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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.
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?
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.
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
Yes
Depends on what you mean by conclusive, but there's a motive and there's a capability. For the capability part, see:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/05/backdoor_found.html
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
you basically can't buy a computer without having at least some of its parts source, assembled, or otherwise passing through China
For really top secret stuff, you can, they should, and they do. It goes as far as getting the NSA its own chip fabrication facility at ft. meade. Do you want to work there?
Besides violating over a dozen international treaties
[Citation needed]
I suspect the treaty situation isn't anywhere near as clear cut as that. Those agreements are riddled with exceptions.
Besides, every single one of those treaties, like our Constitution, is not a suicide pact. The President has said "national security" and every one of those documents is trumped. If We The People don't like it we can, through our Representatives, impeach, amend the constitution or march on Washington with pitchforks.
I predict none of those things is going to happen.
And let me be clear: No government or private agency has come forward with conclusive proof
Not relevant. We need not wait until we're exploited by Chinese hardware to justify our actions. We have at least two good reasons to anticipate hostile intent. First, we already know we're dealing with a government that is actively attacking our IT systems. Second, we've done the same to others.
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?
You have as your premise some deep respect for all these treaties and agreements. I believe most of these documents, particularly the trade agreements, are products of narrow interests creating special conditions for their exclusive benefit. I believe most of them amount to throwing open the ports and hobbling the port authorities to flood the US with stuff from places with no EPA, OSHA, NLRB, IRS, etc. I do not share your reverence for that crap.
As for the economic consequences; we've managed to survive and prosper without running our government on Huawei gear. I predict we can continue to afford to do without it.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
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.