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Best Practice: Travel Light To China

Posted by timothy on from the micro-sd-in-dental-work dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "What may once have sounded like the behavior of a raving paranoid is now considered standard operating procedure for officials at American government agencies, research groups and companies as the NY Times reports how businesses sending representatives to China give them a loaner laptop and cellphone that they wipe clean before they leave and wipe again when they return. 'If a company has significant intellectual property that the Chinese and Russians are interested in, and you go over there with mobile devices, your devices will get penetrated,' says Joel F. Brenner, formerly the top counterintelligence official in the office of the director of national intelligence. The scope of the problem is illustrated by an incident at the United States Chamber of Commerce in 2010 when the chamber learned that servers in China were stealing information from four of its Asia policy experts who frequently visited China. After their trips, even the office printer and a thermostat in one of the chamber's corporate offices were communicating with an internet address in China. The chamber did not disclose how hackers had infiltrated its systems, but its first step after the attack was to bar employees from taking devices with them 'to certain countries,' notably China. 'Everybody knows that if you are doing business in China, in the 21st century, you don't bring anything with you,' says Jacob Olcott, a cybersecurity expert at Good Harbor Consulting. 'That's "Business 101" — at least it should be.'"

10 of 334 comments (clear)

  1. I wonder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...if people traveling from Russia or China to here are told the same thing?

    1. Re:I wonder... by mbone · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I deal with Chinese companies on a regular basis, and can assure you that they are innovating like mad. China is following the same classic development arc, which goes something like copy, steal, make, innovate, that the Japanese did ~ 50 years ago.

  2. A good start by gtvr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Good to see companies waking up to a very obvious threat. Next will be if they can figure out that sharing IP for a little bit of extra market share over there is NOT a good long term investment.

  3. Why not an article "Travel Light to US"? by stm2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Since your laptop can be confiscated legally at the border.

    --
    DNA in your Linux: DNALinux
    1. Re:Why not an article "Travel Light to US"? by N1AK · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I have no intention of defending the USA's often excessive intrusions; however, as with many other issues, trying to make out that they are operating on the same level as China is misleading and counter-productive. Unless you actually have, or can provide links to a credible source showing, evidence that the US is routinely compromising the electronic devices of a vast number of foriegn visitors then you're just spreading FUD.

  4. Good practice anywhere by million_monkeys · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This has been standard practice in many places for years. And not just when travelling to China. Even if you're not working with high value information, there's usually not any justification for taking equipment full of company information abroad.

  5. They Do Catch Criminals That Way by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Since your laptop can be confiscated legally at the border.

    I'm not saying it's right for them to be able to do that but they do catch individuals engaged with corporate and even economic espionage that way. The key difference here is that it's intended to be an open action against you by US Customs whereas in China the intent is for you to never know anything happened and the key logger or stolen information being covertly used without your knowledge of who did it or even what's going on. I think one is much worse than the other but I guess that's just my opinion.

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    My work here is dung.
  6. Here's a better idea- by IWantMoreSpamPlease · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Stop doing businees in and with China, entirely.
    Bring manufacturing and jobs back to your home country/state and improve your own damn economy. /radical concept I know.

    --
    So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
  7. Re:Pot calling kettle. by jimbolauski · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Exactly.

    I'm much more worried about how the U.S is allowing drones to be used by police agencies in this country to spy on us, etc., etc., etc.

    I'm sure if you were a major stakeholder in a company with valuable IP, that had business with China you would have a different attitude. The reason you don't need to worry about either is because you don't have any IP of worth that the Chinese want and you are not doing anything illegal. I'm not saying either is OK, just that jet fuel is expensive and following your every move is not worth their time, and how exactly can a drone invade your privacy any more then a manned plane?

    --
    Knowledge = Power
    P= W/t
    t=Money
    Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
  8. Re:Pot calling kettle. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    how exactly can a drone invade your privacy any more then a manned plane?

    Lower cost. Virtually all of your privacy(especially if you are just Joe Sixpack) isn't protected by some fancy set of 'rights' or a 'judicial system', it's protected by the fact that watching you is too expensive to be worth the likely results.

    The cheaper surveillance gets, the further down the food chain you can expect it to go, and the more frequent(and effective, unlike the grainy camera at EZ-mart that has been recording over the same grungy VHS tape since 1997...)

    Unless surveillance has some atypically wonky demand curve, which doesn't seem to be the case, lowering the price will increase the amount done.