
Chinese state media calls spy chips story “science fiction”
Bloomberg says servers bound for Apple, Amazon had secret chips installed
A report about China’s spy chips potentially infiltrating Apple and Amazon sent shockwaves through the internet… except in China.
Amazon, Apple and Supermicro, the manufacturer of the servers, have all strenuously denied the story, while the US government has not commented.
While Western social media has been all over the story, that same level of discussion isn’t present in China. Part of of that is down to a lack of exposure: Bloomberg is blocked in the country, and only a handful of Chinese media reported the story.
Most of the comments on Chinese social media agree.
Funnily enough, some think the technology in this hack is too advanced for China -- pointing to the ZTE saga, when it argued that a ban on buying US components would cripple the company.
Chairman tells staff to stay calm after US slaps crippling ban on ZTE
We have no idea how they verified that they’re the right chips, so they’re probably not the exact ones from Bloomberg’s report. But they also cost just 15 cents, so yeah, we bought one.
(Abacus is a unit of the South China Morning Post, which is owned by Alibaba -- which also owns Taobao.)
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