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Why wouldn't the US gov show one of the infected motherboards? It seems like it would be perfect proof that China is engaged in aggressive hacking. The story is in the open now. If it's true, China knows that we know. So what else is there to hide?

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Maybe they were happy to use the same backdoors for themselves?

Maybe “they” were happy to have China do the dirty work and take the fall, but it was all conceived and execute by “them.”

I think its pretty clear from context that "they" refers to the intelligence agencies of the US government.

Oh there is no confusion over who we are referencing.

In this case, maybe using a software or firmware virus could be a better way? Easy to install, easy to remove, leaves no evidence if be careful.

This got me thinking, why plant a chip? I mean, it's hard to make, and will almost certainly be caught.

Hardware stays put, even very targeted viruses don't as evidenced by stuxnet.

That theory would explain a lot

Flip side is the US govt placed these chips and are deflecting the blame to China.

Because it takes weeks/months to get such things declassified through standard channels. And all the non-standard ways require efforts by elected officials. They are all busy with something else atm.

Because someone could interpret chips like this as an act of war?

Couldn't the hackers just swap a chip for a duplicate that has the extra "chip" within it. Then all you have to show is identical looking boards, and it doesn't matter if you can show the difference technically, if people see identical looking boards they'll say it's fake.

More directly relevant, why doesn't bloomberg show one of them in practice? That would really help in confirming the story. (Not that I doubt bloomberg here)

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