# Who is the paranoid now? Apple.



## drmike (Mar 25, 2016)

Interesting drama around Apple's own cloud hosting aspirations.


"And it worries that some of the equipment and cloud services it buys has been compromised by vendors who have agreed to put "back door" technology for government spying, according to a report from The Information's Amir Efrati and Steve Nellis."


"Still, Apple is motivated to design build its own hardware, the same as Google and Amazon does, and run it on its own for one pretty scary reason: security. It suspects that the servers it has been ordering from others are being captured during shipping, and backdoors added to them that will make them susceptible to being hacked."


[ Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-worried-about-spy-tech-in-servers-it-buys-2016-3 ]


So for now, Apple continues to use the infrastructure of competitors Amazon and Microsoft to run their online services.


Very unsound. Wouldn't it be more prudent for Apple to in-source computing / hardware development and manufacturing?  Of course, also produce the hardware within the United States and under their strict controls with paid senior staff on-location and in place?


This is the world that cheap has created.  Instead they 'trust' a Taiwan company like Quanta Computer who produces a ton of hardware for Amazon and Google and who manufactures quite a bit in China (which creates own multitude of problems on human rights, environment, workers rights, and of course foreign espionage).


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## fm7 (Mar 25, 2016)

drmike said:


> This is the world that cheap has created.  Instead they 'trust' a Taiwan company ...



Not exactly. Most (if not all) Cisco and HP switches are "Made in Taiwan"


BTW HP's Cloudline servers will be built in partnership with Foxconn.


HP has been building servers with the Taipei-based electronics maker over the last year, but is now giving a name to its server line: Cloudline


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## drmike (Mar 25, 2016)

fm7 said:


> Not exactly. Most (if not all) Cisco and HP switches are "Made in Taiwan"
> 
> 
> BTW HP's Cloudline servers will be built in partnership with Foxconn.
> ...



I believe Made in Taiwan as much as I believe Made in USA these days.


Legit, Taiwan manufacturers, but I'll wager a Wimpy Burger that components are mostly sourced from China.  Very likely it's a parts assembly setup with some value add there in Taiwan.


And Foxconn, yuck that company. "Foxconn has 12 factories in nine Chinese cities—more than in any other country."  So good chance anything Foxconn has a major part of it originating in China.


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## fm7 (Mar 25, 2016)

drmike said:


> I believe Made in Taiwan as much as I believe Made in USA these days.
> 
> 
> Legit, Taiwan manufacturers, but I'll wager a Wimpy Burger that components are mostly sourced from China.  Very likely it's a parts assembly setup with some value add there in Taiwan.










The list includes the world’s four largest memory suppliers, three largest foundries, the largest microprocessor supplier, and Texas Instruments and ST—the two biggest suppliers of analog ICs.


http://www.icinsights.com/news/bulletins/Samsung-TSMC-Remain-Tops-In-Available-Wafer-Fab-Capacity/


*NAND flash*


**


There are only six key companies worldwide who run flash foundries and four of those six are working together in pairs to share the investment burden. The four teams are:


Toshiba and SanDisk

Samsung

Intel and Micron

SK Hynix


SK Hynix is building a new 3D NAND flash fab in *Korea* costing about $12.5bn.


Samsung is delaying the second phase of investment in its 3D NAND fab in Xi’an, *China*, because of increased industry supply from new fabs built by Toshiba/SanDisk (*Japan*) and Intel* (Dalian, *China*).



> (*)
> 
> 
> ... we will utilize Intel’s facility in Dalian, China to help expand our manufacturing capacity in non-volatile memory. The expansion is part of our global multi-source supply strategy and will allow us to best serve our customers. We expect initial production of the 3D NAND technology in Dalian in the second half of 2016. We have a long-term plan for this facility and may invest up to $5.5 billion over the coming years to transition this site to support leading-edge non-volatile memory production.
> ...


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## graeme (Mar 26, 2016)

How much do Google and Amazon trust their outsourced manufacturers? Do they supervise manufacturing to prevent tampering? Given that it is their own designs can they check the hardware and the firmware is clean?


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## fm7 (Mar 26, 2016)

graeme said:


> How much do Google and Amazon trust their outsourced manufacturers? Do they supervise manufacturing to prevent tampering? Given that it is their own designs can they check the hardware and the firmware is clean?



I think few parts are special SKUs and I guess they are vulnerable to state-created spywares, but who cares? If I may put my two cents in, I seriously doubt there are many trade secrets stored in Google or Amazon public clouds, and those companies trusting hyperscalers to store sensitive data should be more worried about government legal intrusions (e.g. Fisa court orders) and prosecutors seizing data held abroad than firmware tampering. Anyway if you are trusting Google to store your high-value data your data is not that valuable.


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