If they are under a gag order, they would simply not comment on it. Lying about it is never required and puts them at risk for shareholder lawsuits.
> Finally, in response to questions we have received from other news organisations since Businessweek published its story, we are not under any kind of gag order or other confidentiality obligations.
If they were under an NSL they would simply not comment on this at all. That would be pretty normal for Apple, so people would probably take it in stride.
You accuse me of selling pink and purple unicorns to gangsters. I reply that "I have no knowledge of any contracts or agreements relating to the sale of unicorns, horses or horse-related animals from my firm, regardless of the colour, breed or condition of the animals. I categorically also deny having any business dealings with any entity which has been charged on racketeering or any other gang related offenses.
The reality being that I 'rent' pink and purple unicorns to Don Corleone for absurd amounts, then don't revendicate when payments stop.
My rebuttal looks sweeping. I put in language to make it look like the scope of my denial is wide ranging and complete. In fact, I intentionally disclaim things you didn't claim to make it look like the moat of propriety surrounding me is vast.
But it isn't. I did what was claimed. And I didn't lie in my rebuttal.
Courts have surprisingly little tolerance for companies who think they're being more clever than their customers, their shareholders, or, for that matter, the judge.
You'll show they're acting in bad faith if documentary evidence shows they're baddies.
The theory behind our court system is one thing. The reality is another.
"No one from Apple ever reached out to the FBI about
anything like this," Apple writes. "We have never heard
from the FBI about an investigation of this kind."
Apple would have to move tens of thousands of highly specific CNC machines from China to somewhere else, set them up, and get their line moving again.
This is why I find the idea that Apple phones are "secure" to laughable on its face. China could kill years of Apple revenue if they ever did something truly offensive to the ruling party.
Apple would roll over post haste if China demanded it.
The ultimate source of most Chinese factory equipment is Europe and US anyway, under extreme political/consumer pressure electronics factories can be setup in a matter of months in US.
They would react as usual: lots of whingeing, no action, and roll over for a belly scratch afterward.
> under extreme political/consumer pressure electronics factories can be setup in a matter of months in US.
It takes 9 months to make a baby no matter how many women you get pregnant ...
Many of these equipment manufacturers have entire facilities dedicated to producing equipment solely for Apple. They simply cannot replace that amount of equipment in any timely fashion.
Edit (external reference): http://www.iphonehacks.com/2016/10/next-iphone-probably-wont....
> Koenig writes. “Apple is such a huge buyer of a particular kind of mill (BT30 spindle drill-tap centers) that Fanuc, Brother and DMG Mori each have factories dedicated to building machines exclusively for Apple.”
These sneaky chips were embedded in the PCB. So this is a supplier trust issue.
Plus they probably did not implant every board, So somebody inside FoxConn had to slip in these 'special' pcb's in known Apple mobo orders..
One side of me feels real bad for SuperMicro. The have always been there for the small guys that like to build our own servers and for small OEM shops.
Who else are the real server mobo competitors?
Gigabyte and AsrockRack from my view and they are a very distant second and third place.
If SuperMicro goes down we all lose and IBM, HPE and Dell gains.
“As recently as 2016, according to DigiTimes, a news site specializing in supply chain research, Supermicro had three primary manufacturers constructing its motherboards, two headquartered in Taiwan and one in Shanghai. When such suppliers are choked with big orders, they sometimes parcel out work to subcontractors. In order to get further down the trail, U.S. spy agencies drew on the prodigious tools at their disposal. They sifted through communications intercepts, tapped informants in Taiwan and China, even tracked key individuals through their phones, according to the person briefed on evidence gathered during the probe. Eventually, that person says, they traced the malicious chips to four subcontracting factories that had been building Supermicro motherboards for at least two years.”
FWIW this is the principle behind warrant canaries. A warrant canary is the practice of putting a statement such as "we have not received any NSLs" in a regular report, and then omitting it once you have received an NSL. Because you've conditioned people to expect its presence, its absence then serves as a signal that you likely have received one (though not proof, as there are other reasons you may have removed it, such as being advised by your lawyer that it's a bad idea as the courts may not look favorably on the idea that, no, you weren't actually violating your gag order, you were technically saying nothing, given that you set up the conditions yourself such that saying nothing is in fact saying something).
If you have a sign that indicates that a secret event have not happened, the intent of removing the sign is to indicate that the secret event did happen.
The intent is particularly obvious to the originator of the secret event, so you won't be able to argue in the court that it was entirely coincidental.
Could you have a canary community that calls companies once/quarter and specifically asks the NSL question? Seems safer for the companies themselves.
This isn't true and they probably don't work in any other country in the world. They're explicitly illegal in Australia, apparently.
If I remove the sign just because I no longer want to keep the sign up and someone takes it to mean that the secret event did happen, when it really didn't happen, do they have ground to sue me for fraud or lying?
Neither grand juries nor coroners "outrank" the Executive (unlike Congress, who I would assume can just throw out the NSL to get testimony, since they have similar powers, like throwing out a document's top-secret classified status to get it read into the public record.) But in both situations, you can still be found in contempt of court if you just say "no comment."
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/oct/09/business/la-fi-court...
"Congress granted retroactive immunity to people or companies aiding U.S. intelligence agents."
In this case i'd not be surprised if Google/FB/AMZN/Apple/MS/Supermicro were even part of the CIA/NSA counter-sting - feeding of the false info back to Chinese intelligence through the detected 'mistery' chips.
It cites some hearsay speculation that Warrant Canaries are illegal, and cites several court cases that say Warrant Canaries are protected and compelled lies are illegal: "West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette and Wooley v. Maynard rule the Free Speech Clause prohibits compelling someone to speak against one's wishes; this can easily be extended to prevent someone from being compelled to lie."