Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Should the US Really Limit Chinese-Government Influenced IT Systems?

Posted by samzenpus on from the don't-bring-that-in-here dept.

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."

15 of 220 comments (clear)

  1. Some, anyway by Millennium · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Some, anyway by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's wise and good security policy when China does it. If the US does it it's irrational, xenophobic, and probably racist (arguents which you will likely see in today's comments)

    2. Re:Some, anyway by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Reminds me of a program manager I dealt with once. I was one foot out the door with offers on the table, having given up on my employer whose name rhymes with hell. I flat out refused to support an ODM design (I actually refused my entire 7 years there, but never was obvious about it). He asked me why, and I said I only support my local businesses. He wanted to bring me to HR for all sorts of racism, xenophobism, protectionism, insubordination, accusing me of trying to unionize, etc.

      Then I asked him (knowing the answer), why we are using this ODM at all, and his response was that the end customer (a large Chinese company) will only purchase through (a large Chinese manufacturer) and they would only support locally designed products. I asked why they can't just take my working, tested, FCC approved design and he said they wanted to change components. I asked "What's wrong with the components on my board, is there a defect?", and he said "They're not made in China".

      The worst part, the part that made me furious, is that he couldn't see my point. He kept spouting off capitalist slogans and telling me to read this inane book about the new global economy.

  2. Seriously? by saleenS281 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    1. Re:Seriously? by ebno-10db · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And you think the US isn't doing the same thing

      What's your point? Maybe good advice to the Chinese government is not to use US made networking equipment (if there is such a thing anymore). That doesn't mean the US government avoiding Chinese equipment is a bad idea.

    2. Re:Seriously? by Genda · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Actually, we should use a substantial amount of Chinese equipment in places that are assured non-security related (who cares if they have current information on our disposition of stray cats and dogs), and then a bunch more attached to honeypots and decoy networks to watch them watching us.

      Most martial arts show us that every attack is an opportunity to use an opponents momentum against them.

  3. They should first by obarthelemy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  4. Take it further by Nidi62 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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
    1. Re:Take it further by rtb61 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      More importantly by forcing local supply you enable continuity of supply and are never subject to a foreign government dictating levels of supply. Local sourcing of all goods for all national infrastructure projects should be compulsory regardless of cost to ensure all those national infrastructure projects can be maintained without being forced to gain approval from a foreign government to allow that supply. That is a sane logical thing to do by any government and failure to do so when it is readily possible to treasonously betray the citizens of that country to the demands of another country, apparently based purely upon corporate executive greed.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    2. Re:Take it further by demonlapin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, no, no. No. This is a terrible idea.

      There is a very good argument to be made that all remotely sensitive government IT projects should use domestically designed and built products, because electronics can do sneaky things that are almost completely undetectable (cf. Stuxnet). When you're talking about steel for bridges, not so much. Forced local supply (especially for raw materials) ends up being just another opportunity for regulatory capture.

    3. Re:Take it further by Genda · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Okay let's give this a whack... so in the long haul, there may be valid arguments for opening borders to trade and flattening the global economy, but over the last 30 years, what has happened is that America has completely lost the ability to do heavy manufacture (robots are just now bringing that work back home, but not to human beings sadly.) Though corporations make out, workers get squished. More and more they begin to resemble the third world workers who have gotten their jobs, until the third world workers rising economically meet our workers on the way down. In 1950-70 the average American paid 20% of their wage to Housing, Interest and Taxes. Through the devaluation of American currency from pumping it by the trillions into the developing world's economies, through corporate interests spacing the American economy, through inflation/QE, through predatory corporate and government practice, the average American now spends 70% of his income on housing, interest and tax.

      I'm not even saying that the unnaturally high standard of living for the average American at the middle of last century didn't come at some high prices with respect to global competitiveness. I'm just saying the last 30 years have been a superating wound on the middle class with no end in site, and our government is about to cut the social safety net completely away leaving the poorest and least able to take care of themselves without means to live. When I see the vanishingly small population of disturbingly wealthy and powerful who have all made out like bandits (bandits being the oprerative phase here), I myself tend to long for the days a somewhat more protectionist American economy. Of course you may be one of those folks who've done well so clearly your mileage may vary

  5. This will probably be my second shortest ever post by redmid17 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yes

  6. Re:Full Retard Mode Activate! by Improv · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.
  7. Re:Full Retard Mode Activate! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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?

  8. No, they can't. by mbkennel · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.