A bombshell report from Bloomberg BusinessWeek says Chinese spy chips are found in Apple and Amazon hardware, Verizon is offering thousands of workers early retirement packages, and Delta says free Wi-Fi is on its way.
Reddit is exploding after a bombshell story from Bloomberg BusinessWeek that suggests data centre equipment belonging to Apple and Amazon may have been exposed to surveillance from the Chinese government through tiny microchips installed during the manufacturing of their products. While AWS and Apple strongly dispute the claims, the story suggest the spy chips have been the subject of a US government investigation starting 2015. AWS described the story as “erroneous” and that they never found modified hardware or malicious chips in servers at any of its data centers. China has long been suspected, but rarely directly implicated, in spy campaigns based on hardware made in the country.
A lot of chatter on LinkedIn about Verizon’s latest downsizing efforts, which includes offering severance packages to one third of its workforce. More than 44,000 workers have been offered three weeks pay for every year of service, part of multiyear $10 billion cost-cutting effort. Verizon, the nation’s largest wireless network by subscribers, doesn’t want its workers to take too long to make a decision. While reports suggest departures will be staggered over the next year, employees only have until mid-November to accept.
And lastly, also on LinkedIn – Delta Airline passengers will soon get free Wi-Fi on their trips. The airline’s CEO Ed Bastian spilled the beans on their plans to roll out free connectivity during a conference in New York. Unfortunately, he didn’t reveal when the service will be introduced, so passengers will continue to pay $16 for a day’s worth of Wi-Fi for the foreseeable future. Among U.S.-based airlines, JetBlue is the only large airline currently offering free in-flight Wi-Fi, though the offer is expensive for the carrier.