You may have already been following this, but Apple has now denied the Bloomberg spy chip story a couple of times. Here's my original post, Has Your Electronic Hardware Been Hacked?, and the original Bloomberg post, The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies. Techcrunch has a prior story with links to more of the denials.
While I'm in no position to know whether the story is valid or not, it can be an interesting exercise thinking about why the various respective parties might have an interest in denying the story. Similarly, it's probably worth spending a bit of time thinking about why, if it isn't true, the story was published and what might be behind it.
All of that being said, thematically, concerns about technology back doors being placed into electronic devices -- and the implications of these vectors -- will continue to be an ongoing theme.
Caveat Emptor.
------- Update: ----------
You may find this to be pushing into the "conspiracy" end of the spectrum, but here's an interesting look into some of the nuances of the language of rebuttals from the Emptywheel blog. There's also a good breakout of the story into a timeline with links to some of the stories at the time they emerged (I found the Apple, SuperMicro firmware thread to be particularly interesting.
Rattled: China’s Hardware Hack
There are more posts breaking down the language in some of the denials, but this one has the timeline.
Monday, October 8, 2018
Saturday, October 6, 2018
Why I switched from a new iPhone Xs back to an iPhone SE
The one thing that I was hoping for in the Apple iPhone announcement back in early September was an updated iPhone SE. While I'd seen enough on the Apple rumors sites to be concerned that, if the rumored updates to the iPhone SE were true, I'd probably be unhappy with that device. As it was, the rumors sites were talking about a glass-backed iPhone SE with no audio port and no home button -- but I tried to remain optimistic. I'd even considered, in the days prior to the iPhone Xs announcement, purchasing a 128GB iPhone SE just so that I'd have a new one without 2 years of wear and tear on it.
Don't get me wrong, my iPhone SE is still a great phone that still only shows minor scrapes and scratches despite two years of life without a case.
At the same time, you couldn't help but notice the better image quality from her iPhone 8. It didn't help that there were three little spots that I kept seeing in my photos, imperfections that I came to realize was probably the result of damage to the camera lens.
With the iPhone Xs announcement, I'd hoped that Apple would, at least, continue to sell the iPhone SE - dated as it is/was. Seeing it EOLed was probably the worst aspect of that announcement.
So, grudgingly, when orders opened up for the new iPhone Xs back in September, I ordered one. It sounds like a simple decision, a simple action, but it was something more. At the time, I rationalized my decision a couple of ways.
First, I told myself that I'm adept enough with electronics that I could overcome the failures of the design in the iPhone Xs. After all, I thought, how bad could it be? I was sure that, while it might be mildly frustrating at times, I would be able to use the device and would benefit from the new camera. What was surprising was how wrong that prediction turned out to be.
From a size standpoint, I thought the iPhone Xs would end up being about the same size as the iPhone 8. Having used an iPhone 6s Plus for a year, I knew that that phone was just way too big, but I was under the impression that the iPhone X brought something close to a "Plus" size screen into the smaller non-plus sized body. While I knew that it would be larger, I wasn't prepared for how large the iPhone Xs turned out to be.
This week, after almost three weeks of using the iPhone Xs, I switched my phone back to my iPhone SE.
As I used the iPhone Xs, a number of issues because clear. First, while the whole notion of Face ID seemed like an idiotic authentication interface to me, in practice, it proved worse. While I'd initially been impressed with it's ability to recognize me and unlock the device -- almost like it authenticated without effort -- as I used it day-in-and-day-out, I began to notice that it seemed like it failed more often than it succeeded. Running the out-of-the-box software configuration, Face ID fails when you're wearing sunglasses. In other words, when you're using the device outside, you have to stop what you're doing, lift up your sunglasses and force the device to authenticate. It's worth noting that the fingerprint sensor on my iPhone SE worked equally well inside and outside, without regard to whether you were wearing sunglasses.
Face ID also often failed to work if I tried to access my iPhone while it was sitting on my desk in front of me, at a table in a restaurant or a number of other locations that I tried to casually access my iPhone from.
So, imagine yourself at lunch with a colleague and you hear your phone chime indicating that you'd received a text. With iOS 12, the default information displayed on the lock screen is that your received a message from a specified contact. In order to view that on the iPhone Xs, you have to pick up your phone and look at it, something that can be disruptive and be perceived as rude. In contrast, with the fingerprint ID, you can simply touch your iPhone, look down, and you can see whether the text is important or not.
I can't tell you how many times I repeatedly went through scenarios similar to this, particularly since, for many text messages, all you really need to do is determine whether the message is important or not. And worse, because the iPhone Xs locks quickly, you can find yourself having to repeat the whole exercise multiple times in during a single window of receiving multiple texts. It's not just bad, it's terrible.
Additionally, I thought that the lack of a headphone jack might simply be an inconvenience that I would get used to. In practice, I found that this also wasn't true. I should note that, prior to my iPhone Xs, I used my iPhone for all of my telephone communications. It's also worth noting that, while I have Apple Airpods and I use them as a Bluetooth headset when driving or some other activities, when I need to make calls where I want to ensure the audio quality of the call, I use the Apple earbuds that came with the phone. Often, sitting at my desk, I would have my iPhone SE plugged in and charging while using the earbuds for a call.
With the iPhone Xs, initially I brought the lightning based earbuds along, but I soon found myself trying to decide whether to charge the iPhone or to plug in the headset and make a call. Over nearly three weeks of use, I found myself hesitant to make phone calls. Eventually, I put my Lighting earbuds into my backpack and only took them out once or twice. Essentially, whether it was just psychological or practical, I realized that my iPhone Xs was barely functioning as a phone.
Another aspect that anticipated how much of a problem it would be was the lack of a home button. I wish I could tell you how many times I used a "Sweep Up" gesture on the device with no results. It doesn't just fail once or twice, I would estimate the failure rate at greater than 20%. You might argue that the case is a contributing factor, but I don't think that's actually the case. This failure to function has a significant impact on how well the device functions day to day. For example, if you have a problematic app and you want to "double-tap" the home button in order to bring up the multi-task screen and kill the app, you may find yourself trying for 20-30 seconds before getting the interface to change. That's just one example. It happened more frequently than I would have imagined, ane particularly frustrating if you're trying to do something like kill an app.
----
So, after a particularly frustrating round of receiving texts on my iPhone Xs and wrestling with the device functionality just to access them, I decided that I was done with it -- that I was going to switch back to my iPhone SE. I figured that I could simply carry the iPhone Xs around, using it for it's camera functionality and, since it was sometimes convenient to have the larger display, use it as a wifi-based device when I needed the larger display. If I need network access, I could simply use my iPhone SE to create a hotspot for the Xs.
I wish I could share with you the immense sense of joy that I felt once I switched back. Holding the smaller device in my hand brought me an unexpected sense of elation.
At this point, I've been back on my iPhone SE for a couple of days and I'm much happier. The iPhone Xs is sort of like having a pocket-sized iPad. At this point, give me old, obsolete Apple over the new Apple. Whether you want to blame it on Tim Cook, elements in the org further down, or something else, the company is just not doing design and functionality the way that they used to.
Don't get me wrong, my iPhone SE is still a great phone that still only shows minor scrapes and scratches despite two years of life without a case.
At the same time, you couldn't help but notice the better image quality from her iPhone 8. It didn't help that there were three little spots that I kept seeing in my photos, imperfections that I came to realize was probably the result of damage to the camera lens.
With the iPhone Xs announcement, I'd hoped that Apple would, at least, continue to sell the iPhone SE - dated as it is/was. Seeing it EOLed was probably the worst aspect of that announcement.
So, grudgingly, when orders opened up for the new iPhone Xs back in September, I ordered one. It sounds like a simple decision, a simple action, but it was something more. At the time, I rationalized my decision a couple of ways.
First, I told myself that I'm adept enough with electronics that I could overcome the failures of the design in the iPhone Xs. After all, I thought, how bad could it be? I was sure that, while it might be mildly frustrating at times, I would be able to use the device and would benefit from the new camera. What was surprising was how wrong that prediction turned out to be.
From a size standpoint, I thought the iPhone Xs would end up being about the same size as the iPhone 8. Having used an iPhone 6s Plus for a year, I knew that that phone was just way too big, but I was under the impression that the iPhone X brought something close to a "Plus" size screen into the smaller non-plus sized body. While I knew that it would be larger, I wasn't prepared for how large the iPhone Xs turned out to be.
This week, after almost three weeks of using the iPhone Xs, I switched my phone back to my iPhone SE.
As I used the iPhone Xs, a number of issues because clear. First, while the whole notion of Face ID seemed like an idiotic authentication interface to me, in practice, it proved worse. While I'd initially been impressed with it's ability to recognize me and unlock the device -- almost like it authenticated without effort -- as I used it day-in-and-day-out, I began to notice that it seemed like it failed more often than it succeeded. Running the out-of-the-box software configuration, Face ID fails when you're wearing sunglasses. In other words, when you're using the device outside, you have to stop what you're doing, lift up your sunglasses and force the device to authenticate. It's worth noting that the fingerprint sensor on my iPhone SE worked equally well inside and outside, without regard to whether you were wearing sunglasses.
Face ID also often failed to work if I tried to access my iPhone while it was sitting on my desk in front of me, at a table in a restaurant or a number of other locations that I tried to casually access my iPhone from.
So, imagine yourself at lunch with a colleague and you hear your phone chime indicating that you'd received a text. With iOS 12, the default information displayed on the lock screen is that your received a message from a specified contact. In order to view that on the iPhone Xs, you have to pick up your phone and look at it, something that can be disruptive and be perceived as rude. In contrast, with the fingerprint ID, you can simply touch your iPhone, look down, and you can see whether the text is important or not.
I can't tell you how many times I repeatedly went through scenarios similar to this, particularly since, for many text messages, all you really need to do is determine whether the message is important or not. And worse, because the iPhone Xs locks quickly, you can find yourself having to repeat the whole exercise multiple times in during a single window of receiving multiple texts. It's not just bad, it's terrible.
Additionally, I thought that the lack of a headphone jack might simply be an inconvenience that I would get used to. In practice, I found that this also wasn't true. I should note that, prior to my iPhone Xs, I used my iPhone for all of my telephone communications. It's also worth noting that, while I have Apple Airpods and I use them as a Bluetooth headset when driving or some other activities, when I need to make calls where I want to ensure the audio quality of the call, I use the Apple earbuds that came with the phone. Often, sitting at my desk, I would have my iPhone SE plugged in and charging while using the earbuds for a call.
With the iPhone Xs, initially I brought the lightning based earbuds along, but I soon found myself trying to decide whether to charge the iPhone or to plug in the headset and make a call. Over nearly three weeks of use, I found myself hesitant to make phone calls. Eventually, I put my Lighting earbuds into my backpack and only took them out once or twice. Essentially, whether it was just psychological or practical, I realized that my iPhone Xs was barely functioning as a phone.
Another aspect that anticipated how much of a problem it would be was the lack of a home button. I wish I could tell you how many times I used a "Sweep Up" gesture on the device with no results. It doesn't just fail once or twice, I would estimate the failure rate at greater than 20%. You might argue that the case is a contributing factor, but I don't think that's actually the case. This failure to function has a significant impact on how well the device functions day to day. For example, if you have a problematic app and you want to "double-tap" the home button in order to bring up the multi-task screen and kill the app, you may find yourself trying for 20-30 seconds before getting the interface to change. That's just one example. It happened more frequently than I would have imagined, ane particularly frustrating if you're trying to do something like kill an app.
----
So, after a particularly frustrating round of receiving texts on my iPhone Xs and wrestling with the device functionality just to access them, I decided that I was done with it -- that I was going to switch back to my iPhone SE. I figured that I could simply carry the iPhone Xs around, using it for it's camera functionality and, since it was sometimes convenient to have the larger display, use it as a wifi-based device when I needed the larger display. If I need network access, I could simply use my iPhone SE to create a hotspot for the Xs.
I wish I could share with you the immense sense of joy that I felt once I switched back. Holding the smaller device in my hand brought me an unexpected sense of elation.
At this point, I've been back on my iPhone SE for a couple of days and I'm much happier. The iPhone Xs is sort of like having a pocket-sized iPad. At this point, give me old, obsolete Apple over the new Apple. Whether you want to blame it on Tim Cook, elements in the org further down, or something else, the company is just not doing design and functionality the way that they used to.
Thursday, October 4, 2018
Has Your Electronic Hardware Been Hacked?
This is something that you should read. The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies is a story from Bloomberg Businessweek about SuperMicro server motherboards being hacked by the Chinese military, adding a hardware device to the board enabling access to the server. The hardware device was designed to look like an innocuous component, and the compromised servers may have gone to companies like Apple and Amazon, into their AWS cloud.
If you're looking for more analysis, here's a Techcrunch post on the article.
Needless to say, these are worth your time to read.
If you're looking for more analysis, here's a Techcrunch post on the article.
Needless to say, these are worth your time to read.
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