[brorfred]

The part I don't understand is why Apple would take such a huge PR hit from the story. I way I read it is that they found out about the problem, diagnosed it and replaced all servers all within a very short time. A careful writeup about what happened, what kind of information that might have leaked, and what they do to avoid it in the future would to me be a net PR win at this point. The next question would be how all other customers has acted.

[kevin_b_er]

If Apple were to agree with and state that China is spying on them, then they might face repercussions from the Chinese government on their extensive business interests in China. They make all the stuff there. This is monetary threat to Apple, so lying is within character for a corporation to preserve their business.

[lordlimecat]

If the story were true Apple cannot lie about it publicly like this; the SEC would have their heads.

They would have to hedge, "we are investigating Bloomberg's allegations and take security seriously."

[_Tev]

I wonder why people on HN take these arguments seriously.

You either anger govt that is authoritarian & capable of confiscating your entire production (basically ending your current business)

OR

You make some half-truth statement (not necessary to be lying, but that does not change the point), and - if everything will be revealed - one agency of democratic govt will be pissed and slap you with big fine.

Basically this is big enough to make SEC meaningless.

[lordlimecat]

The idea that the Chinese gov't would seize Apple's "entire production" is up there with the possibility that the US invades China. It isn't going to happen. There are just too many consequences, not least of which is the withdrawal of most US companies from China.

The SEC on the other hand literally just got done fining Elon Musk $20m for a tweet. Fines for something like this could be in the hundreds of millions, that's not something you risk when you could just say "we are investigating the claims and take them seriously."

[_Tev]

SEC fined him over something so much easier to verify that I wonder why is everybody bringing it up? Why do you think truthiness of Apple'a / Amazon's statements will be obvious in next year or two? Why do you think that accussation like "China is hacking our HW" from Apple would not escalate situation dramatically? (implicating they have to deny as hard as possible)

It's such obvious damage control in shit-has-publicly-hit-the-fan situation ... Why do you think SEC's fines (lol $20M, even for Tesla/Musk it's not a big deal, Apple would have to be hit with 100times that to even notice it) are even relevant now?

And "It isn't going to happen." could have been said about hardware attacks on USA from China last week. Situation has changed quite a bit, China is either starting to abuse its hw monopoly or someone is doing A LOT to prevent such scenario, so the stakes are too high for simple SEC fines to be worth discussing.