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Lenovo Under U.S. Probe for Spying
BigControversy writes "The DailyTech has a report indicating that Lenovo, the giant Chinese PC manufacturer, is under a probe by the U.S.-China Economic Security Review Commission (USCC) for possible bugging. Apparently, the government has ordered 16,000 PCs from Lenovo but is now requesting that Lenovo be investigated by intelligence agencies. The fear is of foreign intelligence applying pressure to Lenovo to equip its PCs so that the U.S. can be spied on." From the article: "Despite the probe, Lenovo says that its international business, especially those that deal with the US, follow strictly laid out government regulations and rules. Lenovo also claims that even after purchasing IBM's PC division, its international business has not been affected negatively. Interestingly, in an interview with the BBC, Lenovo mentioned that an open investigation or probe may negatively affect the way that the company deals with future government contracts or bids." There just has to be better uses of our intelligence community's time.
Isn't this the perfect use of our intelligence community? I think this is a very valid threat from a community like China who has been known to have spies in the US at all times. (Not saying we don't spy back, but that's the game!).
A lot of federal agencies have policies about using foreign hardware/software for reasons just like this. Go USA!
We have a crapload of good PC Manufacturers here in the states, and our government instead orders 16,000 PCs from a Chinese manufacturer?
{} ------ When I think of a good sig, I'll put it here
Better use of intelligence time? This should be taken damned seriously. Have a look at PROMIS and tell me this is a benign subject..
This isn't much different than the Chineese Governments fear of backdoors placed in M.S. Windows by U.S intellegence. The shoe is on the other foot now.
They spy on us, and we spy on them. Nothing new.
The only thing is now they're worried that the Chinese gov got a PC supplier to fiddle with their product. Maybe not all, just 1 out of 100 or something.
Do I think China did this? No.
But it's pretty much the job of intelligence agencies to be paranoid.
Any built-in addition features in the hardware, the bios or
even the preinstalled operating system would be immediately
detected and destroy the entire PC business of Lenovo abroad.
The USCC is an organ of the US Congress. These are the members. If I understand correctly, they are all politicians. Chinese do things cheaper than Americans, American politicians whine so they look like they are against outsourcing, then they buy happily.
Seriously, bugging thousands of PCs to get intelligence? Give me a break. Intelligence is not just about getting information, it is also about not getting caught and leaving no evidence. Thousands of PCs trying to send coded messages to Beijing would ring a bell even at the Department of Homeland Security. It's much simpler and safer to buy or blackmail a politician or an employee to provide information.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
Dell, HP, IBM, Apple, and many, many others are most of the time built right next to each other in China. I'd be willing to bet there isn't a single computer where every piece in it is made in the USA, or a US Friendly country (friendly by my definition = NATO)
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
After basically ignoring the fact that Hughes transferred critical missile technology to China, NOW the government is worried about a few PC's used to spy on us?
All the Chinese have to do is pony up a few bucks to any greedy US corporation and they can get the data much easier!
Hell, no doubt even Canada has a few.
Xenophobia.
I have nothing further to add, because that word sums it all up. While there are valid threats against the USA and in the intelligence community there are measures to tap into restricted data, they are NOT going to mess with PCs for fuck's sake! If someone has high security requirements that entity is not going to buy from a consumer level shop ANYWAY.
Geez.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Levono is NOT being investigated for spying or bugging the computers sold to the US Government.
The US Government is basically doing a security check on the computers they ordered to make sure there's nothing extra on those computers.
Someone got their panties all in a wad is trying to score some polipoints by being patriotic.
There really is smoke without a fire. This proves it.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
First off, they aren't under a "probe" for possible spying, despite what the article says. A "probe" would imply that somebody has reason to believe there is actually spying going on. Instead, this is a stupid "investigation" to ensure that there isn't, despite a complete lack of evidence saying there is. This is simple xenophobia, nothing more.
Do the geniuses that ordered this "probe" realize that the vast majority of components in a modern computer come from the orient? That it is VERY difficult to find a keyboard, mouse, case, or power supply that is NOT made in China? Do they know that many laptops (not Lenovo) are manufactured by Chinese-owned companies, and/or made directly in China itself?
The only thing that could be worrisome is if they had Lenovo handle the builds on the hard drives, but NO classified shop should be relying on "outside" builds anyway.
Do these folks ALSO realize that by law, no computer containing classified data may be connected to a public network of any kind? How is any "bugged" machine supposed to export the data? Osmosis? Telepathy?
SirWired
First of all I think anything installed would quickly be found and be the end of lanovo. secondly If they are going to have this kind of view then they will have to look at all brands of computers like Dell or Gateway because I bet you at least some of the parts (if not all) came from a foreign source. Personally this sounds like a bad press move by a competitor to ruin Lanovo because they make such a good product....
"1) criticize the United States for using it's intelligence resources to protect itself from a corporation operating out of Communist China."
Except that China is not communist. It is MORE capitalist than the USA. It is also not a democracy.
"2) criticize the US for not using intelligence resources "_enough_" to protect its ports/borders/etc."
Actually, every sane government would and does protect it's borders. You don't generally see the security service outsourced to a foreign country for the same reason borders either shouldn't exist or they should be effective at what they are doing. A port is part of the border system.
"3) criticize the US for using intelligence resource "_too_much_" by wire-tapping potential terrorists."
Except, that now a "potential terrorist" description fits 90%+ of the total population of the USA.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Xenophobia. I have nothing further to add, because that word sums it all up. While there are valid threats against the USA and in the intelligence community there are measures to tap into restricted data, they are NOT going to mess with PCs for fuck's sake! If someone has high security requirements that entity is not going to buy from a consumer level shop ANYWAY.
...
That's terribly naive. You fail to realize that most espionage is industrial. Billions of dollars are lost due to industrial espionage, foreign countries acquire R&D info that saves them time and money, their military tech is advanced by years,
Also naive is to think that people with high security are the only target. In the real world espionage often goes for indirect info. What companies are supplying the goods and services, are their changes in orders, their production, etc. You don't have to get the general's plan for an invasion, you may only need to identify his preparations.
Did you know that there are other "American" computer manufacturers have their computers manufacture in Shanghai. I know Apple does. What of HP and Dell? Let's face it, the Chinese make our clothes, trash cans, and anything else that can be brought in an office building. To phrase a popular /. quote, "I for one welcome our Chinese overlords" and "me colloborate long time"
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
who would be really surprised if the US Gov't was putting pressure on Microsoft to allow backdoors in WIndows to be used to spy on foreign gov'ts....
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Better late than never. If there's no problem, no problem, which would be nice to know. If there is a problem, the US needs to react to it. Consider it an unintentional consequence of the wholesale offshoring of US (or for that matter, all of the OECD's) manufacturing to cheap labor markets. It's an uncontrolled economics experiment for a major economic power to suddenly switch to having someone else make all of their shit for them. Who knew that not only would the "market" sell the rope that hung them, they would outsource rope making to the hangman.
Looks like Clancy needs to update one of his opus', in which an agent slips the Chinese Politboro an 0wn3d laptop.
Luke, help me take this mask off
However US corporations can inspect the goods returned from manufacturing, verifying that the ROMs and the installed software matches what they provided.
Harder said than done. I could have a chip made that looks just like a ROM, but contains an extra code version that it switches to after say, 100 hours of use.
You could run checksums all you want, but the only way you could catch that is if you either depackage the chips and inspect it, or happen to inspect your computer after it's alreay been in service for 100 hours.
I could even make the chip smart enough to detect when a typical checksum is being done, and revert back to the original code.
People trust computer chips a LOT more than they should.
Life is too short to proofread.