AWS CEO Andy Jassy: ‘Bloomberg Should Retract’

Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy on Twitter:

@tim_cook is right. Bloomberg story is wrong about Amazon, too. They offered no proof, story kept changing, and showed no interest in our answers unless we could validate their theories. Reporters got played or took liberties. Bloomberg should retract.

If you want a taste of Bloomberg’s attitude toward Apple’s and Amazon’s protestations, check out this video from Bloomberg TV from the day after the story was originally published. Jordan Robertson, co-author of the story, says this:

In addition, there is no consumer data that is alleged to have been stolen. This attack was about long term access to sensitive networks. So by that logic, companies are not required to disclose this information, so there’s no advantage for these companies in confirming this reporting.

This shows their dismissive attitude toward Amazon’s and Apple’s strenuous, unambiguous denials. Rather than give them pause, they blew it off.

I would argue that Amazon and Apple have a tremendous amount to lose — their credibility. If they wanted to hide something, whether for publicity or national security reasons (or both), the way to do it without risking their credibility is not to comment at all. Both Amazon and Apple have instead vigorously denied the veracity of this story.

Monday, 22 October 2018