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Feds Ask IT Execs To Throw Away Cellphones After Visiting China
sholto writes "US intelligence agencies are advising top US IT executives to weigh their laptops before and after visiting China as one of many precautions against corporate espionage. Symantec Chief Technology Officer Mark Bregman said he was also advised to buy a new cellphone for each visit and to throw it away after leaving. Bregman said he kept a separate MacBook Air for use in China, which he re-images on returning, but claimed he didn't subscribe to the strictest policies. 'Bregman said the US was also concerned about its companies employing Chinese coders, particularly in security.'"
Data may be weightless, but how about hardware key logging devices?
:(
Here's the thing...
If EVERY laptop and cell phone phoned home to China to give away secrets, somebody is gonna notice. REAL quick.
They need to more selectively target folks if they want to actually be able to get away with hacking a machine to send them secret data.
It's not racial profiling, it's (current or previous) nationality profiling, you know, the information that's visible on your passport?
"..."
I read the article, and I stopped when it became clear that this information comes from Symantec. Your favorite over-paranoid, FUD-spreading company.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Do you think it would go undetected for long if thousands of cellphones and laptops made in China, Korea or wherever had a hardware sneak-chip installed?
Do you think it would be worth the effort to seed just a few of those thousands for some possible marginal gain? (Also keep in mind that specialized changes wreak havoc on an assembly line's schedule)
Much easier to just target the fish directly.
"..."
It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you. And we have plenty of evidence that the Chinese really are. Actually, the intelligence agencies probably just forgot to say "because we're doing all this stuff to their top executives when they visit us".
Remember the Cold War, when the Soviets were 10-foot-tall super soldiers who could read your mind and fart atomic infernos out of their asses? Everything was thought to be a commie conspiracy.
Is this happening again, but now we are instead fearing the Chinese?
I have a bad feeling about this...
... all they have to do is to contact several of the thousands of Chinese nationals ...
History shows that approaching US Nationals with enough money can also have the desired affect.
Maybe I'm taking this a little personally because I'm an IT guy. I dunno. But I do know I'd rather not work in IT for a large, tech-based company where the CTO is quoted publicly as saying: "I don't let my IT department near my laptop".
Anybody else have a WTF moment when they saw that? Or is it only me?
As a non-American citizen I feel the reverse holds true. When I enter the USA from Canada I should bring a seperate bare-bones, no thrills cell phone and an empty laptop. Because if the TSA decides that they want to snoop through my electronics there is no telling what information they are pulling out, government created spyware being installed, or some sort of magical chip that transmits everything I am doing back to them.
See, Conspiracy theories work both ways... No more fear mongering, okay? Lets play nice kids.
Sounds sensible to me.
I'm sure it IS a good idea to throw away any cellphone or laptop that has any Symantec product installed.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
You're falling into the same trap that got the electronic voting people. It is not at all obvious if an electronic device has a backdoor function. You can change the software to react to a complicated trigger sequence, or worse, you can change the hardware to do it. Unless you deconstruct the device to the point of rendering it unusable, there is no way to reliably detect "sleeper" functions. This is especially dangerous if the bug is in all devices and not just a few "interesting" ones, so that comparisons between devices don't show any deviation.
America has that same childish and ignorant "for mother country" thing going on as well
If we had international laws, policies, standards of living, etc. I'd agree with you. As we don't, I don't see a problem with wanting to take care of our own. International espionagers aren't going to share information--they only want to take it.
It's similar to the prisoner's dilemma. We'd probably all do better overall if we all worked together. China's not going to work with us, though, which means that if we just give them the technology, we're the suckers.
You say "sensible precaution", I say "blatant xenophobia/racism". The only reason people are worried about any of this to begin with is that America has that same childish and ignorant "for mother country" thing going on as well.
Plus the fact that China uses its technical workers for both industrial and political espionage quite frequently, and has been caught doing it several times.
It really disturbs me that in 2009 such hatred and bigotry is still the norm and is spouted, not only without consequence but to rave reviews and record ratings, on Fox News and right-wing pseudo-fascist radio programs. We need to realize that all of these boundaries we have set up are simply arbitrary, artificial constructs that have NOTHING to do with reality.
To quote the great poet Bill Hicks, "I hate patriotism! It's a round world the last time I checked."
The reason I distrust China is precisely BECAUSE they are too "patriotic"/nationalistic; they're even worse than the US I think in this regards, hell they're still mad over the OPIUM WARS. It has bred a very "us vs. them" mentality (obviously, some of it is understandable because of the country's history) that I think is a hell of a lot more dangerous to us and the world than the communism was.
Just as a side note, Hicks was kind of overrated.
Or just add the additional features at the factory and skip the desoldering altogether.
It's not all that surprising. British companies used to be advised not to talk business on the plane to France, because the French intelligence agencies were placing bugs in the headrests and giving sensitive information to French companies.
And I'm quite sure that MI5 (or whoever) did/do spy on non-British companies to give British ones an advantage (or at least I hope so :P)
This is one of those examples of "war morality"; whereby "us doing X to them" is fine, but "them doing X to us" is completly unacceptable and a sign of cowardice and various other undesireable traits.
This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
I understand the concern but...all our computers are made in China anyway. How dow e know if the Hardware isn't betraying us already?
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
Power supplies, computers, phones, etc. All stamped with 'made in china'.
Everything down to the component level is produced there. If they wanted to bug them they could do it at any point during manufacture.
US had to import and inspect bricks to USSR, just because they were once provided with bricks each containing a microphone! Can you imagine a building made of those bricks!
Or more likely, they acted as if they didn't know, but just passed fake document over the machines to fool the enemy.