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India, China Try Import Regulations As Security Tools
An anonymous reader writes "The Register reports that the Chinese government is forcing vendors to cough up the source code to their encryption alogrithms before they can sell their equipment to the Chinese government. The EU doesn't seem to like it, but if I were in their position I'd want the same thing."
China's biggest neighbor goes further; another anonymous reader writes "Telco equipment from China could have spyware that gives access to telcom networks in India. The Indian government has officially told mobile operators not to import any equipment manufactured by Chinese vendors, including Huawei and ZTE. The ban order follows concerns raised by the Home Ministry that telecom equipment from some countries could have spyware or malware that gives intelligence agencies across the border access to telecom networks in India. The biggest gainers from the move could be Ericsson, Nokia, and Siemens, which have been losing market share to aggressive Chinese equipment-makers in India."
are the ones that are open to peer review. So Kudos to the Chinese for being smart enough to make these idiot companies with closed-source encryption technologies provide them with the source code for review. Good encryption does not rely on obfuscation of code and processes!
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
This seems like a natural progression down the line of diminishing trust between countries. It's not very surprising, especially since the Chinese government *may* have been 'supportive' of some of the China/Google hacking. It appears the downside of possibly endorsing or supporting security breaches is other people/countries/etc will suspect you of it from that point on.
... and I can't blame India for not trusting Chinese technology. Nobody wins when no one trusts each other.
I can't blame the Chinese government for wanting to have the encryption information
If you're going to give your source code to the Chinese, you know for certain they will copy it and never buy a product from you again.
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Security through security!
Set your phasers on "funky"!
Unless the source can be compiled from scratch and used in place of the pre-compiled versions, including flashing of firmware, creation of installable ROM images or OS installs, having source code guaranteed by analysis to be exploit-free gains the user nothing. There could still be spyware in the final product. Short of self-installing, I guess creation of bit-equivalent or checksum-equivalent binaries would be good enough as a verification mechanism.
Yes, India is, like, right now in the process of auctioning 3G licenses. This will really bring benefits to Ericsson and Nokia Siemens.
One that hath name thou can not otter
actually Alcatel-Lucent will benefit from this. They have low priced telecom equipment and they have been replaced in many countries by even cheaper Huawei.
But isn't this strange? They put a ban because chinese "could have spyware or malware" in their equipment. Isn't this like putting someone in jail because he might do something bad in the future?
Here is my conspiracy theory: big companies export corruptions in the developing countries (this is a fact). Some companies could just not compete with the cheap Huawei so they paid officials for the ban. Problem solved! either this or the chinese really have spyware on their machines.
The idea that corporations that bowl over the largest nation states is our future has always seemed strange to me. Multinationals are really just a legal fiction that exists simultaneously in multiple countries. At any time, a political system can create problems that will effectively bring that multinational to its knees.
I think the future for big business is identical, only a little further out, to that of big government: replacement by small, agile businesses. Big business exists mainly because of big government and cooperation between the same. I think we're going to see a future in which each major country may trade for some tech products, but you'll see conditions begin to favor agile, much smaller businesses that can efficiently produce most important things at home.
I would recommend every government, company or institution to use especially network devices only, if they can review and then compile the code themselves which is to be run in the device.
So as to avoid Trojan Boot Loaders within their networks.
in the 80's and 90's American manufacturers gave away their technology to the Chinese to get a piece of the huge Chinese market. This allowed the Chinese to modernize their manufacturing technology by decades in a few years. Then instead of opening their markets, China flooded the world markets and decimated the foreign competition.
One might hope managers of corporations would learn from the past...
The headline suggests that China is using import rules to bolster security. I think it is the other way round. They are using the demand for source code as a barrier to trade to (unfairly) help domestic firms. Not very many overseas firms are going to provide source code, leaving the market open to Chinese firms.
I would agree with you if you didn't say "(unfairly)".
Access to source code is a legitimate security concern. Fair trade doesn't mean that you can't set high standards if foreign providers can't reach them.
Why do obnoxious dumbasses like you bring up poverty everytime India does something good or aspires for something that only developed countries has 'rights' to? A developing country cannot aspire to have security and be able to defend itself from commie and islamic terror neighbours? Cant it become self-sufficient in space, defence and other technological advances? Because it is poor, the entire populace is doomed to live in 15th century?