Intel Warned Chinese Companies of Chip Flaw before US Government

Intel allegedly revealed information regarding Spectre and Meltdown to Chinese companies before the US government was made aware of them. While there is “no evidence any information was misused,” security researchers say this was a poor decision, as a foreign government could have taken advantage of the early knowledge.

It is a "near certainty" Beijing was aware of the conversations between Intel and its Chinese tech partners, because authorities there routinely monitor all such communications, Mr. Williams said. Representatives from China's ministry in charge of information technology didn't respond to requests for comment. The country's foreign ministry has in the past said it is "resolutely opposed" to cyberhacking in any form.

And that would be a great cover story to make us all think our Govt. didn't know about it.
You don't bother telling somebody something they already know about.

.

I smell traitor in Intel's blood.....

soon intel will have to license Dick Dastardly and Muttley as their mascots..

Megalith said:

Intel allegedly revealed information regarding Spectre and Meltdown to Chinese companies before the US government was made aware of them. While there is “no evidence any information was misused,” security researchers say this was a poor decision, as a foreign government could have taken advantage of the early knowledge.

It is a "near certainty" Beijing was aware of the conversations between Intel and its Chinese tech partners, because authorities there routinely monitor all such communications, Mr. Williams said. Representatives from China's ministry in charge of information technology didn't respond to requests for comment. The country's foreign ministry has in the past said it is "resolutely opposed" to cyberhacking in any form.

Click to expand...

So this information wasn't used or sold to other countries or anything....... /s

Why would Intel tell a foreign country this anyways?

Hagrid said:

Why would Intel tell a foreign country this anyways?

Click to expand...

You tell secrets to your loved ones first right?

Hagrid said:

So this information wasn't used or sold to other countries or anything....... /s

Why would Intel tell a foreign country this anyways?

Click to expand...

They didn't tell the Chinese government, they told Intel's Chinese partners and suppliers... you know, the ones who are actually making most of the computer HW in the world. The accusation is the Chinese government overheard the conversations.

China has a much closer link to many of its tech companies than the US. In large part because if you look like your going to be successful the Chinese government comes to you says "how would you like some capital"? The government then get's 5-51% of the company and the company gets access to automatically approved loans and resources than non-government affiliated companies won't. It's not exactly a voluntary thing, so some Chinese companies have offshored their majority investment holders in order to protect their stake from the government. But, ultimately this means that someone sitting on your board is representative of the Chinese government and has access to all your business information.

I bet the NSA knew of the bugs before Google informed Intel about them. I bet even Intel knew.

I didn't know Microsoft, Lenovo, Ali Baba, and Amazon were the Chinese government. The regime chooses the enemy du jour and the sycophants start chanting. CHINA. CHINA. CHINA.

If we continue pretending the Chinese are misbehaving like this somebody is going to have to liberate the fuck out of Mauritius, or maybe Djibouti.

Of course, I'd be willing to wager that Intel knew about these a long, long time before Google did.

Because no one ever making products in china ever leveraged that to their advantage....ever.......

The main point of this is that most of the average people don't know or care about spectre when they really, REALLY should. I'm still waiting for someone to make this attack remote and then.. THEN. shit will go down.

Poor decision making by Intel, all around.
Unpatriotic, to boot.

As soon as Intel was able to quantify and internally decide on a plan to move forward, they should have immediately informed the appropriate parties, first of which on that list would be the government of COUNTRY IN WHICH THEY BEGAN THEIR COMPANY.

If the reports we're hearing are accurate and the US Government first learned of the issue from the press, that's just really really bad.
It doesn't matter who else was informed, just that the US Government wasn't informed at the same time.

Ignorance is no excuse with this level risk of a security issue, and instead of doing what they're doing, which is continue to be ShadyInside™ and downplay the significance of a decades old design flaw, they should be owning up to it and realizing now would be a great time to start changing their ways.

I cannot even imagine how hard the EU is going to come down on them, and short of replacing for free every single affected chip sold/still in use in EU territory, I cannot fathom how they'd avoid serious fines, sanctions and/or restrictions moving forward.

No way to justify or sugar coat this, and I hope they're sued into oblivion if they continue to pretend this is not a big deal.