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It's Official: NSA Spying Is Hurting the US Tech Economy
An anonymous reader writes China is backing away from U.S. tech brands for state purchases after NSA revelations, according to Reuters. This confirms what many U.S. technology companies have been saying for the past year: the activities by the NSA are harming their businesses in crucial growth markets, including China. From the article: "A new report confirmed key brands, including Cisco, Apple, Intel, and McAfee -- among others -- have been dropped from the Chinese government's list of authorized brands, a Reuters report said Wednesday. The number of approved foreign technology brands fell by a third, based on an analysis of the procurement list. Less than half of those companies with security products remain on the list."
What the hell does McAfee do to earn money, why the hell it is still alive, and what makes it a key company? Seriously, what.
The Chinese government only wants their own backdoors in technology used internally, not ours.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
China has been looking for an excuse to do that for years now. They have their own "tech" with their own spying backdoors inside for decades now, they love control, and with this they will just be able to have even more control over their people.
That's interesting because terrorists have been announcing that one of their goals is to have an impact on the US economy.
Is the article's point saying that the terrorists have won?
If it's built there the Chinese government has access to it; even if it isn't brand name but "OEM." In this case, refusing to buy while backdating the tech is a good PR move that will play well with their populace; so there is no downside to this move.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I figured they would have had done this a long time ago, especially with security-related products.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
If the indirect effects of limiting freedom leads to suboptimal option availability leads to poor economic performance leads to lower profits... if that convoluted chain somehow ends up resulting in more freedom I'm all for it. But the perfect world I go to sometimes in my dreams doesn't need that. In that world the government fears and obeys its people.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
And remember that this will not change. If you buy U.S brands of electronic devices, you WILL be spied upon. The U.S has long since stopped being a country to trust and rely on, and the U.S and its exported products are now something we should instead be wary of.
Who would have thought that? Or to say it with Louis de Funés (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GioEH34fhxE)
C: They do not trust you anymore.
LdF: No
C: qui
LdF: Oooooh!
C: They think you are spying on them.
LdF: No
C: qui
LdF: Oooooh!
C: They will not buy any stuff from you anymore.
C: qui
LdF: Oooooh!
However, you are lucky the Europeans will either by your shit or the Chinese one.
... it's Snowdens fault for telling, not the NSA's fault for spying...
This should put a lot of conservatives in an ideological conundrum.
Which will win out?
A) Making money.
B) Protecting the US from terrorists, spies, evil forigeners?
One could argue that it's Snowden's revelations are hurting the economy. The NSA is supposed to be spying on foreign entities. No constitutional issues there at all.
What makes it official all of a sudden? Because zdnet reported it? Did netcraft confirm it?
Move manufacturing out of China... it's simple. They won't buy apple goods, move the 1 MILLION FOXCONN apple workers to a different country. That will get someones attention... quickly
Remember, the alternatives suck also. The recent revelations are that most if not all countries are dirty liars when it comes to spying.
Table-ized A.I.
Bets on how long until an NSA apologist like Mike Rogers or Peter King issues a "blame the messenger" (Snowden) statement?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
This is all about what happens when a certain agency or agencies are awarded too much self-determination. What happens is that they end up making decisions which come from narrow-mindedness i.e. inability to see the wider, long-term ramifications of what they are doing, but which, to be fair, are outside the scope of their own purpose.
The missing oversight and reigning in of excess is what, supposedly, the government should be doing, under guidance of the president. But which they haven't done due to to own fear of some major terrorist event which happens to occur on their watch.
Its takes huge courage to stand up to this juggernaut of influences. Who will do that? I don't see anyone in a real position of power putting up their hand. This whole saga will take a long time to play itself out - and the world will be a much more insular place because of it.
I like how they pretend that this was only just revealed to them when so many products by those brands are assembled in China, and the backdoors are installed at the factory (according to recent news). They knew this all along, so they're not doing this for security reasons. They're doing it so that US businesses will pressure the NSA to stop, and then if it succeeds, China will have the upper hand in espionage.
In every other conceivable respect, this isn't funny at all. It's just that they think we'll fall for that, and for the most part, we are. But neither these businesses nor the NSA will. The end result will be that China will start buying these products again and it will be spun to us as the result of some kind of breakthrough negotiation. I give it a year, but they might pull a headline grabber and make it happen sooner if it was primarily a bid for lower prices all along.
Each product spec sheet should include a list of all countries that will be spying on you as a result of your purchase. Then you can compare various models and decide who would make you most happy if they were to know everything about you. Customer transparency. Customer choice. Even Apple can get behind that!
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Look a few messages ahead of your post. They are already blaming Snowden. Perhaps we should start calling him Saint Snowden, it might piss them off even more.
I'm 100% in favor of strict NSA accountability, but it's wrong to blame the NSA as if they aren't at least partially working for the right reasons.
Blame hackers, oligarchs, and wannabe international gangsters first and foremost. The NSA must be held accountable with hardcore oversight, but we need law enforcement and defense.
Also, the tone of this article is weird, it seems to put China as some kind of arbiter of global trade ethics:
Cisco, Apple, Intel, and McAfee -- among others -- have been dropped from the Chinese government's list of authorized brands,
China's government is a totalitarian, freedom depriving monolith. The people of China are victims.
I see the angle, when we put spyware in tech like this there are consequences and it's probably overreach by the NSA, but TFA is criticizing from the wrong angle.
China is not a threat to us. That's the core misunderstanding. How many books, blog posts, articles by Thomas Friedman have there been about the "China Rising" nonsense? We don't owe China like a bank...they ***invested in the US*** by buying our bonds...you don't invest in something you are trying to destroy.
China's financial sovlency depends on the US's ability to honor our bonds. They hitched their wagons to our economy.
Also, China is a pollution wasteland. Human and chemical. Their disasterous one child policy has ruined the population balance of a generation and they have to run their city marathons in smog so thick it's visible at ground level.
I want the US to be a good influence on China. I want our policies to promote them making the right decisions for their people.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Anyone that WOULD stand up to this must have a strong core belief system that won't be swayed by earthly gains (a fundamentalist Christian, for example, or a strong environmentalist/humanitarian). But such a person would never be voted for by the public, because their strong beilefs would instantly disqualify them to voters of the other party. People with strong convictions will absolutely lose a presidential election.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
China steals tech, and they want to develop its industries in all fields. Such as stealing wind turbine tech from American Superconductor, high speed rail tech from Japan, France, and Germany, and car tech from the major car manufacturers.
Well, what do you expect? Like a lot of Americans, they believe we stole the tech from aliens in Area 52.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
I don't want to buy from most tech companies anymore either. interdiction, hard drive malware, you name it.
Missing oversight... please. Read up on FISC
Regardless of whether you buy US or foreign products, if they run open source software natively or if you overwrite their firmware with the open source equivalent, you gain a huge increase in verifiable security.
While open source is not a 100% panacea for security, it is so VASTLY less likely to be compromised than closed proprietary code that it's no contest whatsoever.
NSA and GCHQ are playing into the hands of the FOSS community very nicely.
China doesn't need to steal tech. When they want a high speed rail they simply pay cash for direct technology transfer. It might be short sighted for their business partners to sell off the family jewels, but that's a different matter.
Let's not be naive and think that China doesn't try just as hard to spy on the US as the US does on China. If Chinese etc firms have come to realize that the extent the NSA is able to spy on them is greater than they previously thought, Snowden is the reason, not the spying itself, of course.
Move to Canada for less paranoid governments and lower business taxes
Bad enough that NSA is hurting the US tech economy. What's worse is that they're spending our tax money to do it.
... because none of this would be happening if he weren't a tattle tale and stuff.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Your points would be well taken if you were right.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
China has always backed away from buying US technology when they can STEAL IT. Fuck China
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
... to affect change than the American citizen, because, well, money.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
But then you'd have to argue that it was the NSA's fault for doing so much illegal action and sat on it rather than do something about it internally to stop it that Snowden just had to whistleblow the NSA's actions.
So that still boils down to "The NSA were at fault".
If the NSA had worked legally or worked to remove illegality, Snowden wouldn't have blown the whistle on them.
More like hurting certain industry players. Basically no different from The Fed, any regulatory body, non-profit, or.... the competition.
I didn't know a hand full of tech companies represent the entire economy. Really? It's Steve Job's DRB.
Funny with the NSA and the copyright cartels... its as if someone is trying to stifle the worlds technology for some reason. Its not typically in human nature to do such things...
kinda out there...
What civilization would not like us to have advanced technology... its not like we havent proved ourselves worthy of having tech like the atom bomb, germ warfare ect...
ooops maybe not lol
or maybe we just like applying our technology in a fashion that isnt conducive to life in general.
This AF guy sitting here on this NIPRnet computer is staring at a big ol McAfee icon right now. Your base must be behind. The systems were upgraded to McAfee about this time last year to have a combined solution for several issues. It does AV. It lets the NOC know when you plug in one of those USB devices that were prohibited last year and also logs what CDs you put in the drive. And now it is leveraged to scan email to ensure that they have been signed, encrypted, and do not contain PII.
Either our 'intelligence' agencies are stupid, or they aren't working for us.
Every new item of information we have delivered to us by paths other than MSM show our systems to be totally corrupt. Smart bet says they are collecting all that info for themselves, to enhance their control. NSA's understanding of 'soft power' is blackmail.
What many posters here on /. don't realize is that the wooshes that blow right by their heads are composed of troll burps. It's like that scene in Shrek. I realize he's an ogre but, fuck, all those green guys look the same to me.
bwahahahhahahahhahahaha! CAPTCHA: flowing
Not everything the NSA does is negative. Have you considered the NSA may have acted in the way it has to reinforce the development of our culture? It is, after all, protecting our assets, which is FAR more than just a simple revenue stream, and absolutely must include our national identity, individuality and the relative age of our culture.
Maybe they're dropping the relationships to avoid further influencing the younger United States culture and brands any more than it already has. Or maybe their hand was forced by the actions of the NSA.
You never know. But to label every change as bad is not a great habit to be in.
I don't really trust my own government. What on Earth should I trust yours? Growing up, I generally thought of the USA as the good guys. Nowadays, not so much. I'm not sure there are any good guys.
linquendum tondere
"China steals tech, and they want to develop its industries in all fields. Such as stealing wind turbine tech from American Superconductor, high speed rail tech from Japan, France, and Germany, and car tech from the major car manufacturers."
It's only natural for a developing country to steal tech from more advanced countries. The US use to do it hundreds of years ago when they were still developing compared to Europe. It was only after they "caught up" and started trying to push ahead that they gave a fuck about patents/copyrights/trademarks/etc.
I was enterprise security presales covering Asia including China for the last few years. The impact of NSA spying was obvious -- a number of deals involving security products were called off in past few quarters before this "authorized brands" list even start hitting us. There was actually very little protectionism for enterprise IT market prior to the Snowden leak, it was pretty much open to all and dominated by US tech companies. A number of US Tech companies are now trying the to get local Chinese vendor to OEM their solutions so that they can brand itself as local Chinese product in order to bypass objections.
America is a country that blackmails, sanctions, spys, bombs, terrorises, and tortures. Given its own human rights record, and its corrupt government, it is right at the bottom of the list of countries I would trust. The same corporations that buy the power should hardly be complaining about the impact on their business, given the amount of money they pay out to the republican/democrat party regime.
When I was growing up Greek migrants in my area effectively demonstrated the definition of working hard. I'll bet it was the same where you live as well.
Sometimes posts here just reveal far too much information about the poster and nothing at all about the topic at hand.
This is probably the only positive effect of U.S. data grabbing efforts.
The Chinese wants everything purchased by China, to be made in china
That reminds me of another country.
They know full well that if they don't negotiate a technology transfer, China will either make a deal with a competitor or steal the technology. It's a bad deal, but the alternatives are worse for the company and China exploits this.
China is not overthrowing democratically elected governments, it is not drone murdering abroad or creating wars. Since I'm not in China, I take Chinese espionage over American any day.
Joe Biden is a square shooter. Joe Biden for 2016!
How do you think all of that new shale oil is moving around? No pipelines yet from those areas, so among many other things that it's a matter of using many trains. A couple of recent accidents with trainloads of oil should have highlighted that.
Closer than the US by Abbott - when Putin turned up at the G20 the expected confrontation over the airliner didn't happen - Abbott instead quietly had a photo opportunity with Putin and Koalas then called the President of the USA a liar over fairly tame comments about the barrier reef.
However, odd diversions into irrevent sidetracks about terrorists aside, the NSA do not respect the constitution so legality does by definition not apply to the situation. They want to punish Snowden and don't care if it's done with reference to the courts or not - "justice" Chinese style.
That may be the case, but how does that relate to spying level or depth? I don't see a direct connection.
By the way, China has shown aggression to neighbors over territory disputes over small islands and Taiwan.
Table-ized A.I.
I seem to recall the U.S. government (Congress, Senate, etc.) banning the use of Huawei cellular, network and telecom products in the USA. Perhaps this is their response?
how does that relate to spying level or depth
I can't imagine more depth than infecting the HDD's firmware, stealing the SIM cards encryption keys of common citizens, tracking my phone's movements, every conversation I have over the Internet (skype, email, messaging, etc), making fake slashdot copies to infect people, designating me "enemy of the state" for reading and supporting wikileaks.
There is no indication that the Chinese are doing any of those things to foreigners (they do read Chinese communications).
It is true that China has shown aggression to neighbors, but it is also true that they believe Taiwan IS China. I strongly disagree, since Taiwan has been independent for several decades. On the other hand, having billions in weapons pointing at China doesn't help much. It is hard to believe they should be nice and understanding neighbors to people who have military pacts with the US.
The NSA revelations and subsequent photo ops of the "secret installation" of "extra features" in Cisco kit was one of the big reasons my employer decided to spend a 6 figure sum on someone else.
The ironic thing is that the Cisco reps weren't trying to compete on price (more than 3 times as expensive), but pushing FUD about other kit having govt spyware on it - whilst I had the relevant Snowden files open on the desk in front of me.
Why attack the aside anyway? Is the actual point too hard to deal with?