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IBM Permits China To Review Source Code (wsj.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the big-blue-seeks-green-light dept.

An anonymous reader writes: IBM has permitted the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to review its proprietary source code in a 'controlled' environment, said IBM Senior Vice President Steve Mills yesterday. The company didn't make clear which of its products would be available for review. According to a (paywalled) WSJ report: "IBM has been willing to strike closer partnerships with China’s government than many of its fellow U.S. tech companies, people familiar with the company’s strategy said. Still, it isn’t clear to what extent IBM’s move might be a symbolic gesture. The people briefed on the practice said Chinese officials can look at the code only during visits and can’t remove it for a thorough review. In a short amount of time, it would be extremely difficult to comb through all the code for a product for potential “backdoors” that would allow spying on users."

6 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. China's Source Code by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I wonder if any American company will get to see any of China's source code.

    --
    Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    1. Re:China's Source Code by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Oh wait, that is Racist of me.

      We can't do that because it might offend China.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    2. Re:China's Source Code by Tsolias · · Score: 3, Funny

      If there is a rule that a chinese company has to have its code reviewed by the U.S. Ministry of Something and that company wants to enter the market of the U.S. (not America, America is a continent) then that chinese company will have to obey the rules.
      That's what IBM is doing, they are entering a new sandbox, with different laws and different corruption that the U.S..

      Bottom line is, noone forces IBM to comply with chinese laws and enter that market and vice versa. They are willing to do it.

  2. A new startup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Strangely enough, shortly after the IBM code was reviewed, a new startup in China called "RYE-BM" plans to hire 1000 new employees.

    1. Re:A new startup by Tsolias · · Score: 3, Funny

      ...and shortly after the new RYE-BM startup is created, 1000 more U.S. outsourced their activities to that company.
      Damn those Chinese.

  3. New reality of global business by ErichTheRed · · Score: 3, Informative

    From a business perspective, this sounds like China wants some assurance that IBM's mainframe software, DB2 and other stuff doesn't have any detectable backdoor code in it. The same thing happened with Microsoft a while back, and other governments including ours audit source code for the same reason.

    I think the difference between the US and China in this case is how closely Chinese companies are tied to the government. I doubt there's too much in the way of trade-secret code that a foreign government couldn't reverse engineer given enough time and resources. But, it's much more likely that any information gained will make its way back to state-funded/supported companies in the Chinese environment. IBM isn't stupid, but they probably are greedy, and didn't want to lose access to the Chinese market.

    My opinion is that China seems to have the right ingredients in place to be the dominant global player in this century. They have a mix of authoritarian control and an insane focus on economic growth, and are willing to do whatever it takes, popular or not, to achieve their goals. Look at their massive infrastructure build-out during the financial crisis, or their direct intervention in the stock market to fix volatility. We (the US and Europe) aren't there yet, but we'll have to get there at some point.