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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.'"
How about using phones and notebooks manufactured in China? Is that ok or do we have to assume they are bugged-at-factory? Are the US starting to move their production lines back to home?
how much does data weigh? I'm sure the 1's are heavier than the 0's....
In the punchcard / papertape era, it was obviously the other way around, 0s are heavier, 1s (punched out) are lighter.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
In a word? YES.
It would require actual competence to detect a piece of hardware that essentially did nothing until activated and simply sat on a motherboard. Do you know if there are extremely detailed inspections done on every piece of circuitry brought into country X from country Y? I know for a fact that in a certain very large defense company I worked for lots of "surprises" were found on a regular basis. Typically things like parts that were different from the specs, insects, and on occasion completely incorrect assemblies.
The funny part was these nearly all made it past QA and into the finished products, only to be discovered when something failed.
So based on that, I'd say that *if* someone were choosing to do something like this, it would be fairly easy to sneak it past the level of moron that would typically be doing these inspections.
Tinfoil hats aside - the real trick is getting the data back off again. It's trivial to convince a cell phone (for example) to record conversations while appearing off. The trick is to get to the data without anyone noticing, while you're in a foreign (possibly hostile) nation. I'd think someone would notice if a cell phone was constantly 'phoning home'.
Doing this with a laptop would also be trivial, but I would hope that the firewall filter would catch outbound connections to unusual sites?
An operating system should be like a light switch... simple, effective, easy to use, and designed for everyone.
To be fair China is still a Command economy that let's "Capitalism" play because it's a useful way to get people to work harder.. they are a long way from the idea of "Free Markets". This is where it's not a "round" world.. The Chinese government has their eye on the 50 year game and is more than willing to tie up all of a natural resource... and throw people in jail when the "free market" price goes up.
While the US punishes "intervention" by state banks in places like Japan and Korea for making sure their chip makers don't go under, China is stacking the deck on a NATIONAL level for resources... setting prices that corporations are allowed to SELL to China for.. and nobody is really stopping them. Just last week China "decided" they weren't going to be exporting any more rare earth metals (needed for high power magnets in electronics) They just issued a directive it wasn't allowed to be exported anymore....for any price. Back in 2007 one of the things that knocked US auto makers on their butts was China using scrap US steel instead of imported ore. It nearly doubled the price of scrap here (ironically bought with trade surplus dollars no less!) and made it even harder to complete with Asian companies... it was the straw that caused a good deal of the auto maker meltdown earlier this year. China manipulates their currency by not allowing dollars to be converted into Chinese money except for specific state-sponsored investments, and they don't allow US companies to take their Chinese profits OUT of the country either. It sets up a situation where they pile up money in US banks to buy US resources... but US companies can't pull their capital profits OUT of China...
China is playing the long game, highly protectionist and stacking the deck with our own money and resources against us. It's economic "war" played at the highest level and the US government has no grasp that the "invisible hand' won't save them.
An airplane builder had its proprietary metal reverse engineered by asian companies. They did a great job with security, so couldn't figure out how the metals got sampled. People can't just go scrape parts off a military airplane, especially when it's not built yet.
They gave tours and you couldn't take pictures, but you could see planes being built.
Turns out asians were using very soft-soled shoes. So while looking up and pointing, they pressed their feet down on metal filings, and when they drove away they had samples in their shoes, to be analyzed later.
Sneaky bastards work in corporate espionage.
It is. There was a story a few months ago about the Department of Defense using router hardware sent to them with onboard hacks.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!