Bloomberg says super micro servers sold to Apple and Amazon contain spy chips, all three companies (and department of Homeland security) deny this

[Stefan Payne]

Level1 Tech talked about that stuff in their News section:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSGOKTJri54

 

 

And they had their oppinions about that.

In short: Its mostly bullshit. 

[Amazonsucks]

20 minutes ago, Canada EH said:

Yes yes yes, this is why the people need to stand up and block asian countries buying up everything, real estate, companies EVERYTHING. Who knows what they are putting into cell phones to dominate the world. Dont have to look far Google and Facebook are major offenders. Greedy!

Theres only one Asian country doing that though. Most of Asia doesnt get along with them either. Heres a hint: its China.

[Speed Weed]

[TacoSenpai]

Would this really surprise anybody?  I mean whether it is China or Russia lets not pretend like they don't have vested interests against the US.  It seems kind of like a perfect storm to try and compromise devices being manufactured in your country to try to get information about the other guys any way you can. 

 

[Canada EH]

14 hours ago, Amazonsucks said:

Theres only one Asian country doing that though. Most of Asia doesnt get along with them either. Heres a hint: its China.

To hit the jackpot, there are 3 places in the world to get to illegally or legally.

[PianoPlayer88Key]

On 10/9/2018 at 10:15 AM, jasonvp said:

I seriously would not worry about this whatsoever.  Even if it is true (which there's YOOOOGE amounts of evidence that says it isn't).  If this supposed chip is actually there, it's inline with the hardware management Ethernet port on the motherboard.  What is sometimes referred to as the DRAC or ILO port on the motherboard.  Not a network port that the OS interacts with.

 

In other words: if it's there (it isn't...) then the easy solution is: don't connect the hardware management Ethernet port to anything.  And if you do connect that Ethernet port to a network, make sure that network can't NAT outbound to the Internet.  Problem solved.

Ahh, so maybe (hopefully) it was just blown out of proportion, and as you and others I see say, it's a non-issue.

 

Speaking of "Hardware management Ethernet port" - a couple things I was thinking ...

 

Basically (tldr) how do you cheaply (<$10) get video out from VGA or RJ45 (or USB 2.0?) to HDMI in, to see POS5T, BIOS, etc, WITHOUT buying a VGA monitor or an HDMI-equipped video card? (And no initial setup with a "standard" GPU/display setup either. Basically it'd be, I guess, "headless" from the very beginning.)

 

Does the IPMI feature on some Supermicro boards have anything to do with that?

 

Also, let's say I was to build a NAS, either with one of those boards, or with my alternate choice, the ASRock E3V5 WS.  The Supermicro boards generally have VGA out with on-board graphics, the ASRock board has none.

 

The monitor I'd be using for display only has HDMI and DisplayPort inputs.  As I understand, you can't directly / easily go from VGA out to HDMI / DP in.

 

I don't want to buy another monitor with a VGA port just for that (also don't want it taking up that space if that's all it'd be used for), and I don't want to add the $ for something like a GT 710, GeForce 210 or 8400 GS with an HDMI port.  Also if I got one of the SM boards with all x8 or x16 PCIe slots, I'd want those all left free for LSI 9200-16e or 9211-8i HBAs.

 

Would the hardware management port / IPMI allow me to see whatever would be on a directly-connected display, including (but not limited to) POST, BIOS screens, etc?  Or would something else be used to accomplish that?

 

Btw the system would need to be able to be set up from initial out-of-the-box state WITHOUT getting one of the aforementioned GPUs / VGA monitor.

Could that be done through the management network port, or is there a sub-$10 VGA out to HDMI or DP in adapter that isn't junk?

 

Also IDK yet what NAS OS I'd use (FreeNAS, UNRAID, OpenMediaVault, etc), and other things, but this isn't the thread to work out those details.  (Also I really don't want a rackmount case.)

 

Basically though I'd like the cost to either be:

• Entire system cost except the storage, combined is less than a single 6 or 8 TB 3.5" NAS HDD, or,
• The system is about $400-600, and the storage media used for NAS data is about as much cheaper per TB (and larger per drive) than 5400rpm shingled/archive HDDs, as those are cheaper/larger than Optane or premium NVMe SSDs.

[piemadd]

uhm, apple doesnt have servers

 

they use the google cloud, microsoft azure, and amazon aws no fucking joke

[dalekphalm]

16 minutes ago, ImplosiveNUTech said:

uhm, apple doesnt have servers

 

they use the google cloud, microsoft azure, and amazon aws no fucking joke

So you're saying Apple has no in-house servers, in any of their offices?

 

Needless to say, that's difficult to believe.

[79wjd]

18 minutes ago, ImplosiveNUTech said:

uhm, apple doesnt have servers

 

they use the google cloud, microsoft azure, and amazon aws no fucking joke

Apple might use Azure and AWS, but they absolutely have servers of their own. 

[piemadd]

Just now, 79wjd said:

Apple might use Azure and AWS, but they absolutely have servers of their own. 

Quote

Apple has confirmed for the first time that it now uses Google servers to store chunks of people's iCloud data.

Apple has used Amazon Web Services and Microsoft's Azure to host iCloud documents since 2011. Spreading chunks of files to Google, too, shouldn't be news – and incredibly has been rumoured since 2007.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/26/apple_icloud_on_google_servers/

[79wjd]

3 minutes ago, ImplosiveNUTech said:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/26/apple_icloud_on_google_servers/

Yes. Like I said, they use AWS. That doesn't mean they don't have their own servers (in fact, they specifically have their own servers to house the decryption keys and metadata for that iCloud data in addition to at least some of the iCloud data itself).

 

Quote

Each file is broken into chunks and encrypted by iCloud using AES-128 and a key derived from each chunk’s contents that utilizes SHA-256. The keys and the file’s metadata are stored by Apple in the user’s iCloud account. The encrypted chunks of the file are stored, without any user-identifying information or the keys, using both Apple and third-party storage services.

https://www.apple.com/business/site/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf

[Trik'Stari]

On 10/4/2018 at 10:20 AM, Taf the Ghost said:

So there's roughly two ways this can go:

 

1) More confirmation of why destroying local production was a massive National Security disaster for the USA 

 

or 

 

2) Full Scale Fake News!

 

Either way, this should be fun.

 

As a note, everyone spies and everyone will try to do stuff like this. This is why local technology production was always important. It's also why money from black sources historically love to make other countries dependent on the technology/manufacturing from a single country. 

It's almost as if a global economy populated mostly by insanely enormous mega-corporations is a terrible idea.

[Taf the Ghost]

24 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

It's almost as if a global economy populated mostly by insanely enormous mega-corporations is a terrible idea.

Looking a lot like this case turned out to be a "Full Scale Fake News!". Not that China wouldn't do something like this, but it isn't technically feasible in this situation.

[dalekphalm]

24 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

It's almost as if a global economy populated mostly by insanely enormous mega-corporations is a terrible idea.

Unfortunately, transnational mega-corporations are the inevitable result of capitalism (without proper regulation, of which those kinds of capitalists despise).

 

Just now, Taf the Ghost said:

Looking a lot like this case turned out to be a "Full Scale Fake News!". Not that China wouldn't do something like this, but it isn't technically feasible in this situation.

I wouldn't write it off just yet. Apple is not exactly going to announce "Oh yeah guys, our servers have these exploits that allow China to spy on us!" - at least, not without having found and disabled all of it, and instituted some kind of protection to prevent it happening again.

 

Whether Bloomberg got all the details correct is one thing - but I'll wait to see how this all plays out before making a judgement.

[desertcomputer]

I mean if they have actual firewall setup probably it virtually impossible to bypass the firewall. I thought most firewall used are not using super mirco?

 

Also why don't bloomberg give use some actual motherboard models so third party can actually verify this?

 

Also server hardware most of the time get changed bi/yearly so these board won't be used anymore, in most case it going to be sitting at small business or home server.

[Trik'Stari]

10 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Unfortunately, transnational mega-corporations are the inevitable result of capitalism (without proper regulation, of which those kinds of capitalists despise).

 

I wouldn't write it off just yet. Apple is not exactly going to announce "Oh yeah guys, our servers have these exploits that allow China to spy on us!" - at least, not without having found and disabled all of it, and instituted some kind of protection to prevent it happening again.

 

Whether Bloomberg got all the details correct is one thing - but I'll wait to see how this all plays out before making a judgement.

I agree. Sadly we live in a hyper-partisan society and no one seems willing to have actual discussions or consider a middle ground approach with limited businesses and limited government combined.

[Amazonsucks]

16 hours ago, Trik'Stari said:

It's almost as if a global economy populated mostly by insanely enormous mega-corporations is a terrible idea.

The only way for a monopoly to exist is through government intervention and assistance: think google and amazon.

 

6 hours ago, Trik'Stari said:

I agree. Sadly we live in a hyper-partisan society and no one seems willing to have actual discussions or consider a middle ground approach with limited businesses and limited government combined.

Obliterating unethical trade deals would limit these companies from becoming evil mega corporations.

[dalekphalm]

21 hours ago, Amazonsucks said:

The only way for a monopoly to exist is through government intervention and assistance: think google and amazon.

Except that neither Google nor Amazon are monopolies.

 

Google might have the lions share, but Bing is still out there, along with Yahoo (which uses the Bing back end).

 

Amazon competes with basically every retailer that has an online presence - Walmart is probably their biggest competitor for direct "new" sales, and obviously eBay is their biggest competitor for the Marketplace.

 

[Amazonsucks]

54 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Except that neither Google nor Amazon are monopolies.

 

Google might have the lions share, but Bing is still out there, along with Yahoo (which uses the Bing back end).

 

Amazon competes with basically every retailer that has an online presence - Walmart is probably their biggest competitor for direct "new" sales, and obviously eBay is their biggest competitor for the Marketplace.

 

They are both becoming effectively monopolies thanks to taxpayer money being funneled into them... They may not be total monopolies yet, but theyre on their way.

 

Walmart was the old corporate welfare taxpayer funded POS company that treated its workers like shit. Amazon took their place at the top of the garbage heap.

[dalekphalm]

5 hours ago, Amazonsucks said:

They are both becoming effectively monopolies thanks to taxpayer money being funneled into them... They may not be total monopolies yet, but theyre on their way.

 

Walmart was the old corporate welfare taxpayer funded POS company that treated its workers like shit. Amazon took their place at the top of the garbage heap.

Google and Amazon don't get any more tax payer money then, say, Microsoft does.

 

Corporate welfare in general should definitely end, but understand that Google and Amazon are no different than the rest here.

[Amazonsucks]

8 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Google and Amazon don't get any more tax payer money then, say, Microsoft does.

 

Corporate welfare in general should definitely end, but understand that Google and Amazon are no different than the rest here.

I think M$ is a pretty scummy company as well, but how many M$ employees are on food stamps and pissing in bottles at work?

[Liltrekkie]

11 minutes ago, Amazonsucks said:

I think M$ is a pretty scummy company as well, but how many M$ employees are on food stamps and pissing in bottles at work?

You seriously cannot compare two vastly different job sections, it doesnt work. You're complaining about Amazon's warehouse employees, and then comparing them to dev teams at Microsoft, it does not work, at all. The average warehouse worker earns between $11 and $21 an hour.

However nothing I say here will change your mind, nor do you want to change your mind. So sitting here and continuing to argue about it is stupid.

[Amazonsucks]

21 hours ago, Liltrekkie said:

You seriously cannot compare two vastly different job sections, it doesnt work. You're complaining about Amazon's warehouse employees, and then comparing them to dev teams at Microsoft, it does not work, at all. The average warehouse worker earns between $11 and $21 an hour.

However nothing I say here will change your mind, nor do you want to change your mind. So sitting here and continuing to argue about it is stupid.

Change my mind about Amazon please.