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."

Comments

McAfee?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:McAfee?

[Lunix Nutcase]

They sell malware for computer OEMs to preinstall. Also for some reason the US government loves the product.

Of course they are

[Nidi62]

The Chinese government only wants their own backdoors in technology used internally, not ours.

Re:Of course they are

[NatasRevol]

Just like the NSA.

Can you blame them?

Re:Of course they are

[HiThere]

But I'm not living in China. I'm living in the US. So I'll blame the NSA (which is breaking the law, by the way) rather than China (which probably isn't breaking their laws).

Mind you, it's not that they're breaking the law that I mind, it's that they're snooping on me, but if the laws were actually enforced against the powerful I'd have much less objection. Since they aren't, I don't consider them binding on anyone. You obey the law, when it is unjust, only to avoid danger of punishment, but given the current government, that's no guarantee you won't be punished anyway.

Re:Terrorists

[Lunix Nutcase]

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?

The terrorists already won long ago when Dubya and a willing Congress shredded our civil liberties after 9/11.

Good

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

What about Snowden

[MikeMo]

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.

Re:What about Snowden

[Rougement]

That would be an asinine argument. It's obvious that the NSA has massively exceeded its authority and needs to either be reigned in or disbanded completely. It's one thing to gather intelligence on other governments and another thing entirely to indiscriminately scoop up all electronic communication, including that of US citizens, indulge in corporate espionage, undermine the security protocols the whole world relies on, and so forth. Snowden did the honorable thing and the world owes him big time. The NSA needs reform and there needs to be consequences for those found to have authorized such unconstitutional and illegal actions. Start by charging Clapper with perjury and work from there.

Re:What about Snowden

[Bacon Bits]

This is like blaming the cheerleader that the team lost the big game because she reported the star quarterback raped her.

It was the NSA's choice to engage in ethically questionable actions. These events are the fallout from that decision. That the NSA's actions in spying on citizens without legal authority, warrant, or adequate oversight should affect international business by undermining worldwide trust in the nation is, frankly, exactly what the NSA should have expected.

Re:What about Snowden

[Gadget_Guy]

One could argue that it's Snowden's revelations are hurting the economy. The NSA is supposed to be spying on foreign entities.

If the NSA are supposed to be spying on foreign entities, then it stands to reason that Snowden telling everyone this would not be a huge revelation; it would be just stating the obvious. As such, Snowden could not have hurt the economy.

Re:What about Snowden

[Rougement]

I'm providing a counter to an argument that this is somehow Snowden's fault. Whether it's allowed or not isn't the end of this though. Expect strong encryption to become more and more commonplace. The NSA overreached and the consequence is that its job will become more and more difficult going forward. That's not Snowden's fault, the people who made these choices at the NSA have to answer to their actions and explain what the hell they were thinking when they decided that a) "collect it all" was sensible policy and that b) they would some manage to keep this a secret indefinitely.

Re:What about Snowden

[Anonymous Coward]

See, that's what happens when you freely intermingle your illegal and unconstitutional activities with those which you are supposed to be pursuing. Snowden didn't reveal names of agents, for example, but is it really his fault when shining the light on the bad also revealed the proper activity?

Like it or not, that was (and is) the game the NSA is playing. By treating vulnerabilities as weapons and not disclosing them properly to the parties who could fix them not only did the NSA have increased ability to spy on others, but so did others on us. In their hubris, the NSA apparently thinks that only they are cool enough to take advantage.

The same is true when the NSA targeted individuals in corporations like Gemalto. Those actions were wrong and not in the NSAs charter. Sure, some of the results of the operations might conceivably have helped efforts that were within their purview, but you can't tell and their actions were simply wrong.

So *maybe* the NSAs actions helped keep America a little safer. Though they can't find any evidence of that (the shameful attempts at lies were exposed). But what we *do* know is that by undermining digital security they have made both American citizens and American corporations more vulnerable.

What the NSA has done is the equivalent of using dynamite to destroy the enemy's boat. Unfortunately, it is the same boat the NSA is on and everyone is going down together.

What's the alternative?

[Tablizer]

Remember, the alternatives suck also. The recent revelations are that most if not all countries are dirty liars when it comes to spying.

Cue the NSA...

[msauve]

Bets on how long until an NSA apologist like Mike Rogers or Peter King issues a "blame the messenger" (Snowden) statement?

who's spying

[schlachter]

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!

Re:Terrorists

[michaelwigle]

Ah, gotcha! Yeah, folks tend to assume that if you support Obama you don't support Bush and vice versa. In truth, more and more folks are realizing that both have played a pretty big role in eliminating civil liberties.

Re:hackers oligarchs & thugs

[Moof123]

For a long time the intelligence community has been putting capability well ahead of results. From my meager experience I would guess that most of these capabilities produce little actual actionable results. More likely tese are a direct result of having to keep showing really cool possibilities to keep their fiefdom funded. Actual results driven funding would reault in much more human level intelligence, but that is hard and not sexy.

Snowden

[2ms]

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.

Re:Terrorists

[fafalone]

9/11 tore down the last bits of restraint for sure, but you need to look at the War On (arbitrarily chosen based on historical racism) Drugs for the foundations. 4th Amendment? Gone. Due process? Turned into a bad joke by a overflowed court systems coercive plea bargaining and the horrendous situation with assett forfeiture not requiring even being CHARGED, much less convicted**. Cruel and unusual punishment? I'd say years in prison just for having a drug that's not alcohol/tobacco, and decades to life for selling it to other consenting adults, it pretty damn cruel. And it's the original cause for the shift to militarization and war-like mentality for the police, because the only way to enforce this law turns people and communities against the police.

Oh, and guess what the vast majority of PATRIOT Act powers are used for, and what the 'anti-terrorism' grant dollars buy... the largest category is by far drug crimes, with terrorism coming in dead last. Law enforcement was foaming at the mouth over all the post-9/11 authority, but it sure as hell wasn't because it helped them fight terrorism- it let them make even more money, through grants and forfeitures, and superior-pleasing arrests, by fighting more drug crimes.

**And it was not 'ended' or 'reformed' by Holder, worst case of wholesale swallowing of media spin ever; it merely made it a requirement to only forfeit under federal law if you make it a joint investigation, makes it no harder to forfeit under state law, or for the feds on their own, or really at all since all it takes is putting a feds name on the paper to say it's joint)

Re:Chinese industrial policy

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.