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Comment by wyldfire | Hacker News Reader

I heard this on NPR [1] and thought it was interesting and hadn't seen it in these articles on HN:

> When [Bloomberg] asked China's foreign ministry for a response, a lot of times they'll say things like, you're crazy; we know nothing about this. Their response was a little more nuanced and contextual in the environment we're in now. Basically they said, we are a victim of these kinds of attacks, too. And, you know, they're right. The U.S. government - it's very, very good at these kinds of hardware attacks.

Supporting evidence for Bloomberg's claim: NSA interdiction of US export shipments [2].

[1] https://www.npr.org/2018/10/04/654518383/bloomberg-reporter-...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/12/glenn-greenwal...

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Are you saying the NSA bribed manufacturers in China to add these to boards - so Americans would discover then and accuse the Chinese government of espionage? Is this the stick to the tariff's carrot?

Remember, astronauts couldn't have met aliens on the moon, if the moon landings were faked.

> Remember, astronauts couldn't have met aliens on the moon, if the moon landings were faked.

Now that's a debate I'd pay to watch.

Or maybe just those manufacturers doing their online shopping and accidentally bought those kind of comprised chips.

Yes, you can actually buy the similar looking chip on Taobao.com by searching HHM1523C1[0] or HHM1526[1]. Some vendors even claims the chips they're selling are "Imported, 100% legit".

And, of course there can be another interpretation: We (China) bugged your server, because you (the U.S.) bugged ours first.

The water is so muddy right now, maybe wait for more information?

[0] https://s.taobao.com/search?q=HHM1523C1

[1] https://s.taobao.com/search?q=HHM1526

No, I am not. I'm saying that China's foreign ministry's response sounds a little like they're saying "we are [merely] retaliating in kind." NSA has been caught adulterating computers in export interdictions and maybe this is us catching China up to the same.

I didn't bring up trade wars at all, I don't think it's necessarily related (this kind of tradecraft was likely in the works for much longer than recent trade disputes).

So plain old espionage, executed for whatever the needs of the day might be.

The fact that NSA could do it supports at least a strong possibility that the Chinese could do the same on their soil. It’s crazy to waste such excellent attack vectors, especially when Supermicro is a American and not a Chinese company.

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