I will never forgive Bloomberg for their atrocious handling of Apple/Amazon/Supermicro "hacking" case where they didn't retract their claims despite no proof or evidence. I never cite that publication, it's toxic to me.
The China chip hacking story was an invented story by Bloomberg. Everyone else denied it including Apple as the customer, US government, the supplier of the chip etc. Bloomberg fabricated the story. Ever since, I do not trust Bloomberg as a reliable source of information.
Don't trust anything Bloomberg says. They have zero credibility. For example, they stated many times that all major companies like Google, Amazon and Apple have hardware from SuperMicro Inc., that contains hidden microchips and can spy on the companies by sending data to China... It was proven later that this was fake news.
I'll take this with a grain of salt. To this day Bloomberg still stands by its "The Big Hack" article (Supermicro, Amazon, and Apple being hacked with the tiny Chinese chip), containing claims that have been thoroughly refuted (and ridiculed) since then, and about which even their own sources were very incredulous. The CEO of Apple called it "100 percent a lie", which is a very harsh word in this context. Those were lower standards than the ones we're held to when commenting here on HN.
I don't know how that article came to be but such precedent puts their tech articles into serious question. Obviously such articles about major Chinese interference and hacks are great with the readers and get a lot of attention. But while the premise may be true (the Chinese hack most likely happened), the implications and the interpretation of the reporter are on shaky ground.
I don't have any further evidence but I'd say that Bloomberg may be pandering to the readers and giving them what they want to hear during these times. And if I were Bloomberg reporters Jordan Robertson or Michael Riley I'd say that even if my sources denied it.
Looks like Bloomberg is doing the same as with the "implant" rumors and Supermicro a few months ago.
Gruber has a very nice disclaimer at the bottom of posts mentioning Bloomberg now:
"Bloomberg, of course, is the publication that published “The Big Hack” last October — a sensational story alleging that data centers of Apple, Amazon, and dozens of other companies were compromised by China’s intelligence services. The story presented no confirmable evidence at all, was vehemently denied by all companies involved, has not been confirmed by a single other publication (despite much effort to do so), and has been largely discredited by one of Bloomberg’s own sources. By all appearances “The Big Hack” was complete bullshit. Yet Bloomberg has issued no correction or retraction, and seemingly hopes we’ll all just forget about it. I say we do not just forget about it. Bloomberg’s institutional credibility is severely damaged, and everything they publish should be treated with skepticism until they retract the story or provide evidence that it was true."
You mean the outlet that announced bombastically that Apple devices had spy chips in them? And then when basically everyone involved said "no that's bullshit", and Apple devices were disassembled and very experienced people looked exactly where Bloomberg said the chips were, and there were no chips, Bloomberg said nothing? And has still posted no retraction, no updates, and no apologies for this blatant pack of lies?
Didn't Bloomberg ruin their tech reputation with the still-unproven (years later) and probably baseless claims of nano chips planted in the supply chain of Supermicro ?
As John Gruber writes after every single link to Bloomberg:
* Bloomberg, of course, is the publication that published “The Big Hack” in October 2018 — a sensational story alleging that data centers of Apple, Amazon, and dozens of other companies were compromised by China’s intelligence services. The story presented no confirmable evidence at all, was vehemently denied by all companies involved, has not been confirmed by a single other publication (despite much effort to do so), and has been largely discredited by one of Bloomberg’s own sources. By all appearances “The Big Hack” was complete bullshit. Yet Bloomberg has issued no correction or retraction, and seemingly hopes we’ll all just forget about it. I say we do not just forget about it. Bloomberg’s institutional credibility is severely damaged, and everything they publish should be treated with skepticism until they retract the story or provide evidence that it was true.
While this article seems compelling, it’s also from Bloomberg Tech. A year and a half ago Bloomberg Tech wrote “the Big Hack”, which seems to have been made up out of whole cloth by a small group of sources that duped Bloomberg. Not only was Bloomberg duped, but they’ve never printed a correction, retraction, or clarification.
I’d much prefer this story was written by a news organization with some credibility.
Too many Bloomberg articles make it to the front page of Hacker News and that is unfortunate because Bloomberg is corporate media at its most diabolical. Bloomberg has a long history of publishing articles to earn moral credit and then cashing out on that credit from time to time with articles that clearly favor a small group of special corporate interests. Today, the story is that generics are harmful and cause cancer -- we better pay 20x for those name brands. Before, there were unsubstantiated claims about microprocessors used by Apple that were spiked with surveillance hardware: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-h...
Don't be a Bloomberg shill. Ask yourself when you see an article published by Bloomberg who they are really serving with these stories.
This comment was downvoted in about 5 seconds from when it was published. This was a comment at the bottom of a comment thread. There is no way for that to have happened other than by a bot. Bloomberg uses third party-controlled bots on HN to control the discussion. Sad.
This is Bloomberg, the same news site that made outrageous and still-unsubstantiated claims about hardware backdoors in Supermicro's motherboards. Sadly this kind of media drives profits and with no repercussions has become par for the course with companies like Bloomberg.
"Bloomberg, of course, is the publication that published “The Big Hack” in October — a sensational story alleging that data centers of Apple, Amazon, and dozens of other companies were compromised by China’s intelligence services. The story presented no confirmable evidence at all, was vehemently denied by all companies involved, has not been confirmed by a single other publication (despite much effort to do so), and has been largely discredited by one of Bloomberg’s own sources. By all appearances “The Big Hack” was complete bullshit. Yet Bloomberg has issued no correction or retraction, and seemingly hopes we’ll all just forget about it. I say we do not just forget about it. Bloomberg’s institutional credibility is severely damaged, and everything they publish should be treated with skepticism until they retract the story or provide evidence that it was true."
As Jon Gruber says: "Bloomberg, of course, is the publication that published “The Big Hack” in October — a sensational story alleging that data centers of Apple, Amazon, and dozens of other companies were compromised by China’s intelligence services."
"The story presented no confirmable evidence at all, was vehemently denied by all companies involved, has not been confirmed by a single other publication (despite much effort to do so), and has been largely discredited by one of Bloomberg’s own sources."
"By all appearances “The Big Hack” was complete bullshit. Yet Bloomberg has issued no correction or retraction, and seemingly hopes we’ll all just forget about it. I say we do not just forget about it. Bloomberg’s institutional credibility is severely damaged, and everything they publish should be treated with skepticism until they retract the story or provide evidence that it was true."
Quote from another discussion about a Bloomberg claim:
> Bloomberg, of course, is the publication that published “The Big Hack” last October — a sensational story alleging that data centers of Apple, Amazon, and dozens of other companies were compromised by China’s intelligence services. The story presented no confirmable evidence at all, was vehemently denied by all companies involved, has not been confirmed by a single other publication (despite much effort to do so), and has been largely discredited by one of Bloomberg’s own sources. By all appearances “The Big Hack” was complete bullshit. Yet Bloomberg has issued no correction or retraction, and seemingly hopes we’ll all just forget about it. I say we do not just forget about it. Bloomberg’s institutional credibility is severely damaged, and everything they publish should be treated with skepticism until they retract the story or provide evidence that it was true.
Why and how are Bloomberg articles constantly getting to the top of Hacker News? Was there every any resolution to their murky article about their claim that Supermicro mainboards were apparently getting compromised on the production line?
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