Computer Networks Are Now Permanently Hackable. Have Fun With That.
The web of parts makers, assemblers, testers and contractors is almost impossible to untangle.
A lot of hands go into making this.
Photographer: Alain Jocard/AFP/Getty Images
Please read this blockbuster Bloomberg Businessweek report about U.S. investigations into a digital attack that involved planting snooping devices in the kinds of circuit boards used by Amazon, Apple, the U.S. government and other important organizations. The reporting highlights the grave risk of a bedrock element of technology: the sprawling, interconnected and global nature of computing.
Just about all computerized devices on the planet, from wrist-worn step-tracking gadgets to supercomputers that crunch U.S. intelligence data, participate in a complex supply chain honed over decades. Tiny circuits, pieces of glass, wiring, computer chips and many more parts are designed, built, combined, recombined and retrofitted in multiple steps by multiple companies, contractors and subcontractors in multiple countries.