[jerf]

As I've now said multiple times and I've not seen anyone argue against very strongly at all, there is no reason to believe this was a government-pushed story, because there are plenty of equally bad or worse things that are known to be true that could easily have been used instead. There are abundant examples of corporate and governmental espionage of this sort, in all directions. Indeed, when the article was first posted, many HN posters were skeptical precisely because they could name two or three much better ways to do it, some provided examples, and some told stories of having found these better examples already in the field.

And because if it had been a government push, it would have been accompanied by a government PR push on other fronts. But I saw no evidence the government picked up this story in particular, or even hardly referenced it. Being now months later we can also observe the government has not lifted a finger to substantiate this storyline or pull Bloomberg's bacon out of the increasingly hot fire.

The theory that this was government-pushed falls down on the ground that even if the government or some aspect of it wanted to push this narrative, this is not even remotely their best choice on how to do it.