Slashdot Mirror
Should the US Really Limit Chinese-Government Influenced IT Systems?
coondoggie writes "New federal restrictions now preclude four U.S. agencies from buying information-technology (IT) systems from manufacturers 'owned, directed or subsidized by the People's Republic of China' due to national-security concerns. But is this a smart tactic? It's clear that some in the U.S. government, including the House Intelligence Committee — which issued a scathing report last fall that called Huawei and ZTE a threat to national security — and the Treasury Department's Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. are also working in other ways behind the scenes to keep technology made by China-based manufacturers out of U.S. commercial networks as well."
When you know who the foxes are, you keep closer watch over the henhouse. That just makes sense. It can be argued that there's still a role for inclusivity, but it has to be tempered with a dose of common sense.
"Duh".
I'm a little segfault, short and stout.
Is this even a real question? Of course they should. The Chinese government is openly attacking both corporate and government interests throughout the US. Why give them yet another avenue to attacks?
China already protects itself from US-influence. This is protectionism, and we should all respond in kind.
limit republican-leaning closed-source and un-auditable voting machines.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Enuf said.
Any government contract should be fulfilled with domestically sourced and manufactured parts whenever possible. If we can make it here, we should. If you want to create/protect jobs, it starts by keeping the money in the country as much as possible.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Well, Betteridge's Law of Headlines says "no"...
This is an exception Betteridge's law of headlines, which only applies when the question is not mindbendingly stupid.
New federal restrictions now preclude four U.S. agencies from buying information-technology (IT) systems from manufacturers 'owned, directed or subsidized by the People's Republic of China.'
Besides violating over a dozen international treaties, and you basically can't buy a computer without having at least some of its parts source, assembled, or otherwise passing through China, there's also the problem that due to a long two hundred plus year history of using this labor-saving device known as chinese people to build our railroads, infrastructure, factories, etc., we don't have much in the way of domestic production capabilities for many of the major components of modern IT systems. Simply put, you've doomed those four agencies to exorbinant costs and auditing control measures to address an unsubstantiated claim that there may be espionage/surveillance capability built into some devices.
And let me be clear: No government or private agency has come forward with conclusive proof that any product made in China for commercial resale has these capabilities built into it at the direction of the Government. In fact, no such capability has been discovered yet from which to raise this question.
The economic and political rammifications of this are being glossed over -- this action doesn't just affect our relationship with China, but with any country we do business with, because they signed the same treaties, and now they're looking at our unilateral action and thinking: What makes us think the US won't renege on their deal with us?
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I've seen some odd behavior with ZTE equipment that can't be explained away by bugs. My answer is yes.
Yes
Security aside, lets send our tax dollars to Chinese companies? Sure it saves the government a buck but saving money isn't the governments job. In fact one might argue its primary job is spending our tax dollars in ways that stimulate the development of domestic technology and jobs. The problem is, almost all the money goes to the Chinese anyway because most of the components are manufactured there. In the end both systems subsidize their domestic production, just here Uncle Sam demands something in return.
I would rather they insist that any such equipment bought by the US government be open and fully independently auditable. I think they would do a lot better for everybody if they simply made that a standard requirement of the procurement process.
Though, I can also well understand the paranoia. The US government has done the exact same thing to security equipment sold to other countries that they are now worried about China doing to us. They should be worried about that.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
China already protects itself from US-influence. This is protectionism, and we should all respond in kind.
Agreed, but I've been saying that ever since Billy Clinton, at the behest of his Wall St. masters, pushed so hard for premature PNTR and WTO membership for China. Sometimes I feel like I'm giving advice to 5th century Romans about how to keep out the barbarians - a little late.
'Nuff said.
This would be interpreted by some statist *MORONS* that the free market isn't able to filter out this kind of thing. We need to simply let the market do its thing and we will end up in a MUCH better position than if we allowed the government to interfere.
The bios is manufactored, programmed, designed, and all made in China.
I would not be surprised if they have a backdoor to spy or be disabled. We know all our cell phones have this and can record everything with a secret code and the US government is in on that one. It has been posted on slashdot before as they are perfect spy devices for any citizen. It makes sense China would want the same.
Even the new Lenovo assembled PCs in the US are probably made in China. WIth firmware on all our weapons and planes China would love to disable our whole military in a blink of an eye if something like a conflict in Korea ever happened. The power is too incredible to ignore and CEOs to eager to comply to meet shareholder expectations and get their bonus.
http://saveie6.com/
Surely people of Chinese origin are suspect too. Some form of internment camp is required.
You should probably review a little bit of your history before making the following statement, "at the behest of his Wall St. masters."
You should probably review a little bit of your history before making the following statement, "at the behest of his Wall St. masters."
Where do you think Bobby Rubin came from (and returned to afterword)?
If you have a specific rebuttal I'd love to hear it, but vague "you should probably review a little bit of your history" remarks are barely worth it.
The real question is should our government buy counterfeit military replacement parts from China?
Until we as a people decide that our national security depends on our manufacturing base and manufacturing capability then what difference does it make? It's all coming from China no matter how you look at it. The subcontractor of my subcontractor of my subcontractor is Chairman Mao. And when you play in a commodity market, the lowest bidding supplier with a stolen formula for capacitors wins as in the case of Dell.
It's a plot!
Pappy always said "never trust Republicans, China-men, or strippers named Starr."
Why suddenly has this come to forefront?
Because there has been classified evidence of compromises built into the hardware via the manufacturing process, which is in China or Taiwan. A shocking and deep threat.
They can't talk about it in public, but suddenly Sandia labs is upgrading its semiconductor manufacturing plant.
Lets not forget Israel sourced parts and services as well. A strong country needs to be able to source its own components and people.
Surely the best thing to do would be to mandate the inclusion of the source code to the firmware with any government contract, and provide the ability to upload your own firmware image so you can ensure what you see in the code is what you are running.
Yes, I realise that this comes from a particular ideology that would be against the business interests of the hardware manufacturers. And while this wouldn't necessarily mean the firmware would be provided in an open source format to non-government users, it might make it more likely that they would do it.
Hardware back doors have already been identified in sensitive equipment as reported in slashdot before. http://it.slashdot.org/story/12/05/28/1454222/backdoor-found-in-china-made-us-military-chip So, yes this is a good idea.
How much proof do you need that a little attention to national security might be a good thing?
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
not only should we keep out the Chinese technology, we need to keep out the goddam Chinese!
China already protects itself from US-influence.
On the contrary, Huawei actively copied US code.
As with everything, this Chinese networking gear is nothing but a cheap copy originating from the world's bigges Xerox machine: China.
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
Don't be a tease. What was the shortest?
Keep big ugly white guys with bad teeth out the the USA citizenship race.
How about "No" ?
Not much choice, and after seeing a few games Cisco plays (dragging somebody out of a courtroom in session - how's that for contempt of the law?) they are probably far more trustworthy than Cisco, and Cisco get their stuff built in China anyway.
What better way to break all the secrets out, than to use Chinese-made computers? Short of uploading the stuff directly to them, I can't see a better way to free the oppressed information from the confines of secrecy.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Huawei stealing secrets? No Way!
Well it wasn't "Woosh".
FYI, US don't sell IT systems (for example even DELL) to our univ. We have to buy it bypass.
...is that the Federal Government allowed Microsoft to hand over source code for the NT kernel not so long ago...
http://www.informationweek.com/software/operating-systems/china-gets-a-peek-at-microsoft-source-co/225400063
...and look what happened!
http://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-china--microsoft-source-hack-google-2010-12
Oh dear.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Bill Clinton had lots of rumors floating about him being a ChiComm stooge, partially because several major supporters were shown to have laundered ChiComm contributions to his campaigns (he DID return the contributions after this was shown, even if always after the elections that the money helped him win).
.sarc on
Anyone want to bring up the Clinton Death Lists, now?
.sarc off
This theme pops up every week everywhere around the world, and in my opinion, it's just plain ridiculous and the exact opposite.
Chinese vendors nowadays are so under the microscope (and I don't have any particular problem with that), that if they are even going to try and make business in the US and/or Europe, they know they'll have to deliver. Especially in the security field, specifically in the telco space, chinese vendors are always much quicker to respond and implement security features than anyone else. And when I say anyone else I mean Ericsson, NSN, Alcatel-lucent, you name it...
Not only that, but companies should NOT be relying on good will and vendor capabilities to be secure. If any chinese vendor would be able to snoop or do anything wrong in your infrastructure (apart from a hypothetical bug that would destroy all vendor equipment ONLY deployed in the US/Europe at a given date and time) it's because you did a rubbish job at the designing your own systems and networks and employing good monitoring practices. If, by design any vendor (be it chinese or martian) can snoop on your data and send it home, then you are to blame, not your vendor.
Well well isn't it convenient that when it's about China everyone can comfortably justify protectionism and hyperboles. It's okay for both side though because Cisco got a fair return for their lobbying while for Huawei other countries like Britain are still open for business.
the only thing I'd like to see is concrete evidence made by an independent source that everyone can examine. What's so bad for the US to show them if they have those info?
Just because the US has done this stuff doesn't mean we have any obligation to take the risk that it would be done to us. Or do you also believe that a rapist should be raped in order to punish them for their crime?
Seriously. China is not a TAA-compliant country (Taiwan is, as of December 2012). Federal law prohibits purchasing from non-TAA countries without SIGNIFICANT penalties. If it's a DoD entity, they're often barred from buying anything not made in the USA or Canada. The FAR and the USC and the Buy American Act all come into play here, dictating that the items MUST be sourced in the US.
I think it is wise to boycott both Chinese and American communication systems for mission critical applications and applications that handle sensitive or very large amounts of data. Both governments have a very bad history in this regard.
Funny how people lose any ability to think when the conclusion is that they're wrong, or even just contradicting themselves.
It's still prudent to close the barn door to keep the rest of the livestock in, and the varmints out.
Chinese components and software are obvious attack vectors. Only a fool would believe they would not be set in place beforehand, or used during any significant conflict.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
No
It is should the WEST limit it? The answer is yes.
It is insane to allow a nation that is undergoing the world's largest military build-up ever seen in history, and who is forcing all of the prices to be artificially low, along with massive tariffs, to put their compromised systems into the West.
Heck, even China is bright enough to say no to Western goods into their systems.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If you are ANY nation out there, China will spy on you. If you are aligned with China, the west is going to spy on you. If you are a western nation, we tend to not spy on each other (that is not quite accurate either, but close enough).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
In Communist China, Government Influences large corporations.
In Amerika, Large Corporations Influence Government.
Who's wronger?
as one who has worked in tech in china for 10 years and who is ethnically chinese, there really isn't a premium on truth and honesty in chinese culture, let alone the chinese government. i would be surprised if there weren't backdoors embedded all throughout chinese developed/manufactured technologies, and the US government would be wise to steer as clear as possible.
http://www.amazon.com/Betrayal-Administration-Undermined-American-Security/dp/0895261960/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1365094897&sr=1-2&keywords=betrayal+clinton
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
I am concerned china can use st software to spy on us , so yes that is a reason to limit Chinese software use.
You move up the supply chains of any computer or electronic good used in the US, consumer, commercial or military, and in just a few a hops you will find Chinese products that can not be manufactured or substituted by a US good.
seriously though, where can i buy a non chinese motherboard other than super-micro? and how do i know their chips werent manufactured there, and firmware was not installed there?