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We've known for roughly two years the The states government has programs devoted to intercepting computer hardware mid-shipment. These programs are used to insert backdoors or spyware deep into a system'due south firmware before it even arrives at its destination. A new report claims Apple tree is looking into edifice its own servers as a manner to thwart this type of insertion.

The Information (currently offline as of this writing) reported yesterday that:

Apple has long suspected that servers information technology ordered from the traditional supply chain were intercepted during shipping, with boosted chips and firmware added to them by unknown third parties in gild to brand them vulnerable to infiltration, co-ordinate to a person familiar with the affair. At one signal, Apple fifty-fifty assigned people to take photographs of motherboards and annotate the function of each chip, explaining why it was supposed to be at that place. Edifice its own servers with motherboards it designed would be the virtually surefire way for Apple to prevent unauthorized snooping via extra chips.

Security isn't Apple tree's only motivation — the company has expressed unhappiness with Amazon Web Services and, co-ordinate to VentureBeat, is working on a plan to build its own in-business firm information centers and software to run them. Currently, services like iTunes are mostly outsourced to other providers like Amazon or Microsoft's competing Azure. Apple is far from the commencement company to take steps like this; Google publicly appear it would begin encrypting all data that travels through its data centers after data leaked that the NSA had tapped undersea cables to spy on Google's data centers from the inside, where information was in one case unencrypted.

Whether or not this approach can actually lock out groups like the NSA is an incredibly difficult question. Apple could contract with companies similar Foxconn to build hardware to its own specifications, but there'southward no guarantee that the NSA wouldn't find a different method of penetrating Apple's security. A authorities agency that'due south gone to the trouble of building infrastructure to intercept, bug, and re-send network equipment and servers is evidently i that's willing to spend top dollar to guarantee results. Apple can make the game more difficult, certainly, but can information technology shut the loopholes altogether?

This rumor isn't going to be well-received past the authorities, which has already indicated it believes Apple's beliefs is just shy of treasonous in various court filings related to the San Bernardino shooting. Building its ain data centers and designing its own hardware from the ground up, at least partly for the express purpose of locking the government out, isn't going to sit well with the folks in Washington.

Upwards to this point, the battle over encryption has largely been waged behind the scenes. The White Firm has declined to push for any legislation that would really ban encryption or formally require companies to cooperate with the government in turning over keys and access. One likely reason for this state of affairs is that regime agencies feel reasonably assured that they can get the data they want without the battle public legislation would spark. If government agencies beginning feeling less certain of their own ability to hogtie cooperation or access data at will, this fight could go more public than it has to date. The technology sector would ferociously oppose such legislative fiat (bold Congress was willing to consider it in the get-go place), but whether that opposition would be sufficient to sway the last outcome is some other unknown.

Both Republicans and Democrats accept given great deference to the NSA, FBI, and their claims that warrantless wiretaps and mass surveillance are required if the American people are to be kept safety. Apple tree, however, isn't alone in its efforts. Last yr, Cisco'southward security chief announced information technology purposefully shipped to imitation locations to keep the NSA from targeting and intercepting its hardware.