed 7 000 motherboards to solve that problem I don't think there's wiggle room there. No, no, no, I I agree The question is whether or not they found anomalies or whether or not they found malicious trips hardware manipulations and vulnerabilities Yeah, I see where you're going with this which is they're like we found this anomaly We knew the source was this motherboard to remove the motherboards the anomaly went away We never actually detected a vulnerability. Yeah, we we reported it to the fbi and and Any communication we have with the fbi? Unfortunately is privileged information that we cannot disclose nor do we have any interest in talking about Fixer says maybe it's true that apple never found a problem But a third party company found the book. No, that's not what the bloomberg story says again Comparing the bloomberg story to what apple statement here and the bloomberg story very clearly says apple found the problem amazon had a third party Find the problem for them, but not apple. So there's there's no out there for apple I mean it could very well It's hard. I'm sure they I'm sure there is a crisscross of interests That are, you know, literally Yeah, no, there's no there's no shortage of reasons why they would lie That's that's that's not up for debate. Yeah, I get I get why um, it's it's It's the consequences of of saying a lie Because that could be investor fraud Uh, and and whether just not having a gag order behind you is enough or like justin's trying to say well Maybe it's not actually a lie. Maybe maybe they're able to fudge the truth and maybe they are just playing semantics Well, no, I think that's absolutely what justin is saying that's that's what this whole conversation is. Yeah Yeah, uh, so son micro we remain unaware of any such investigation So we don't know whatever this summary of facts you sent about whatever investigation you're reporting on. It's easy Yeah, I don't know about that. Hey, man Uh, super super not son. Let's not uh tar tar son Even though it's not around Super micro is like hey, man. Nobody talked to us as far as we know there's no investigation Uh Yeah, I don't know. I mean look, this is a massive massive story. Yeah Hey, by by the way, uh unsolicited podcast plug There is a good show called dark net diaries Uh, where uh, usually just talks about famous hacks in history and oftentimes talks to the people that Uh, uh perpetrated them, uh, some big some small, but there's a great a great, uh episode called black duck eggs and it details a group of security researchers that are comprised of a former nsa agent who is Uh, the guy who is interviewed as well as a former kgb agent who used to spy on the chinese for russia So he speaks fluent chinese and a few other people But it's like this great little fun nerd a team and they get hired by big companies to go and assess their physical vulnerability So they will try to get into their Facilities and download as much information as possible and then explain it to the ceo As to how much money they lost and so it's pentesting So pentesting, right? Yeah, but is a physical pentesting Uh There's the the story that they tell is of an unnamed company based in silicon valley Where they go to this remote area where they keep a lot of their r&d research, right? they get in and Get everything they need on like in like the first 12 hours, right? But but they're contracted to be there for a week and so they just Kind of see what else there is to see for the week and at some point The kgb agent who used to spy on china calls the boss and is the the boss the guy who's running this pentest And he's like you want to know it's weird. There's this chinese restaurant here that serves black duck eggs and there are really high-end chinese restaurants In san francisco that don't serve this specific kind of black duck eggs, which i guess is a delicacy And so they find out after sneaking around a little bit and sniffing around that it's a front by the chinese government Where they hope employees from this company will come chinese employees Will come on their lunch break And they can be wind and dined and then at some point when their trust has been gained the The chinese government can have a conversation with them of what they owe to the motherland And uh of how they can ensure the safety of their friends and family that are still enjoying the black duck egg Which by by the way, uh, we we get this a lot when we talk about this And there's a little bit of breathlessness Seeping into this story We're not Saying that the united states doesn't have exactly the same thing going on in other countries The u.s. Is that other countries like the uk or russia or australia are not also doing this, but it's still a very interesting So it's a very interesting. I mean it's it's interesting because the u.s. Did do something very similar But not on the same scale and it is also probably doing something you don't know about it right now. Yeah, absolutely I mean, but the the most well known one is the one with the cisco routers Where the anisea was just basically opening up packages that were being sent to that was intercept That was not and that was not at the scale of this chinese hack The same mentality Where you try to you try to i'm talking about the black duck egg story that justin's talking about right here Like we we do stuff like that too Uh, well, yeah, I mean it's it's it's part and parcel of of you know, the whole cloak and dagger spy business I mean, that's what you do Well, I would encourage everybody to go listen to it because the the the story is told more full and before we get into the moral equivalency of spycraft Uh, I think that it is an interesting uh a look into You know the fact that tech is a gigantic pivot point in global Espionage like this is this is a forefront. This is the forward battle ground on on and I know we brushed by it Because it is more of a political story than a tech story to be honest, but the the russian uh, the russian hackers we mentioned also charged with crimes In a coordinated effort between the uk the united states and the netherlands Because they're saying a cyber war is happening. We're in the middle of it right now like it's it's going on Yeah, I it's I mean it would have to be like sleeping in a rock to the notice Uh, well, it's it's interesting. I mean what you guys said earlier about like You're going back to the supply chain You know, how are you know if companies are very serious about like, oh, we don't want to have even the the hint of potential Of our equipment being compromised. I mean you can't turn those things overnight or even within a year and so i'm wondering like is it Is this a thing where they'll Do less orders or or they I think the the the the argument the non alarmist argument is look, uh There are companies that turn over their manufacturing to china because of the infinite scale possibilities And then there are companies that take it seriously right and and there are companies that Want to make sure that they have people at literally every plant that they are producing things in china So they can not only take advantage of the infinite scale, but also provide their own sense of security To all this so you don't just have a rogue a Rogue manufacturing outfit that can get rolled over by somebody throwing around bribes or inspections or something like that uh The other side of it is I mean to me here's the biggest thing and this is where Sometimes when you're reading a story like this, there's the the the the the dogs that don't bark are the loudest and the fact that That story made it very clear that it's very very very very hard if not impossible to get A motherboard that you have a back door on into These specific companies Without it just being literally every motherboard that this massive motherboard Uh, uh, you know Sorcer provides to everybody That there might be other things that bloomberg Thought that these reporters thought this investigation hinted toward but they cannot prove Yeah, other parts of this other helping hands along the way that gets things sure It doesn't mean that it that it is for sure, but there's nothing said on that point, right? Yes, and that that to me that that was where i'm like, okay, then that Everything else here is vetted the the you know, that's there's somebody very high up at bloomberg That is reading who exactly all these sources are these unnamed sources are and they're signing off on them because they believe them to be legitimate Uh, but you can't you don't have enough Even if one of them one or two of them are saying yeah, there had to be more Infiltration to make sure that it gets into these amazon servers that it make sure that it gets into These apple servers that it makes sure that it gets into all these defense contractors Uh, you know server stacks, so I don't know that that that to me is more of the like all right On what end of the devil's bargain? Is it if it's like wow this level? Uh, I don't know. I feel like that's that's a little bit fear mongering. I I thought they they say they say devil's bargain in there I'm not me. I'm not I'm just saying I I think there's something to that that there is other infiltration I don't know that it matters like it's it's cool from a spy story point of view but The the fact that they got these into the factories and got them to the end is is story enough You know the rest of it's just details. So I don't know that it changes the seriousness of it much for me Uh, if we just if we found other parts along the way that would just you know, Bulls course, you know, well that that's how they did the magic trick the fact that they did the magic trick at all Is is what's important? Oh 100% but I do think that it does fill in other details toward Like if our next question is Like to do your point focusing on the wrong thing Well, no, no, no, I'm going back to your point that india india should be jumping up and down and talking about how Efficiently and cheaply they can be manufacturing motherboards, right sure That's if that's the case Then and you're trying to to explain why it's better to manufacture in india why it's better to manufacture in vietnam Why it's better to manufacture in in in other places that would want to get in on this Then That's part of the reason why is that like we're not going to try to seep into your supply chain Yeah, I think you could already say that I guess is what i'm saying I don't know that adding more details really changes that I think that that's that that to me is the difference between it being Right now right now india can make that case very well. They don't need they don't need additional ammo to make that case And you can sell miller light by saying it tastes great, but it also helps to say it's less filling You're looking at the floor and i'm looking at the sky here that The other parallel that I think is important to draw that people are not going to pay attention to is Russia and china in the common parlance are held equal As far as their hacking ability and today's stories very clearly show who's better at it than the other Well, I mean one has a very distinct advantage and that is the this this supply chain element this fact that hardware is produced there yeah Yeah, I mean I I mean That's part of the reason why they're better But you know having the the supply chain close doesn't make it easy It helps it's one part But no it helps enormously. That's a sophisticated attack even with the supply chain local Well, and even beyond that As much as because you can make that argument about the u.s. Like we're the ones who design So we could put it in at the design phase and no one would know we just send it to the factories and It is something that has been tried Yeah I mean But I guess the other thing is china has China's government system is different even then russia's and the united states is in terms of being able to just Shut things down on a more casual level I think that's also exaggerated They certainly they I think russia's pretty good at that and I think the u.s. Is no slouch sometimes I I don't again. I'm not saying Right, ever happens. I'm just saying that I'm there's a difference between what you're saying and what people will hear when they hear you say it And I think a lot of people think well china can just march in and make a company do whatever they want And that's not actually the way it works They certainly have a lot more levers to pull though. That's true Yeah Um, well on that note, uh, what do you think big hack and little chip? Oh, that's good. I like that or take the denials with the grain of rice Uh, well, I already uploaded the show while we were talking Um, so I named it china's tiny hack into big data But I wish you had spoken up earlier because I like oh man. I would I would I would have voted one chip challenge Yeah, these are all better. I just had to go with something because that's fine. No, no No, I think I think making it as as a straight you and just and we're going at it adding the special bonus argument to the show Yeah Big hack and little chip is pretty damn good All right. Uh, thank you video folks for hanging around audio folks stick around. There's yet more to come