Look at Snowden’s leaks and RDRAND.

Nothing in the Snowden leaks suggests that RDRAND is backdoored.

Nothing in the Snowden leaks PROVES the RDRAND was backdoored.

Bullrun [0] definitely suggests it..

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullrun_(decryption_program)

He's probably thinking of either Dual EC DRBG, or the HTTP header they came up with to leak enough data from it to compromise it.

This is sort of circular, or tautological: “I believe in it because it’s so believable “

FWIW, I am rather skeptic. And I even have reasons: if the NSA has the power to coerce, Apple wouldn’t repeatedly gotten into fights with the US government to unlock iPhones.

Cooperating with the NSA is also clearly not in the companies’ interests. If (when) it comes out, they’d be at risk to lose a lot of business in other countries.

In any case, my usual argument about cynicism applies: spreading such theories becomes self-fulfilling, because why should MS work for the NSA/every politician take bribes/every cook spit in your food, if that’s what the people believe anyway, no matter what you actually do?

Microsoft is listed as a provider in the NSA's Prism program in Powerpoint slides released in the Snowden leak. In fact, the timeline indicates that they were the first on board.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Prism_sl...

No, they give data for specific accounts being wiretapped to the FBI. The FBI is a participant in the PRISM program.

In the case of the FBI claiming they needed Apple's help to retrieve encrypted data from an iPhone, it's reasonable to suspect that it was simply a ploy to pressure Apple into making concessions in the face of public pressure. A third party firm was quick to assist the FBI, but I doubt the technique used to bypass Apple's security on the iPhone was entirely novel. I would guess the firm was surprised the government didn't have enough resources to overcome the obstacle themselves long before anyone else. The San Bernardino shooting was a low stakes case of terrorism that may have been classified as a normal workplace shooting, and the FBI didn't have to make haste nor use all of the tools at their disposal. At the same time, the FBI's request to Apple can be considered legitimate after some hand waving because most of the FBI was probably told that it was technically impossible to crack into an iPhone because the necessary tool is classified and kept in reserve.

Also, I don't think any number of people believing to any extent that a corporation may have been compromised removes an important incentive for that corporation to maintain its integrity. For a security-conscious company, reputation and trust don't go that far so it would be safer to assume that Apple can be or has been compromised maybe even without their knowledge. That company would have to look after its own security and use custom protocols / devices. If it was forced to trust Apple, it would have to find an ingenious way to ensure that was not at all in the interest of Apple to betray them.

> if the NSA has the power to coerce, Apple wouldn’t repeatedly gotten into fights with the US government to unlock iPhones

The FBI is not the NSA.

>if the NSA has the power to coerce, Apple wouldn’t repeatedly gotten into fights with the US government to unlock iPhones.

The fights that we know about can be nothing more than a marketing stunt. They were what Apple wanted public to know; when leaks happen that Apple doesn't want public to know, Apple's "commitment to privacy" rather pales. Apple was listed as a PRISM data provider, they were accused in using their employee's message data against them. Now they also admit to looking into iCloud photos.

I'm making an educated guess rather than saying it's 100% true. As others have stated from the PRISM leaks and so on it's not like these companies are not already complicit in supplying data.