said by El Quintron:I'm no security expert, but it seems to me that there's a bit of hype here.
Even with the rudimentary network knowlege that I do possess, I have to ask the following: Would a network operator (eg: Bell, VZW, AT&T) not know that information was being reported back to China? Network operators are usually pretty good at identifying traffic patterns in order manage their networks so why would this be any different?
If the hardware itself is subverted at the bare metal, then no. As Wilsdom said, the hardware can merely lie to you. If you own the hardware, you own everything, including third party software running on top.